Quick tip: Chase has their Ultimate Rewards shopping portal which allows us to earn bonus Ultimate Rewards for online shopping. It’s important to know that different Chase cards will sometimes show different portal rates for the same merchant.
Generally, it’s the Freedom card which has the higher rate, and all the others (Sapphire, Ink cards) have a lower rate. Maybe that’s because the Freedom is meant for a more frugal-minded customer. I can’t find any examples of where the Freedom rate isn’t the highest, though it’s possible there are/were such incidents.
Most of our readership is likely already familiar with this Chase portal oddity, but reader Jeremiah just sent this in, and we’ve never written about it before. Lots of us use Cashbackmonitor to compare portal rates, and they’ll show you clearly when the Chase portal has varying rates. Keep an eye out for it, or just get into a habit of using the Freedom portal whose rate seems to always be the highest or matched with the highest.
It would be useful to do a side-by-side comparison with prices on the Chase sites Freedom vs CSR. IME the Chase portal has higher prices on airfare than the airlines for the same flights and class.
Found a lot of differences on the business side as well..
CIP is at least 1 point per cent less than both CIU and CIC
Thanks for sharing this. I saw this on one occasion and was wondering if that is the case. Can you go through Chase Freedom but pay with CIP?
I would think so because you can earn the bonus UR thru the portal without actually paying with the respective card.
Yes, it’s like any other cashback site at the end of the day. You don’t even have to pay with a Chase card, much less the same Chase card as the clicked through portal.
You can pay with any card you want, even GC (although some merchants won’t pay for GC usage). But if something doesn’t track, and you need to get Chase involved, you’ll have a stronger hand if you can show a Chase card was payment method.
“Generally, it’s the Freedom card which has the higher rate…. Maybe that’s because the Freedom is meant for a more frugal-minded customer.”
Or maybe due to the lower interchange fees on the Freedom.
Wouldn’t that be the opposite then, they are getting less money for the swipe fees so wouldn’t they want to offer less points?
The merchant is paying the interchange fees, so if less money is spent covering those, there’s more money for profit or to reinvest in a marketing initiative a la affiliate programs.
While that sounds about right in general, I’d personally be surprised if most merchants out there actually micromanage to the point where they vary their payout based on a specific card product by a specific issuer (save perhaps for one-off promotions).
Personally, I’m more inclined to believe that Chase simply takes a smaller cut of the commission and passes through a hair more to the customer.
Do u still get UR if you pay with giftcard
It has paid in the past even with using GC
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