Same Spending, But More Points

What if I told you that you were missing out on thousands and thousands of free points every single year? No, I am not talking about another credit card sign up bonus, nor I am discussing more flying.

Anytime you purchase something online, are you earning all the potential points you could? Most likely, you are earning the most points possible by putting the charge on the right credit card, but there are even more points to be earned.

If you have not caught on yet, I am referring to online shopping portals. If you do not know what a shopping portal is, then let me explain. Every single time you shop online, you can go through a shopping portal to earn even more points.

Shopping Portal Basics

A shopping portal is a website that has links to a vast number of other stores’ websites. When you click on the link in the shopping portal, you go to whatever store you want to, and it looks as if everything is normal. That is because everything is normal. You will pay the same exact rate as if you had gone to the store directly. 

Additionally, you can still apply whatever coupons you want, but you can also potentially earn thousands of points. The website you are shopping at pays an affiliate commission for whatever items you purchase to the shopping portal, which pays a part of that to you. There are many shopping portals. Some earn cash back, while others earn points. Many popular airlines have their own shopping portals that allow you to earn points (and with American, status) on their airline.

How To Use

First, you go to whatever shopping portal you want to use. For this example, let’s say AAdvantage eShopping, my primary option, although you can use whatever portal you would like. Then, make an account using your frequent flyer number and your set (cash back portals typically involve linking a PayPal account.

When you want to buy something, search the name of the store and click on the link to that store’s website. After you purchase and checkout, you will get an email a few days later stating how many points you earned.

Almost all purchases earn points through the portal, but make sure you read the Ts & Cs to check if your purchase will qualify. For example, it is common that gift card sales don’t count. In addition, taxes and shipping do not usually qualify towards the amount you can earn points on.

Most portals nowadays will allow you to add an extension to your internet browser that you can click on after you have gone to the site directly. This way takes a step out of the process and gives you a reminder to activate earning the points.

Best Shopping Portals

Not all shopping portals will earn the same number of points per dollar. If you want to get the most points per dollar, then I would go to cashbackmonitor.com to analyze what websites are earning how many points.

For example, American Airlines’ portal may be giving 10x points per dollar, while Southwest’s portal might be giving 4x. Most of the time I stick to one portal just to keep life easier, but if you want to maximize, I would make sure to use a shopping portal aggregator to see where you are best off.

Tips

When you are trying to order something with a shopping portal, make sure you use that shopping portal on an internet browser other than Safari. When trying to use Safari, I typically find my orders are less likely to be tracked correctly due to the limited cross-site tracking. I have always had success with Chrome, which also supports many shopping portals’ internet extensions.

Make sure to use the right credit cards for your online purchases, since you can still earn additional points from your credit card. Generally, I would advise the Capital One Venture Card to earn 2x miles on all purchases or the Amex Green Card to earn 3x on general travel purchases. However, the best card varies per store and should be based on your individual goals.

Sometime portals offer a bonus offer such as an additional 500 miles after spending $50 on purchases through the portal. I find these bonuses useful to quickly rack up bonus points during peak shopping periods such as Black Friday / Cyber Monday.

The Last Point

Using shopping portals, I have earned over 50,000 miles on airlines including American, United and more. Leveraging the portals, last summer I earned enough miles purely through shopping with American to book an award ticket from D.C. to Milan, and thats just what I did. This year I have retained American Airlines Gold Status almost completely thanks to their eShopping portal, but more on that in another post.

The points and miles earned through shopping portals can sometimes seem insignificant, but I promise you that over the long term they really add up. Additionally, you have to make sure that even though you are earning extra points, you are only purchasing items you would have bought either way, otherwise the additional cost is not worth it.

Overall, if you want to maximize points earned, then you should make sure to always use a shopping portal. Even if you keep it simple and just click on the browser extension when you shop, you could be earning thousands and thousands of points every year for spending money that you would already be spending.