Shopping portals offer an easy way to earn extra points or miles for purchases you planned to make anyway.
By clicking through a portal before you shop, you can earn rewards via your travel or rewards credit card while tacking on "extra" miles just for using the portal in the first place.
Occasionally, shopping portals offered by major airlines also create special bonuses for a limited time.
Right now, Southwest Airlines, the American AAdvantage program and United MileagePlus are offering a special opportunity to earn more miles through August 18, 2017. Here are the details:
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Shopping
Expires: August 18, 2017
Earn up to 2,000 bonus points
-Tier 1 (Spend $125, earn 250)
-Tier 2 (Spend $300, earn 900)
-Tier 3 (Spend $550, earn 2,000)
AAdvantage eShopping
Expires: August 18, 2017
Earn up to 2,000 bonus miles
-Spend $150, get 500 bonus miles
-Spend $300, get 1,000 bonus miles
-Spend $500, get 2,000 bonus miles
United
Expires: August 18, 2017
Earn up to 3,000 bonus miles:
-Tier 1 bonus: 500 miles for qualifying purchases of at least $150;
-Tier 2 bonus: 1,500 miles for qualifying purchases of at least $350.
-Tier 3 bonus: 3,000 miles for qualifying purchases of at least $600.
Keep in mind that all three offers expire August 18, 2017, at midnight EST.
Also, remember that bonus points are awarded on top of the points you earn with your point-earning credit card. Lastly, not all purchases qualify for bonus amounts, as evidenced by the fine print: "Qualifying purchases do not include returns, cancellations, shipping and handling, taxes, gift card or other cash equivalent purchases and certain products that are not eligible for bonus miles."
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Each promotion can also take 8-10 weeks for your bonus miles to post to your account. With that in mind, shopping through portals works best as part of a broader point-earning strategy that takes place over months or years versus a quick way to boost your account balance for a redemption.
If you're angling for more airline miles, shopping portals offer an easy way to earn miles quickly. If you're going to shop online anyway, you may as well click through an applicable portal in order to boost your point balances accordingly.
Airlines that offer portals even pair up with popular retailers that make earning these extra miles easy.
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With American AAdvantage shopping, for example, you can earn extra miles for shopping at stores like Gap.com, Nike.com, Etsy.com, JcPenney.com, Macys.com and Walmart.com.
Since most people do at least some of their shopping online, earning extra points or miles this way is an absolute no-brainer.
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