Earn Bonus AAdvantage Miles for Mother's Day Shopping

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

Sunday, May 8 is Mother's Day, so it's time to start thinking about getting her something special. Luckily, the holiday is also a perfect opportunity to earn some extra bonus AAdvantage miles by using a shopping portal (along with utilizing some lucrative bonus offers) to make your purchase.

Mother's Day Shopping via Portals

For those who aren't super familiar with shopping portals, they're sites that offer loyalty program members bonus points or miles for shopping at specific retailers. The first step is to register your loyalty account with the shopping portal, and then head there and log in when you're ready to shop. Browse through the retailers and offers, and when you've found what you like, click through to the actual retailer's website. The portal will then track your purchase, earning you those extra bonus points and miles. One of the best portal perks is that you can double-dip on points and miles. You not only get bonus points or miles for clicking through the portal, but you can also get rewards by paying with a credit card that earns you points or miles.

Mother's Day is a perfect time to take advantage of shopping portals because there tend to be tons of great offers. Purchasing gift items like flowers, jewelry and candy can get you upwards of 30 miles per dollar spent! Today's post will focus on American Airlines offers for bonus AAdvantage miles, since AA seems to offer the best return with the greatest variety of merchants this year, but if you'd like to see other others, you can check a website such as EVReward to see the different earning rates offered across different programs and retailers.

Mother's Day Deals for Bonus AAdvantage Miles

Until May 5, you can earn 250 bonus miles when you spend $150 cumulatively at the these six retailers: Aveda, Blue Nile, JCPenney, Kohl’s, ProFlowers and WSJwine.

The terms & conditions state that you must purchase by May 5, 2016 at 11:59:59 pm Eastern Time in order to earn the one-time bonus 250 miles. According to TPG's latest valuations, AAdvantage miles are worth 1.5 cents apiece, so this is a great way to rack up a small stash of them. The 250-mile bonus may only be worth about $3.75, but every little bit can help when you're working toward an award flight!

Additionally, each of these six retailers has their own elevated bonus offers on specific dates, so for maximum points earning, make sure to shop on the days with the best bonus. The elevated bonus offers plus the 250 bonus miles plus whatever earnings you get for using a travel rewards credit card make this a great opportunity to triple-dip.

In addition to these bonuses, AAdvantage Shopping has some other great offers where you can earn bonus AAdvantage miles for Mother's Day purchases.

Which card should you use?

Non-bonus category spending — which includes many online shopping purchases such as Mother's Day gifts — can be difficult, because it isn't always obvious which card you should use. The first tip is be to consider what kind of points you're hoping to rack up and use that to determine which product you pay with.

If you aren't looking to rack up miles with any particular airline program, you could consider the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. The card earns just 1 Starpoint per dollar spent on non-Starwood purchases, but at 2.5 cents apiece, Starpoints are the most valuable points currency in TPG’s book. In addition to earning you valuable Starpoints, as an Amex card it offers great purchase protection, customer service and extended warranty coverage. It’s always nice to know you’re protected when making an important purchase.

TPG has traditionally recommended the Starwood Amex card as the best option for non-category spending, but the recently introduced Chase Freedom Unlimited is now giving it a run for its money. This no-fee card earns you 1.5% cash back on every purchase — but even better, if you hold a Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink Plus Business Card, you can transfer cash back into points to effectively earn a return of 3.15% on all spending (based on TPG's valuations). This card currently offers a sign-up bonus of $150 cash back (or 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points) after you spend $500 in the first three months.

Another great option for non-bonus spending is the Amex EveryDay Preferred Card. You earn Membership Rewards points on all purchases (including 3 points per dollar spent at supermarkets on the first $6,000 each year), and you get a 50% bonus when you hit 30 transactions in a month, so even for non-bonus spending you can earn 1.5 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent. Plus, as I mentioned above, Amex has great purchase protection.

Bottom Line

If you're going to buy mom anything for Mother's Day, do it through a portal to earn some bonus points or miles. In fact, you should do all your shopping through a portal whenever possible to constantly be maximizing those points and miles earnings.

These AAdvantage bonus offers are an awesome way to triple-dip and really work on building up your collection of AA miles. For example, if you spend $100 on your Chase Sapphire Preferred card at FTD.com, you're earning 3,000 AAdvantage miles plus 100 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. If you spend $150 at ProFlowers on May 5, you can earn 4,500 AAdvantage miles plus a 250-mile bonus — equalling a total of 4,750 miles (plus whatever you charge on a rewards credit card) just for ordering some flowers. Just make sure to shop on the correct days to get the best bonuses.

How do you plan to maximize Mother's Day shopping this year?