With the Black Friday and Cyber Monday, not only do you want to snag a good deal, you also want to maximize every single purchase you make. This is why your first stop — before you go straight to the merchants website directly — should be an online shopping portal. This will allow you to earn points or miles or save even more money on your purchase.
What is an Online Shopping Portal?
For those not familiar with an online shopping portal, it essentially gives you a kick back in the form of points, miles or cash back on almost every single purchase you make online. Payouts change daily and every portal has their own offers. You start at the online shopping site first, search for your online merchant, and you’ll then be taken directly to that merchants online website. At that point, you’ll shop how you normally would as if you went to the merchants site to begin with. It takes an extra minute and allows you to earn points or miles on the way — it is a no brainer!
For example, let’s say you are looking to shop at the Gap and there is a payout of 5x American Airline miles per dollar spent. A $100 purchase will earn you an additional 500 American Airline miles for simply making a purchase that you were going to make anyways.
To find the best payout, I always suggest starting at evreward.com or cashbackmonitor.com. These are two different aggregators that will show you the best payout for a certain merchant. Unfortunately though, payouts are not always 100% accurate and not all shopping portals will show up in the search, but it is a good place to start.
Best Shopping Portals
There are three different types of payouts you can earn with your online purchases — cash back, airline miles or credit card points. While sometimes the value of the miles or points earned is worth more than cash back, cash is king and can sometimes bring your purchase price down immediately.
Cash Back Shopping Sites
All the sites have different thresholds on a payout minimum and how often you get paid. I personally love TopCashBack due to the fact that there are no minimums and you can request a payout at any point. Many of the sites also will give you a new members sign up bonus, so you might as well take advantage of those sites first and snag your extra cash.
- BeFrugal (new members receive a $10 bonus)
- Rakuten (new members receive a $40 bonus)
- Mr. Rebates (new members receive a $5 bonus)
- RebatesMe (new members receive a $10 bonus)
- Swagbucks (new members receive a $10 bonus)
- TopCashback (new members receive a $30 bonus)
Tip: Start at Rakuten as they are currently giving a $40 bonus to new members! But once you max out each reward, move on to the next and you can earn a total of $105!
Airline Miles Shopping Sites
The best part about earning airline miles while shopping online is that earning just 1 mile in the program will extend your accounts expiration date (for programs where miles expire).
- Alaska Mileage Plan Shopping
- American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping
- Delta Air Lines SkyMiles Shopping
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping
- United MileagePlus Shopping
Credit Card Point Shopping Sites
Unfortunately American Express did away with their shopping site a few years ago, but you can still take advantage with these three sites:
- BarclayCard RewardsBoost
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards
- Capital One Shopping –> you don’t have to have a Capital One credit card
Overall…
Make sure to not leave some extra points/miles or cash back on the table! Going through a portal literally takes an extra minute or two so there is no reason not to maximize your earnings!
American Express now has a partnership with Rakuten where if you have an AmEx card that earns unrestricted Member Rewards points, even a lowly Everyday card, you can set up your rebates to post as MR points, even if you pay with a different card in that shopping trip. It can be pretty useful.