Earn Points and Miles When Shopping
You're spending the money anyway; you might as well earn points.
Just a reminder: I don’t have payments turned on, so I’m not accepting money for this newsletter. I appreciate those of you who have offered.
That said, I will include referral links, when applicable. They don’t drive what I write about, but if I do write about something and you’re interested, I figure I might as well earn a few points or miles. Thanks!
The Magic of Shopping Portals
You know you're getting better at this hobby when you start using shopping portals. They allow you to earn points and miles on purchases you’d be making online anyway.
One big exception is Amazon. If you do a lot of shopping there, the only points you’ll earn are through the credit card you use to pay.
Points and miles shopping portals are programs that allow you to earn bonus points, miles, or cash back at hundreds of online retailers.
All major airlines have shopping portals available, so choosing an airline you frequently fly with is important. For example, my home airport is an American Airlines hub. You can actually earn AA loyalty points toward elite status, so I often use the AAdvantage Shopping portal.
This link shows you how:
AA's Loyalty Point Pursuit game: Earn status w/out flying (frequentmiler.com)
Another example is Southwest. When we were trying to qualify for the Companion Pass, we used their portal a lot.
In addition, some of the major credit cards have shopping portals, including Chase, Citi and CapitalOne.
Amex is notoriously missing from here. However, if you use Rakutan, which is my other favorite portal, you can choose to get Amex Memberhip Rewards (MR) instead of cash.
Over the past few years, I’ve earned almost 55,000 MR’s through Rakutan. That’s enough for two RT economy tickets from the east coast to London on Virgin Atlantic or a one-way business class from the east coast to Europe through Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue program.
If I’d have taken the cash, it would be $550, which is nothing to sneeze at. Instead, we flew business class from JFK-MAD for 55k per person each way. A one-way ticket would have cost nearly $4,000. We’d never spend that, but we WOULD transfer MR’s to Flying Blue to book an award flight. Thank you, Rakutan.
Remember, these portals work by directing you to a specific retailer’s site, and from there you do your shopping as normal. The portal earns a commission from the retailer, and they give you points, miles or cashback as a reward. It's an effortless way to boost your rewards balances.
Here are two articles to help you learn all about it.
How to Earn Extra Points & Miles Shopping Online - NerdWallet
How to use an online shopping portal aggregator - The Points Guy
Expert Level: Stacking
Stacking is a technique where you combine offers from different sources.
This year at our annual Cape Hatteras Thanksgiving week with extended family, we wanted to serve Pastel de Nata for dessert when it was our night to cook dinner. Pastel de Nata is a Portuguese custard pastry that we fell in love with during our trip to Portugal this fall.
I suppose we could have learned how to make them, but I figured it was worth checking to see if I could buy them ready-made. I discovered that they were expensive, but a bit of stackery took the sting out.
I found them at Goldbelly, an online retailer of high-end foods. Two dozen, single-serving pastries would cost about $89 all in. That’s pricey.
However, there was an Amex offer: spend $75 at Goldbelly on the Gold card and get $40 back. I had to go to my Amex account and activate the offer.
In addition, Goldbelly is one of the Amex Gold monthly $10 dining credit offers.
I then used the AAdvantage Shopping portal to make the purchase.
Here’s the result:
89 Amex MR points for the purchase on my Gold Card.
A $40 statement credit for the activated offer and a $10 statement monthly dining credit.
89 AAdvantage loyalty points for using the portal. Unfortunately, these didn’t post because, for some reason, the order didn’t track. This is not uncommon and is a part of the game. No big deal. I discovered recently that the Microsoft Cashback extension on my browser sometimes interferes with the AAdvantage Shopping Portal or Rakutan extension, and I’ve since disabled it. Live and learn.
Anyway, bottom line was we got two dozen pastel de natas shipped to Cape Hatteras for a net of $29, and we got a few points.
Here’s another bit of stackery that I did last year.
Citi was offering $90 back on a purchase of $90 or more on the Citi Premier Card if you signed up for an annual subscription to Craftsy, which is an online craft resource. I have no interest in crafts. But SimplyMiles, which awards AA loyalty points, had an offer to earn 4,000 AA loyalty points if you spent $90 or more at Craftsy.
With tax, the subscription ended up costing $93. I used my Citi Premier card and got the $90 statement credit, so my net cost was $3 for 4,000 AA points. I’d do that every day, if I could.
Important note: the reason retailers will make offers like these is to get you to try their product and/or because you may automatically renew without knowing. In this case, I immediately went in to my Craftsy account and turned off auto-renewal. No problem.
If you want to maximize your points and miles accumulation, then you’ll want to learn how to stack offers. Here are two resources:
How to Stack Credit Card and Portal Offers to Save on Online Purchases – Forbes Advisor
Card-Linked Programs & The Networks They Run On (AKA Which Programs Stack) (frequentmiler.com)
How to Keep Up
You may wonder how I keep up. For example, how did I know about the Craftsy/Citi/SimplyMiles stack?
There are several blogs that I follow that send out daily newsletters with the latest news. I don’t always read them, but I do scan them. I enjoy doing this. After all, this is my hobby.
Subscribing to these blogs will help ensure that you don’t miss a great stacking deal, fare sale, or points redemption. Here they are:
Frequent Miler | Earn Miles Without Flying
One Mile at a Time: Airline Travel News, Reviews and Credit Card Offers
Miles to Memories - Experts in Award Travel
My Rakutan Referral Link
If you’re interested in accumulating Amex MR’s, then Rakutan is a must. The current referral offer is spend $30 and get $30 back. If you sign up through my link and spend $30, I’ll get $30, as well.
Unpacking this, that means you can sign up and essentially get your first $30 in purchases through the portal for free. However, $30 equates to 3,000 Amex MR’s.
So, if you sign up, and use Rakutan to buy something you would have purchased anyway, you’ll either get $30 back or you’ll get 3,000 Amex MR’s. This article shows you how to change from cashback to Amex MR’s.
Earning American Express Membership Rewards® Points on Rakuten | Rakuten Help
[Click here for my Rakutan Referral Link]
Happy Shopping.