davelux

I have been running a bit of an experiment this past month (or two) by using different cards, etc. through the Ultimate Rewards mall. Mostly I have been spending with my own Sapphire Preferred card, but I made two purchases with my wife's new SPG AMEX as we're working towards meeting the min. spend. Here are my results:

Item, Cost, Date(ish), Card Used, PPD offer
1) Nail gun, $90, 4 weeks ago, SPG AMEX, 5 ppd
2) Wash machine hoses, $15, 3 weeks ago, SPG AMEX, 10 ppd
3) Dust Mask, $25, 3 weeks ago, Sapphire, 10 ppd
4) Lots of stuff, $198, 3 weeks ago, Sapphire, 10 ppd
etc...

Results - no points for anything.

I know I have received points from the UR Mall for purchases in the past, so I finally broke down and sent Chase the following secure message today:
And the response from Chase (this is the interesting part):
I know now I won't be seeing any of the points for the AMEX purchases I made through the UR Mall but that is OK - I accepted that risk up front and I made my largest purchase for 10 ppd from Home Depot with my Sapphire (and Chase made good on that today). However, I have my own theory (and I'd be curious to hear yours) about why these points didn't post - I have been using Google Chrome equipped with the ....... add-in which I suspect maybe is causing this not to work. I learned about ....... maybe a couple of months ago (Feb 6, 2012 to be exact) and that seems to be about the same time I saw my UR Mall bonus points cease to be credited. Also I should note that I always clear my cache and only run one tab for the merchant (the UR launched tab) when making purchases.

My test on this theory will be to make my next purchase (hopefully soon) using Chrome again, but this time I will pause ....... before making the purchase and resume it once I am done. I'll report back here to let everyone know if that makes a difference.

Anyway, I would also be curious to hear from others on whether you have encountered this issue before (and/or what you think of Chase's explanation).

PWMFlyer19

I have been using Chrome exclusively almost since it came out and with ......., and have had a couple purchases recently post just fine. I have a couple from Travelocity I am waiting on, but it has not been 45 days, so I have not sent an email. All my Xmas shopping posted fine as well a couple of months ago.

Cheers.

sargenet

I realized I missed a few orders because I had either the Hawaiian Mall or AA Shop mall bar loaded and running. Chase gave me courtesy credits but then the points showed up on those accounts! So I kinda doubled dipped on accident! So now I try to remember to disable those bars before I place orders through Ultimate Rewards.

That has only happened twice but I still have orders that go missing for no reason! I am waiting for my next bill to run because a Travelocity prepaid order is missing. I think 20. % of my orders have to be manually credited.

DavidAL

It doesn't have to do with any ad blocking, because I use them as well. Whenever I'm going to make a UR mall purchase, I open another browser (either safari or IE depending on if I'm at home or work) and start by going through the UR login, click this, click that, etc. That way there's no way there was something that jacked up the tracking of the order. I've gotten all my mall points except when I tried to buy kohls GC's and get points. No dice.

patriots68

I haven't done real well with chrome only about 70% of my purchases credit

SilasTalbot

Thanks for the info, I have been curious whether Chase would credit you if there's ever a problem where a transaction doesn't show up. Appreciate finding this thread that indicates they will.

To add to the thread, here's what I understand about the way the UR mall works:

The UR mall sets a cookie for the destination domain when you click through, so technically anything that you do on that site before the cookie expires should be picked up (as long as the cookie is not blocked, or overwritten by another referral cookie).

This is why shopping toolbars would stop the UR credit, because it is setting its own referral cookie for the site whenever it detects that you land on that domain. It's possible there could even be adware out there that adds referral IDs for shopping transactions.

It's definitely possible for ad blocking software or high security settings to block the cookie, but I don't believe the defaults for ....... would do this (at least not in FF, dunno about Chrome).

You could add http://www.dpbolvw.net/ to your 'safe' list, which appears to be the site that sets the cookie.

I always do the same as DavidAL. When I know I'm going to make a purchase through UR, I do my shopping selection ahead of time in my preferred browser, then I load a vanilla Internet Explorer window when I'm ready to check out, and go directly from Chase, thru the mall, add items to cart and check out. Hasn't failed me yet.

travelinfoo

I've had a lot of points missing from purchases from UR mall from my last 3 statements. The CSR told me that I did not use the Chase link to purchase. However, I KNOW every single one of the purchases was done thru UR mall. To make sure I get credit, I always sign out and sign back onto the chase site and then click thru the mall to make the final purchase. However, every one of the missing purchases was made with an online coupon (I punched in the the code, not clicked thru from another site). Some coupons I had via targeted mail offer. Some I got thru a coupon site.

Is there something about using an online coupon that negates that causes UR not to recognize the purchase?

mia

Absolutely:

CFFrost

Some merchants have limitations that state purchases made with coupons not found on the UR site will not be honored. I would read the fine print to see if the points that are missing are from sites that include this type of conditional language.

travelinfoo

Thanks. But some of the coupon codes were from directed mailed offers from the online sites, not third party sites. Those also did not show as UR mall purchases.

Also one of the coupon codes was directly on the purchase site (one of those free shipping codes if minimum purchase met)

ckosh

went through Ultimate Rewards mall link but used a Lowes gift card to pay. Also used a 10% off coupon.

The purchase trackd and I can see it on Ultimate Rewards Mall earnings but there is a separate line for the same day for Lowes calling it an online return.

It was not returned. We went and picked up our purchase at the store about a week ago.

But perhaps the points were taken away for not using a Chase card?

STS-134

I've been having a lot of trouble with the UR Mall. Not a single one of my purchases has posted points automatically (out of probably 5-7 transactions).

Up until now, I've always had 3rd party cookies blocked in my browser. Is there anyone here who has had points automatically post *AND* also blocks 3rd party cookies in their browser? I've tried 2 browsers on 2 different operating systems (4 different combinations) and nothing seems to work. I have not, however, turned on 3rd party cookies in any of them.

gloreglabert

I had all sorts of pains with portal tracking until I did all of the following (slightly Chrome-specific but same principles apply to others):

1. Always go through the portal and make the purchase in a new incognito window.
2. Don't allow any adblocking extensions in incognito.
3. Allow all cookies.

Ever since doing the above, all tracking has gone smoothly. Some of the above might not be strictly necessary, but I got tired of taking a shot in the dark every time I used a portal.

STS-134

I see. My data points so far are:
1. Firefox, with noscript and adblocker and 3rd party cookies blocked (noscript was manually set to allow all scripts when I was shopping), on OSX: didn't work.
2. Firefox, with only 3rd party cookies blocked, on Debian: didn't work.
3. Chrome, with only 3rd party cookies blocked, on OSX: didn't work.
4. Chrome, with only 3rd party cookies blocked, on Debian: didn't work.
5. Chrome, all cookies allowed, on OSX: outcome pending.

augustus21

I recently used Safari with website tracking turned off, but all cookies allowed, for an iTunes purchase (which was really a Mac App store purchase, but still worked). It's very much YMMV.