Earn Miles Shopping Online

My favorite way of topping off my airline miles accounts is credit card sign-up bonuses. The second favorite is to earn miles shopping online. This comes in handy because applying for new credit cards is not sustainable over a long period of time just for the fact that at some point I would have applied for all of the credit cards with significant sign-up bonuses. And some banks make it difficult to churn their credit cards. American Express now allows you to get a sign-up bonus once per life time and Chase won’t approve you for a credit card if you’ve opened 5 credit cards within the last 2 years.

So if you’re like me and do most of your shopping online then this is a great option to boost your miles accounts without even getting the airlines credit card. All you need is to register with your favorite airlines mileage program then register with that airlines shopping portal and your ready to go.

How to decide which airline shopping portal to use?

If you do most of your traveling on one or two specific airlines then your better off sticking with the shopping portals associated with those airlines. However, if you have several mileage accounts and looking to get the best deal then Evreward is a great place to do your research because it shows everything on one page.

For example, if you’re looking to buy something from Macy’s and want to earn a few extra miles while doing so, then type Macys in evreward search bar and it will show you the best shopping portal deals around.

I’m planning to use some Alaska miles soon so I’d like to boost my Mileage Plan account. Even though American Airlines shopping portal is offering more miles, I value Alaska miles higher than AAdvantage miles. As you can see – at the time I took that screenshot – Alaska Airlines portal was offering 2 miles/$1 spent. Not a bad deal especially that it’s for something I would’ve bought anyways.

How to earn miles shopping online?

In order to earn the miles – in this case – the Alaska Mileage Plan miles, I’ll go to https://www.mileageplanshopping.com/  after logging in, type “macys” in the search bar.

I’ll confirm the 2 miles/$1 offer. And you’ll also find the coupon codes the store offers which you can use at checkout after clicking through the shopping portal.

Make sure you see the message below after you click through; this let’s you know that the portal saved cookies on your computer verifying that you made the purchase through them.

Shop around like you normally would and you’re done! Bonus miles from shopping through the portal usually post within 8 weeks from the time of purchase.

Additional bonus!

You can double dip and earn more points by paying with a credit card that offers bonus points at the store you’re shopping with online. For example, in addition to earning Alaska miles through the portal I can pay with my Citi ThankYou Preferred credit card that sometimes offers me targeted bonus on department stores. If you’re shopping at Home Depot online, you can earn miles from the shopping portal and you can also earn 5% cash back if you pay with the Discover it card during the quarter offering 5% cash back on home improvement purchases.

Bottom Line:

If you do any of your shopping online you might as well earn some extra points while doing so. I’ve done some shopping through portals offering 10 miles/$1 and sometimes even higher. These points will add up quickly over time and all it takes is a couple of minutes to register with your favorite shopping portal.

If you have any questions please tweet me @pointspointers or email me at pointspointers@gmail.com