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| Double dip on points and miles |
| by Brian Kelly |
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This past weekend, I had the privilege of seeing the Beyonce Renaissance tour in her hometown of Houston, and let’s just say it was out of this world! It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to, but booking Beyonce tickets at the last minute was not cheap. I had been monitoring them for over a month.
Luckily, I remembered to use a shopping portal for my purchase, and I ended up buying the tickets through Vivid Seats, which was offering 3 miles per dollar, and charged them to my Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card to earn an additional 2 miles per dollar spent. I also belong to the Vivid Seats loyalty program, so I earned 10% back in the form of one free ticket credit for every 10 purchases.
It’s almost a monopoly among Ticketmaster, StubHub and Vivid Seats — prices and fees are outrageous — but at least I was able to maximize my earnings on the purchase. TPG also has a post on the best credit cards for concert tickets and VIP access that you might want to check out.
Then, when I posted about this on Instagram, so many people started DMing me to ask what shopping portals were that I knew I had to devote this week’s newsletter to the topic.
One of the easiest and cheapest ways to earn points on an ongoing basis is to make sure you are doing your shopping online using either airline shopping portals or cash-back shopping portals like Rakuten.
But let’s start off with the basic concept:
What are online shopping portals?
Basically, most airlines, hotels and credit card companies have portals, and when you register, shop online and click their affiliate link, you will earn a certain number of miles or dollars deposited back into your account.
The most important thing to note here is that this is in addition to the points that you earn on your credit card for that transaction. For example, if you shop through the American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping portal and use a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card to earn 2 miles per dollar on that spending, you’d also be earning AA Loyalty Points, which count toward your elite status goals.
This is great because, as you may know, Capital One miles don’t transfer to American, and this is a way to double dip.
As airlines move more and more toward rewarding online spending, as American has, the most important thing is that your shopping counts toward elite status. I personally do most of my shopping using the AAdvantage shopping portal to retain my elite status. Most recently, I got the new Apple iPhone, and there was an offer for 6 miles per dollar spent, so I was able to get 9,000 AA Loyalty Points. I put the purchase on my American Express® Business Gold Card, which comes with purchase protection* for iPhones.
So, depending on what I am buying, I might use a different card. Unless I’m trying to hit a spending requirement on another card, I put most of my shopping on the Venture X since its base earning is 2 miles per dollar spent.
Shopping portals are a great way to have your cake and eat it, too. I also go to an aggregator site like Evreward and type in the retailer — it shows me which portal is offering the most miles per dollar spent, and I can choose the best return for that purchase. These ratios change on a daily basis, and you can sign up for email alerts from the different programs.
Don’t forget browser extensions
You can add the browser extension for each of the shopping portals to Google Chrome, and when you navigate to a website to shop, it will alert you if you can earn miles or cash back on that purchase, and you can choose the deal that looks best to you. You could also start to receive more targeted offers once you’ve used the portals — for instance, if you do a lot of shopping online with Nordstrom, you could get an offer of up to 10 points per dollar.
I also buy flowers through the shopping portals — I’ve gotten quite a few airline miles doing that. So, even if you don’t fly as much, you can still earn and keep your elite status active.
Cash-back portals
The other option in shopping portals is earning cash back — Rakuten is the leader there, and you can register here to receive a $30 sign-up bonus through TPG’s affiliate program. Rakuten lets you decide if you want to earn cash back or American Express Membership Rewards points, so instead of earning 1 cent per point, I choose Amex points, and I value those at 2 cents per point.
Check out TPG’s guide to online shopping portals. Once you start raking in the miles, you’ll stop giving cash as gifts and instead shop through portals.
Have a great weekend,
BK
* Eligibility and benefit levels vary by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for details. Policies are underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company.
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| Photo Credit: WYATT SMITH/THE POINTS GUY. |
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