As often as I shop at Sephora, I still prefer Ulta’s Ultamate Rewards program. You pretty much receive free money to buy anything! I think that’s plenty better than Sephora’s points-for-samples/products system. But don’t get fooled – save your Ulta points to maximize your rewards benefit!
Ulta lists five point & dollar values on their website [100, 500, 750, 1000 & 2000 points], which you can see in the screenshot below. Dollar for dollar, they are not equal in value.

Let’s do the math. Since 100 points = $3, then 500 points should equal $15. [100 x 5 = 500 points / $3 x 5 = $15] Because 500 points = $17.50, you are clearly getting a better deal redeeming at a higher point increment. This is why I like to save my points at Ulta and other stores that offer similar rewards, like Walgreens.
If you follow @beautydealsbff on Instagram, you’ve probably seen her redemption graph. She took the time to breakdown the monetary values for 56 redemption amounts, from 100 points to 4000 points, based on the above screenshot.
I’ve trimmed down the graph to point increments that were interesting to me, and you can clearly see why saving to reach 2000 Ulta points is better than redeeming in 100 or 250-point rewards.
Sure, you can use 250 points and get $8.00 off of your order, which is great. But if you wait until you hit 2000 points, the value of your points is almost doubled! Cashing in at 2000 point increments offers you the best value. And even though redeeming more than 2000 [but less than 4k] points is a nice chunk of $$ off of your purchase, overall, it’s still more beneficial to redeem 2000 points at a time.
So unless your points are expiring (hurry, spend those!), try to save up your Ulta points to get the best bang for your buck. It’s extremely easy to get tempted by $50 off when you reach 1000 Ulta rewards points, but doesn’t $125 in free makeup sound better?