Using Shopping Portals For Travel
The holidays will be here before you know it! If you’re planning to take advantage of online retailers, let’s make sure you’re ready to earn some easy bonus miles on your purchases. In this post, I’m going to share some of the top online shopping portals and how you can maximize your holiday shopping.
Basic Rundown of Online Shopping Portals:
In exchange for directing you to online merchants, the portal takes a cut of any purchase you make from the retailer, rewarding you with points or miles.
You are still purchasing your desired items directly from merchants, but you start at the shopping portal allowing you to earn bonus points.
You’re earning additional bonuses for purchases you would have made anyway.
Your account is connected to your loyalty number.
There are three major types of shopping portals– Airline or hotel loyalty programs, cash back, and credit cards. We are going to focus on the first two.
Almost every major airline has an online shopping portal, as well as some hotel programs. Each one awards bonus miles or points based on your online purchases for over a thousand retailers. There are also a few portals that offer a cash-back percentage on orders.
Here is a recent personal example. I needed to buy some makeup. I noticed Rakuten [www.rakuten.com/r/JAIMER70?eeid=44749] was offering 4% back at Ulta and started there to complete a $120 purchase. I earned almost $5 back, which I will cash out at Amex Membership Rewards to use towards future travel. (Rakuten allows you to cash out with Paypal or Amex MRs if you hold an Amex card that earns MRs.) I could have made this same purchase through Delta’s portal at 2 miles/$ for 240 Delta miles.
If you consistently utilize these portals, you can easily rack up a significant amount of miles, points, or cash back in a year. Southwest flights can start under 5,000 miles, and Hyatt has hotels with rooms starting at 3,500 points. In most cases, you should also be able to stack most credit card offers with rewards through online shopping portals. The vast majority of these offers are based solely on the total amount of your purchase and don't require any coupon code, so it shouldn't create any issues.
Here's a handy list of links for the most popular airlines:
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping: Earn bonus miles at over 1,100 retailers. [
American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping: Earn bonus miles at over 1,200 sites. [
Delta Air Lines SkyMiles Shopping: Earn bonus miles at over 1,000 stores. [
JetBlue Airways TrueBlue Shopping: Earn bonus points at hundreds of stores, and shop in flight for bonus points at Amazon. [
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Shopping: Earn bonus points at more than 1,100 retailers. [
United Airlines MileagePlus Shopping: Earn bonus miles at over 1,100 stores. [
If you’re don’t have loyalty to one specific airline, you may feel overwhelmed with all the options. Cashback Monitor [cashbackmonitor.com] allows you to search a specific retailer and see the earning rates across all shopping portals.
Shopping portals are also an excellent option for keeping loyalty accounts active since spending even a single dollar through a shopping portal can be enough to prevent your points and miles from expiring. That can be a lifesaver if you haven't added points to your account in a while and don't have an option to transfer points from elsewhere.
Online shopping portals are relatively straightforward, but here are essential things to keep in mind: click through the portal site and make your purchase from the page that pops up and enable cookies for the retailer’s site, allowing the portal to “track” your purchases and award bonuses.
Shopping portals are fantastic if you’re looking for ways to help save money on your next trip!
Ready to plan your next trip?
