Reminder: Chase Shopping Portal Offers Varying Portal Rates Depending On The Card

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.

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13 Comments
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SPF50
SPF50 (@guest_778916)
July 5, 2019 11:51

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.

Bernard
Bernard (@guest_778718)
July 4, 2019 17:45

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

Money
Money (@guest_778711)
July 4, 2019 17:08

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?

Matthew
Matthew (@guest_778758)
July 4, 2019 20:15

I would think so because you can earn the bonus UR thru the portal without actually paying with the respective card.

KurtBiz
KurtBiz (@guest_778788)
July 4, 2019 22:28

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.

aubergine
aubergine (@guest_778917)
July 5, 2019 11:52

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.

86
86 (@guest_778708)
July 4, 2019 16:41

“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.

Thomasthorn85
Thomasthorn85 (@guest_778717)
July 4, 2019 17:41
  86

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?

Snorklez
Snorklez (@guest_778752)
July 4, 2019 19:57

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.

Theorem Ox
Theorem Ox (@guest_778823)
July 5, 2019 00:27

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.

Dev
Dev (@guest_778685)
July 4, 2019 15:39

Do u still get UR if you pay with giftcard

chaser123
chaser123 (@guest_778698)
July 4, 2019 16:16

It has paid in the past even with using GC

nik
nik (@guest_778672)
July 4, 2019 15:19

There is a FREE TCBY froyo today only on Verizon up rewards