Is Groupon Gone from Chase Ultimate Reward Merchants????

My favorite credit card right now is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card.  Besides being gorgeous (think: George Clooney movie, Up In the Air), and having a great sign up bonus (50,000 points – valued at approximately $625), as well as the first year fee ($95) waived… it also has an amazing shopping portal, known as Ultimate Rewards. Frankly, it is a card I would keep a second year!

Using Ultimate Rewards is simple.  You go to your online website by linking through the Ultimate Reward page.  You then make your online purchase as usual and get Ultimate Reward points for your purchase. Its that simple – and it adds up! Certain merchants have great promotions – instead of 1X point per dollar – they might have 4 or 5 or 10 points for dollar.

For the six or eight months that I’ve used Ultimate Rewards, Groupon has always been a participating merchant.  Generally, the return, if I recall correctly, was 8 points per dollar.  In other words, if I purchased a $100 Groupon via the Ultimate Rewards portal, I earned 800 points. On one day in November, 2011, as part of the Black Friday promotion, the bonus for Groupon purchases was 20 points per dollar!

This morning, I noticed a wonderful Groupon deal – one I’ve used before and loved.  $65 for dinner for two with a bottle of wine at a lovely restaurant in Greenwich Village in New York City called Chez Jacqueline. Here is the LINK.  (Its a great meal, and if you plan to be in New York City before May 2, 2012, I highly recommend purchasing this Groupon).

I went to the Ultimate Reward website to see the bonus being offered for Groupon and, to my horror, I could not find Groupon listed as a participating Ultimate Reward merchant.  Whooooa. What happened? Is this an error?  Is it temporary or permanent?  I’m so distraught. Has there been a defection of merchants on Ultimate Rewards?  Does anyone have any information?

(In the meantime, even without the Ultimate Rewards bonus, I still recommend buying the Chez Jacqueline Groupon.)