Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well. A few days ago, I wrote Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature. That post received many great comments, but the comment from Al was especially relevant to me:
“I didn’t realize that the maximum redemption for an eligible charge (grocery) had to be made at one time. I redeemed $300 out of a $500 charge figuring I could redeem the remaining $200 at a later date. Well, I was wrong. But now I know for the rest of my eligible charges.”
According to the Pay Yourself Back terms, “Once you redeem any amount of points towards an eligible purchase for a statement credit, it will no longer be an eligible purchase.” I inadvertently tested this out on June 28 when I did a partial redemption (I did not do the max dollar amount) for a Trader Joe’s purchase. As you can see, I only have 3 eligible Pay Yourself Back transactions available.
As I mentioned above, I have 3 eligible Pay Yourself Back transactions (the 3 Safeway transactions). Strangely, the dates shown on my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card account activity page show June 19, 20, and 24, while the 3 dates on my Pay Yourself Back page show June 21, 22, and 26 (2 day difference between each date). I did a max redemption for my June 15 Raley’s purchase and a partial redemption for my June 16 Trader Joe’s purchase (I redeemed $61.98 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points out of a possible $80.13). As you can see above, there is no option to redeem the remaining $18.15 worth of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.
This is not a big deal, it’s only 1,210 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points (1,210 x 1.5 CPP = $18.15), but I would be more upset if I accidentally redeemed $5 worth of points for a $500 purchase. According to Al, there is no way to make multiple partial redemptions or make any changes to submitted Pay Yourself Back transactions:
“The [Chase] agent quoted me the language which I didn’t notice, but when I tried to make a new redemption and was looking for it, I saw it. I’m sure most people would miss it – there is nothing in the main part of the page alerting you to this rule, It is hidden towards the bottom. It says something about a redemption being final and once made, it is no longer an eligible purchase. I don’t think they can reverse a redemption. She sure made it sound like once you click it’s final.”
Please learn from Al and myself, do not make the same mistakes we did. If you are planning on using the Pay Yourself Back feature, focus on transactions with the fewest days remaining (displayed at the top of the list) and make max redemptions, not a partial redemptions. If you have any questions about the Pay Yourself Back feature, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
P.S. In case anyone from Chase is reading this post, can I make 2 requests? Thank you :)
- Please make the dates on the Pay Yourself Back page match the dates on the account activity page.
- Please allow multiple partial redemptions on the same transactions.