Earn extra miles, points and elite status with online shopping portals

Online shopping portals are a great way to earn miles and points on purchases. The 1 point per $1 earned on most credit cards won’t get you to Tahiti anytime soon. But shopping portals can multiply your earnings and get you there much faster.

Airlines, hotel loyalty programs and even credit card companies have shopping portals that help you earn points, miles and even elite status by shopping online.

Here’s everything you need to know about rewards shopping portals:

• Shopping portals allow you to earn extra points on online purchases by clicking through their designated links.
• Many airlines and hotels offer their own shopping portals that earn rewards and (sometimes) elite credits.
• Periodically, these portals offer additional bonuses for meeting certain spending thresholds.

How do shopping portals work?

Online shopping portals are websites that allow you to earn points, miles or cash back when shopping online. The process is pretty simple: You sign up for a shopping portal account, find the merchant you want to shop with and click on the shopping portal link to be directed to the site. You’ll then earn rewards for every dollar spent on a qualifying purchase.

Sometimes, you can even link your credit cards to a shopping portal and earn rewards on in-store purchases.

The caveat? It takes a few weeks for your rewards to post. Not a huge deal, but worth keeping in mind if you’re hoping for a quick payout.

Some shopping portals offer a new member bonus, which can be a nice incentive on top of the rewards you’ll earn for every dollar spent. Many airline shopping portals offer spending bonuses during busy shopping periods (i.e. back-to-school or the holidays) to incentivize customers. This can be a great way to earn even more rewards when shopping online.

If you’re new to points and miles, online shopping portals can help you multiply your point earnings without much added effort.

Purchases that don’t earn shopping portal rewards

Not all purchases earn shopping portal rewards. You typically won’t earn rewards on taxes or on returned items, though there are other exclusions. Here’s a quick look at some common ways you might lose out on earning shopping portal rewards:

• Not activating rewards: If you’re using a shopping portal site, you won’t earn rewards if you don’t first click on the portal link. You also won’t earn rewards if you’re using a browser extension that’s been deactivated.
• Using ad blockers: If you use ad blockers when clicking through a shopping portal, you most likely won’t earn rewards. Make sure to turn these off ahead of time.
• Taxes or shipping: The cost of taxes and shipping are excluded from earning rewards.
• Returned items: Returned purchases don’t earn shopping portal rewards.
• Outside promo codes and coupons: If you enter a promo code that isn’t listed on the shopping portal merchant page, you will not earn rewards.
• Ineligible items: Some shopping portals and merchants exclude gift cards or select merchandise from earning rewards, so always read the fine print.

You can find out which purchases don’t earn shopping portal rewards by checking out each individual merchant page. Underneath the rewards payout, you’ll typically see fine print specifying which purchases don’t qualify for rewards.

For example, Rakuten lists several exclusions on their Macy’s merchant page. You can see that Rakuten offers 8% cash back on Macy’s purchases, but only 1.5% on furniture, mattresses and third-party Marketplace purchases. Additionally, Rakuten excludes gift cards, health/fitness, rugs, and other specified items from earning rewards.

By checking these exclusions before using Rakuten, you’ll be fully informed on which purchases qualify to earn rewards and which don’t.

How to compare shopping portal rates

You can find the highest rates on shopping portal rewards by using an aggregator. There are three main shopping portal aggregators worth checking out:

• Cashback Monitor
• CashbackHolic
• EvRewards

My favorite is Cashback Monitor, since it offers a comprehensive list of shopping portals from each category: Airlines, hotels, banks and cash back. Before shopping online, I’ll usually go to Cashback Monitor to compare shopping portal rewards across the board.

Then I usually go with the one offering the highest rewards, though sometimes I take other factors into consideration (i.e. needing to top off a specific rewards balance).

Maximize shopping portal rewards

Every major airline, as well as credit card companies like Chase and Citi, have shopping portals that let you earn bonus points for your online purchases. Offers vary and you should always check evreward for the portal offering the most points before shopping. Simply enter the name of the merchant you wish to shop with, and a list will generate.

Shopping portals are a great way to earn more points on online spending. It’s easy to just head to your favorite portal, click on the merchant you want to shop with and call it a day. However, you can earn even more rewards by following a few steps.

Here’s how to maximize shopping portal rewards:

Double (or triple) dip

There are several ways to double or even triple-dip with shopping portals. Doing this is a great way to earn maximum points on large purchases.

1. Use a card that earns bonus rewards

The easiest way is with a credit card that earns rewards. Throw in a card that earns bonus points in select categories and you could earn an extra 2-5X rewards.

2. Combine credit card merchant offers with shopping portals

Another way to earn more rewards is by using a merchant discount program like Amex offers, Citi Merchant Offers, and Chase Offers. These programs offer cash savings and sometimes bonus points with popular merchants that also participate in shopping portals.

You simply have to select the offer you want to take advantage of and link it to your credit card. When you make a qualifying purchase, it will trigger the bonus points or rewards. How does this translate into extra rewards? Before using that card for your purchase, simply head to your favorite shopping portal for added rewards.

3. Combine gift cards with shopping portals

Some portals let you earn points or cash back for gift card purchases. In these instances, you can maximize your points by purchasing a gift card through the portal, then using your gift card to purchase the product you want.

This is tricky and doesn’t always work. However, if you come across a portal that lets you earn rewards on gift cards, it can be well worth it.

Check for bonus point promotions

During the holidays and back-to-school season, shopping portals offer bonus points for shopping online. In addition to offering more points per dollar spent, these promotions include spend-based incentives.

For example, a while back the Southwest Rapid Rewards portal was offering an extra 2,000 bonus points for every $350 spent. That’s an incredible payout for simply a few clicks.

You can find bonus point deals in the “offers” or “deals” tabs on most rewards shopping portals. You’ll alsoget an email about these promotions, so be sure to opt in so you don’t miss out. If you don’t want to get spammed by a dozen shopping portals you can always create a separate email address for loyalty accounts.

Use a browser extension

Many online shopping portals has browser extensions that you can download for convenience. Once activated, these tools automatically earn bonus points at participating merchants. There’s no need for you to go to the shopping portal website and click on the merchant link to earn rewards.

Sometimes we get busy and forget to follow these steps to earn more shopping portal rewards. With a browser extension, you can put this task on autopilot. Rakuten Rewards, American AAdvantage Shopping and Capital One Shopping are a few of the programs that offer browser extensions.

Take advantage of in-store rewards

Shopping portals aren’t just for online shopping: Many allow you to earn points in-store by linking your credit card. Then simply shop at a participating store with that credit card and you’ll earn bonus points.

Examples of shopping portals that offer in-store rewards include Alaska Mileage Plan, Rakuten, Southwest Rapid Rewards, and United MileagePlus

Types of online shopping portals

There are five types of shopping portals you can earn rewards with. The best one depends on your goals: Are you saving up for a hotel stays? Then a hotel shopping portal might be the best fit. We’ll dive further into ways to maximize your rewards and pick the best shopping portal.

In the meantime, here’s a look at the five types of shopping portals you should know about:

• Airline
• Hotel
• Points
• Credit cards
• Cash back

Airline shopping portals

Airline shopping portals are a great way to earn miles for free flights. They offer pretty generous rewards and many include a new-member bonus that can give your account balance a nice boost. Some portals offer periodic bonuses on top of the miles per dollar spent. You should definitely take these bonuses into consideration when deciding whether to use an airline shopping portal or one that offers more flexible rewards.

You can learn about bonus offers by signing up to receive email alerts or by navigating to the “bonus rewards” tab on most of these sites.

Here’s a closer look at all the airline shopping portals and how to earn rewards:

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping

The Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan shopping portal is a great choice for earning valuable airline miles. Despite some devaluations, Alaska Mileage Plan remains an excellent program thanks to the fact that it still publishes an award chart with reasonable redemption rates.

The Alaska Airlines shopping portal can be a great option if the rewards rates are competitive. While it doesn’t currently offer a new member bonus, you can earn up to 1,000 bonus miles by meeting certain spending thresholds at select merchants.

American Airlines shopping portal

In my experience, the American Airlines AAdvantage eshopping portal offers some of the highest payouts on online purchases. It really depends on the merchant you’re shopping with. I tend to use it a lot for purchases with popular department and beauty stores and find myself using AAdvantage eshopping a lot. Not only do I earn miles, but also 1 Loyalty Point for every dollar spent, which counts towards elite status qualification.

A few months back I earned a whopping 13,362 Loyalty Points and redeemable miles through the AAdvantage shopping portal on a retail arbitrage deal – that’s a third of the way to AAdvantage Gold elite status.

The AAdvantage shopping portal also periodically offers limited-time bonus offers that can help you earn thousands of bonus miles. For example, you might earn an extra 1,000 bonus miles by spending $125 at Cole Haan or Tatcha Beauty. These limited-time bonuses are definitely worth checking out if you have some upcoming purchases and want to earn bonus rewards.

British Airways Executive Club eStore

The British Airways Executive Club program can be a good option for short-haul awards. It also offers good deals on non-stop flights to select European cities. So using the British Airways shopping portal to earn Avios can be rewarding.

At the moment, the British Airways Executive Club eStore offers up to 12 Avios per $1 spent with popular merchants. Be sure to check the highest rates on a shopping portal aggregator first – if British Airways has the highest rates, then these points can definitely go a long way to save you money on travel.

Delta SkyMiles Shopping

Delta SkyMiles aren’t the most valuable airline rewards you can earn, thanks to its inflated dynamic pricing scheme on award tickets. The SkyMiles Shopping portal also doesn’t offer the most competitive rates compared to other shopping portals.

However, it does exist as an option if you want to save up for a unicorn award or SkyMiles Award Deals.

JetBlue TrueBlue Shopping

Many times when I search for the highest shopping portal payouts, JetBlue Airways TrueBlue Shopping portal appears at the top of the list. While JetBlue points are fixed in value (and limited in terms of how you can redeem them), they’re still valuable.

I often redeem under 18,000 miles round-trip for flights to New York and JetBlue offers the most comfortable experience on the transcontinental journey.So earning JetBlue points via shopping portals works out great for me.

While JetBlue Shopping doesn’t offer a new member bonus at the moment, they are offering tons of bonus rewards and card link opportunities with select merchants.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping

The Southwest shopping portal is a great choice if you want to earn rewards in a program where redemptions start low. I’ve seen award flights as cheap as 1,800 Rapid Rewards, which are fairly easy to earn though the Southwest shopping portal.

In fact, just a few weeks ago, Southwest was offering 2,000 bonus points for spending $350 select merchants. So it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on the Extra Rewards page for deals like this.

United MileagePlus Shopping

United MileagePlus Shopping lets you “favorite” the stores you shop with most, then send you notifications when they’re offering bonus miles.

MileagePlus Shopping also offers in-store rewards and a Chrome browser extension so you don’t have to login to the site and click through the designated link to earn miles.

Simply link your credit card for in-store rewards and activate the browser extension so you never miss out on rewards.

Hotel shopping portals

Hotel shopping portals are generally not the most rewarding, but they can be a solid choice if you want to top off your hotel loyalty account without getting a hotel credit card.

Additionally, earning points with hotel shopping portals can help you keep your account active and prevent mileage expiration.

Unfortunately, Choice Privileges, Hilton, and Marriott have all done away with their shopping portals. But you can still earn hotel points trough the Wyndham Rewards Shopping portal.

Wyndham Rewards Shopping

The Wyndham Rewards shopping portal can be exceptionally rewarding, depending on the merchant you shop with. Wyndham free night awards start at just 7,500 points while Cash + Points awards start at 1,500 points. So shopping portal rewards can go a long way in securing a free night award.

At the moment, the Wyndham Rewards shopping portal offers up to 15 points per dollar spent at select merchants. Be sure to check out the special offers tab for bonus point opportunities.

Credit card shopping portals

Several banks have gotten in on shopping portals, offering valuable rewards and savings for online spending. Not all of them earn points, but you can still earn substantial cash back rewards. Here’s a look at credit card shopping portals worth considering:

• Barclays RewardsBoost: The Barclay RewardsBoost portal offers competitive rewards at over 1,000 merchants. Barclay rewards are worth 1 cent each towards travel.
• Capital One Shopping: Capital One Shopping automatically applies coupons to qualifying purchases. It doesn’t earn points, but the savings can be substantial enough to make up for it.
• Shop Through Chase: The Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal lets you earn 1-15X points with over 500 popular retailers.
• Citi Shop: Citi Shop is a Chrome browser extension that offers coupons at over 5,000 merchants. Simply download the tool, shop online and get statement credits when you make a qualifying purchase.
• Rakuten: Rakuten partners with Amex Membership Rewards, allowing you to earn valuable points in lieu of cash back. Sign up with my referral link and we’ll both get $30 (or 3,000 Membership Rewards points) after you earn $30 in cash back.

Cash back portals

Sometimes cash really is king, providing more flexibility than points and miles. With cash back rewards, you don’t have to worry about limited award inventory or blackout dates. You can redeem cash back however and whenever you want.

While there are countless cash back portals out there (you can find them on Cashback Monitor), my favorite is TopCashback. It offers some of the highest cash back rates and I’ve earned over $4,000 in cash back with them to date. In fact, TopCashback was often my go-to shopping portal for gift card purchases.

If you sign up for TopCashback with my referral link and earn at least $10 in cash back, I’ll receive $10 (thanks for your support!)

Rakuten is also technically a cash back portal, though I choose to earn Membership Rewards rather than cash. With some of the highest cash back rates, a handy browser extension and over 2,500 merchants, Rakuten is a great choice for earning both cash back and Membership Rewards points.

Frequently asked questions