Category Archives: Shopping Portals

Credit Cards, Pointing, Shopping Portals

Summer Shopping through Online Portals

June 1, 2015 Point A

Summer has finally kicked off here in my hometown of Chicago. Just as every diehard Cubs fan believes that THIS YEAR could be the one where we make it to the World Series, the start of the summer offers the hope of limitless possibilities. Of course, the potential for scoring some significant Miles & Points (what I like to call Pointing) is a bit more realistic than my Cubbies hitting those elusive home runs.

The key to successful Pointing is to build Miles & Points accumulation into your daily routine. One such method is to use Online Shopping Portals to purchase items that are already on your shopping list.

Many of the major airlines and hotel chains maintain sites that enable the shopper to earn points by patronizing a variety of online retailers. In order to use a shopping portal, you simply login with your loyalty number, identify an online retailer that’s of interest to you and “click through” to the retailer’s regular website where you complete the transaction as you normally would. The portal notes the transaction and awards you bonus points for the purchase. Although you can use any card to make your purchase, you can maximize your Pointing by paying with your favorite awards earning credit card. In other words, you earn points from shopping through the portal AND points associated with the card that you’re using.

Some of the major Online Shopping Portals include the following:

Air Canada
American Airlines
Amtrak
British Airways
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Delta
Hawaiian Airlines
Hilton
Marriott
Southwest
United

In addition, many online retailers periodically offer extra bonus points and the Shopping Portals run special spending promotions. For example, through June 15 United’s MileagePlus Shopping portal is awarding up to 2500 bonus award miles for hitting certain spending goals.

As you can see below, you can quickly rack up bonus award miles by shopping through an online portal.

To determine which retailers offer the best bonuses, I find EVreward.com to be a very helpful resource. This online directory of shopping sites allows you to make side-by-side comparisons of your various rewards options.

With the Father’s Day, Graduation and Wedding gift-buying season upon us, this would be the perfect time to try out an Online Shopping Portal. Have you ever used an Online Shopping Portal as a part of your Pointing efforts? What has been your experience?

Credit Cards, Pointing, Shopping Portals

Using Online Shopping Portals for your Holiday Gift Buying – Taking Advantage of Tardy Tuesday and Beyond

December 2, 2014 Point A

Whenever I can, I try to align my daily spending patterns with my Miles & Points accumulation (aka Pointing) efforts. The Holiday Season represents the perfect chance to exercise my Pointing skills as I buy gifts for my family, friends and office colleagues. Although I skipped the frenzy of Black Friday, I haven’t missed out on any earnings opportunities. In fact, I’ll probably earn more points by shopping online than by physically stepping foot inside any store.

Some of the major Online Shopping Portals include the following:

Air Canada
American Airlines
Amtrak
British Airways
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Delta
Hawaiian Airlines
Hilton
Marriott
Southwest
United
US Airways

In addition, many online retailers offer extra bonus points during the Holiday Season.

Therefore, I wouldn’t feel too upset if you missed out on either Black Friday or Cyber Monday. You can still rack up some significant Miles & Points totals by shopping on “Tardy Tuesday” and beyond.

Do you have plans to use an online shopping portal for any of your Holiday Shopping?

Pointing, Shopping Portals

Online Shopping Portals – Last Minute Solutions for the Black Friday / Cyber Monday Slacker

December 15, 2013 Point A

My name is Point A and I’m a serious Holiday Shopping Procrastinator. Once again, I slept through Black Friday and managed to let Cyber Monday slip away. As a result, I’m now scrambling to get all of my gift buying done. It’s at times like these I turn to the Online Shopping Portal for my salvation. Of course, as I happily mouse click away, I’ll also be engaged in some serious Pointing …

Photo: Walnut Room at Macy’s Chicago (though it will ALWAYS be Marshall Field’s to me!)

Many of the major airlines and hotel chains maintain sites that enable the shopper to earn points by patronizing a variety of online retailers. In order to use a shopping portal, you simply log in with your frequent flyer number, identify an online retailer that’s of interest to you and “click through” to the retailer’s regular website where you complete the transaction as you normally would. The portal notes the transaction and awards you bonus points for the purchase. Although you can use any credit card to make your purchase, you can maximize your Pointing by paying with your favorite awards earning credit card. In other words, you would earn points from shopping through the portal AND points associated with the card that you’re using.

Some of the major Online Shopping Portals include the following:

Air Canada
American Airlines
Amtrak
British Airways
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Delta
Frontier
Hawaiian Airlines
Hilton
Marriott
Southwest
United
US Airways

Several of the airlines are also offering bonus points for channeling your Holiday purchases through their shopping portals:

American: Earn up to 3000 bonus miles by spending $250 through December 22.

United: Earn 500 bonus miles (up to a maximum of 2500 bonus miles) for every $250 spent through December 31.

However, given the various options for shopping sites, how do you make a decision on which portal to use? For situations such as these, I find EVreward.com to be a very helpful resource. The site is a directory of online shopping sites that allows you to make side-by-side comparisons of your various rewards options. For example, a search of the options for The North Face reveals the following Pointing opportunities:

Nevertheless, I realize that by shopping at home I’m missing out on the camaraderie that arises when you cram large numbers of bargain hungry consumers into a confined space. Therefore, in order to simulate the Black Friday experience I got up well before dawn to write this post. Also, to experience the festive crush of humanity I missed earlier, I’ve taken to jumping into revolving doors with complete strangers.

Of course, I don’t want my Partner F to miss out on all of the fun. So, as a special treat I’ve set his alarm set for 3:00 am tomorrow morning. Shhh …. Don’t tell anyone. It’s meant to be a surprise. Happy (Online) Holiday Shopping everyone!

How about you? Have you ever made a purchase through a points earning online shopping portal? What has been your experience?

Pointing, Shopping Portals

Not Feeling Guilty over Gilt – 1500 United MileagePlus Miles for Buying Designer Duds

December 18, 2012 Point A

The luxury online retailer Gilt Groupe has just announced the opportunity to earn 1500 United MileagePlus Miles. Through Gilt.com you can purchase designer clothing, shoes, accessories, home furnishings, food or wine at discounts of up to 60% or more.

New Gilt.com members will receive the bonus miles after registering and making a $50 purchase. In addition, for the first six months of membership, you’ll earn 5 miles for every dollar spent on the site. Bonus miles will post within 6-8 weeks. This Pointing opportunity can be accessed at this special registration link for MileagePlus members.

Furthermore, you can earn even more bonus miles by accessing Gilt.com through several of the major online shopping portals.

Source: EVreward.com

This offer comes and goes and Gilt reserves the right to close registration and/or change the terms of the deal without notice. Therefore, it’s important that you read the full Terms and Conditions. I signed up for this deal earlier in the year and managed to earn 3,481 bonus miles while simultaneously stocking my closet with age inappropriate designer clothing. Sigh, maybe I should have just stuck to buying wine and cheese …

Deals, Shopping Portals

Pointing the Way to Learning a Foreign Language in 2013 – 12 Miles per Dollar for Purchasing a Rosetta Stone Course

December 12, 2012 Point A

The year is drawing to a close and I’m starting to contemplate what my New Year Resolutions will be. Of course, as they do every year, such standard goals as “Lose Weight,” “Get More Exercise” and “Learn a Foreign Language” make it on to my list. As I work towards becoming a “better me” in 2013, I’ve decided to tackle what I consider to be the least painful of my Resolutions.

Given that F and I will be going to the Amalfi Coast this Summer, I’ve decided to study Italian. Fortunately, I discovered that United’s MileagePlus Shopping Portal is offering the following special deal.

In addition, Rosetta Stone is offering some great discounts off the purchase price of their language courses.

As I indicated in an earlier post, Online Shopping Portals are a great way to earn bonus miles for purchases that you were planning on making anyway.

I’ve taken a Rosetta Stone course before and enjoy the company’s approach to learning languages. I’m eager to learn Italian and hope to fully partake of the culture and engage with the locals.

More importantly, our trip will coincide with the country’s annual Summer Sales period. By the time I hit Italian shores, I want to be able to confidently stride into a store and, with my head held high, confidently inquire whether the pair of trousers I’m interested in comes in a Men’s “Husky” size.

Sigh. Then again, I should probably focus on the “Lose Weight” and “Get More Exercise” portions of my New Year Resolutions list as well …

Pointing, Shopping Portals

In Search of a Pink Volleyball … and Earning the Most Points from Online Shopping Portals

December 1, 2012 Point A

My sister in California recently sent me my niece’s wish list for her 10^th birthday. As they live not far from the beach I wasn’t surprised that a volleyball was at the top of the list. Combined with my niece’s emergence as strong swimmer and her attendance at Surf Camp earlier in the year, beach volleyball is a natural progression for this young lady. She is certainly growing up to be the classic California Girl (cue Wipeout and run the Gidget clip).

Of course, I wanted to make sure that my niece hits the beach with a bit of style and flair. Therefore, as I went online to look for a volleyball I wanted to see if I could get this piece of sports equipment in her favorite color – pink! Fortunately I was able to find the following at SportsAuthority.com for only $14.99.

As I mentioned in my last post, making this purchase through an online shopping portal and using a rewards earning credit card will enable me to earn points for the transaction. In addition, using the right portal and card can earn me a significant multiple above the base purchase price of the product. However, given the various options for shopping sites, how do I make a decision on which portal to use?

For situations such as these, I find EVreward.com to be a very helpful resource. The site is a directory of online shopping sites that allows you to make side-by-side comparisons of your various rewards options. For example, a search for The Sports Authority reveals the following earning opportunities:

My primary frequent flyer program is United and, as you can see from this chart, I can earn 2 miles per $ by using the MileagePlus Shopping site. However, I also use the Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa which earns me Ultimate Rewards points which can be transferred on a 1:1 basis into the MileagePlus program. By making this purchase through the Ultimate Rewards Mall (note: You need to be a card member in order to use the site), I can earn 3 miles per $. This in fact, is what I did and I earned the following which was calculated on my $14.99 base purchase price.

However, what is interesting about this transaction is that even though I need the Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa to access the Ultimate Rewards Mall, I do not have to use this card in order to pay for the purchase. Instead, I opted to use my Chase United MileagePlus Club Visa which earns 1.5 miles per dollar.

As a result, I earned 45 Ultimate Rewards Points along with 35 MileagePlus points for a total of 80 points. If I had made the purchase using my Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa only, my overall point total would have been 68 points.

As you can see, it’s worthwhile to do a little bit of comparison shopping before you launch into your online shopping. By using EVreward.com you can do some reconnaissance into the best way to maximize your reward points totals. Which reminds, I’m starting to run low on toothpaste and laundry detergent. I think it’s time to head over to Drugstore.com …

Pointing, Shopping Portals

Pointing My Way to the (Online) Shopping Mall

November 29, 2012 Point A 2 Comments

Last week I ended up sleeping through Black Friday as I was nursing a serious turkey and pumpkin pie hangover. Upon returning to the office, back-to-back “catching up” meetings kept me away from my computer. Before I knew it, Cyber Monday had slipped by me as well. The Holidays are upon us. I’m feeling seriously guilty about not doing my part to boost our economy. I should have been out there with everyone else partaking in a spree of rampant consumerism.

I know the shopping MUST get done. However, I’m loath to brave the crowds on Michigan Avenue. I’d much rather sit in the comfort of my own home in my boxers shorts, inhale a bag of Skinny Pop popcorn and mouseclick my way through my shopping “to do” lists as a marathon of Christmas-themed movies on Lifetime plays in the background. Of course, what would make things even better is if I was able to earn points the whole time I was doing this.

It is here where the concept of the online shopping portal comes into play. Many of the major airlines maintain sites that enable the shopper to earn points by patronizing a variety of online retailers. In order to use a shopping portal, you simply login with your frequent flyer number, identify an online retailer that is of interest to you and “click through” to the retailer’s regular website where you complete the transaction as you normally would. The portal notes the transaction and awards you bonus points for the purchase. Although you can use any credit card to make your purchase, you can maximize your Pointing by paying with your favorite awards earning credit card. In other words, you would earn points from shopping through the portal AND points associated with the card that you are using.

Some of the major Airline Online Shopping Portals include the following:

Several of the airlines are also offering bonus points for channeling your purchases through their shopping portals:

American: Earn 500 bonus miles (up to a maximum of 2000 miles) for every $250 spent through December 17.

United: Earn 500 bonus miles (up to a maximum of 2500 bonus miles) for every $250 spent through December 31.

US Airways: Earn 300, 500 or a maximum of 1000 bonus miles when you spend $150, $250 or $500 through December 31.

Nevertheless, I realize that by shopping at home I am missing out on the camaraderie that arises when you cram large numbers of bargain hungry consumers into a confined space. Therefore, in order to reproduce the “popular discount store” Black Friday experience I slept through last week, I plan on waking my Partner F at 3:00 am and making him stand in line in front of our refrigerator. At 4:00 am as I open the door of our Sub-Zero, I will promptly body-check him as we both dive for the last bottle of Go-Go Mixed Berry Flavored Vitamin Water Zero.

Aaahh … I love the smell of a Pointing opportunity in the morning. Happy Holiday Shopping everyone!