From the “nobody cares but me” files…
I’ve written a lot about the FIA Fidelity American Express in the past. In my opinion, it’s the best cash back card out there for a lot of reasons: no annual fee, eligible for Amex Sync offers, ease of redemption into interest-earning accounts, and until now, the incredible shopping portal that no one ever really talked about anyway.
I check this portal every time I purchase something online, and about every 4th or 5th time, they have the best payouts. I’ve never had any issue with my points posting, although they’ve been known to take their precious time about posting from a few merchants. I’ve earned hundreds of free dollars from the WorldPoints portal just by clicking their links in the past year or two.
As of March 2015, it will be ending.
Saw this on the FIA website
Then I went to verify, and sure enough it’s reflected on the Bank of America website as well.
From the BofA version of the WorldPoints Mall
They routinely paid out nicely for soap.com, which is where I order my dog’s food from (well, from wag.com but I always clicked through to soap.com and still got the portal points).
5 points per dollar for soap.com
In addition, they often had higher payouts for hotels.com, staples.com, gap.com, The Body Shop, and even a couple of stores that other portals don’t have (soap.com, actually – although it’s on the Barclays RewardsBoost portal at 2 points per dollar).
If anyone wants to get in one more round of shopping in February to get some extra free money, now’s your last chance.
Bottom line
I hate to see Bank of America following in American Express’ footsteps – Amex closed their Membership Rewards portal a couple of years ago.
Chase recently rebranded their portal as “Shop Through Chase” which gives me hope that they’re not going to close it any time soon.
It’s not the end of the world or anything, but always bad to see less options and to see banks retracting programs like this. The economy is getting better (or rather, is already better) and Bank of America/FIA probably figure they can get the extra revenue from somewhere else.
Just hope it doesn’t signal more clawbacks in the near future, or prompt other copycats. I don’t think it will – BofA is one of the stingiest banks for points and miles credit cards, so this just comes off as yet another cut they’ve made. It affects me very peripherally with the FIA card, but still…
Does anyone else use this portal? Oh god, don’t say it’s just me. ::crickets::
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Thanks for bringing attention to this. It’s not just you! I earned about $100 in the past three months using the BoA Travel Mall. Now that it’s closing, I am shopping for a new credit card.
Ahhh! I’m kinda freaking out a little!
What cards are you leaning toward now?
Discover is supposed to offer the best cash back rewards portal. However, the merchant list is limited.
I might transition to using the AAdvantage eShopping mall. No need to use their credit card to get the extra AAdvantage points.
I am also considering Chase and Amex cards. Too many options…
I do love the Chase portal. I find that their payouts are the next-highest after FIA.
I shopped WorldPoints Mall semi regularly. It was great to have the option and possibility of bonus points for a regular purchase. Sorry to see it go. ;-( Still like the Fidelity Amex card. Able to put $300+ last year in IRA through bonus points. Gotta love that!
Still up and running? Though I can’t figure out how to sign in and return to the portal.
Yeah? I wouldn’t use it. There’s little guarantee you’d ever get those points, and you would’ve missed out on shopping through a working portal.
They did their due diligence and said no points awarded after a certain date via email. I haven’t tried to log in recently, but I miss that portal. 🙁
I used this website RELIGIOUSLY – even to the point that my husband knew to call before ordering something to have me check to see if the dealer had a points reward. I just made a couple of purchases through the site last week (April 13th-17th), so I am curious to see if I receive those bonus points. I switched from Wachovia to AMEX when they got rid of their extra points mall and from AMEX to BOA when they ditched theirs. This is VERY disappointing.
I know, I loved it for getting a little extra bumped into my IRA… 🙁 Let us know if you end up getting the bonus points though – that would be awesome if you did!