How to earn Points and Miles on your Holiday Shopping!
Use more than just credit cards for Black Friday and Holiday Shopping!
With a slew of holidays not too far away, now is the time to begin preparing to earn points and miles on your travel to fund all your adventures next year. As you make your list and determine the purchases you want, check the following sites to see if your purchase can earn you additional miles. Keep in mind, that you do not always need a credit card to earn points and miles!
This is the perfect place to start searching stores before purchasing. It allows you to search by store to see where the top cashback, miles, or points are and how to get them.
I recently needed to purchase Beats for my nephew’s birthday and was able to search different stores that sell them on Cashback Monitor. It showed me that I could earn 8x the points by using the Chase Portal, and by using my Chase Freedom Card and paying with Paypal, I could earn an additional 5x the points because that is one of the current Q4 Bonuses for the Chase Freedom Card!
I plan to use this site as I plan out all of my holiday purchases, if you wanna learn more about cashback monitor and how to use it check out this video.
2. Simply Miles
This is the perfect site to earn American Airlines Miles. You create an account using a master card and then activate the offers. Once activated, I clicked shop and began shopping. I was able to use this to earn miles on my Amazon Purchases!
They currently have a promo for Amazon, so if you need to make any purchases before 11/30/2024, this is the perfect time to do so.
My miles from my initial Amazon purchases showed up in about 3 days in my American Airlines account.
Keep in mind that there is a limit for some of the offers so make sure to read the fine print!
If you need more information about the process, check out the website or this video.
3. Rakuten
Rakuten is one of my all-time favorite sites to earn either cashback or Membership Reward points (American Express points). This is the website that I have used the longest. I initially started with getting cashback before recently switching over to membership rewards.
The best way to use Rakuten is to download the extension to your browser so that it pops up on your shopping sites for you to activate. You can either receive your pay in cash, via check or Paypal. or points every 3 months to your connected account. The next check is on 11/15/2024.
Rakuten is not solely for online shopping. You can even use it in stores by activating the store in the app and using the connected card!
What I really like about Rakuten during the holidays is the bonus amounts increase dramatically so instead of the 2% you see pictures you often see 15%
Tip: You cannot activate Rakuten and a shopping portal at the same time. You will need to choose which one you want to earn points from!
4. Credit Card Offers
When you log into your credit cards, there are often offers that you can activate to get cashback. This can save you money as you shop!
During the Holiday season, I check this area for each card weekly to make sure that I am not missing out on any offers.
I even activate ones that I am not sure if I will use just in case I do use them!
Make sure to check all of your cards and the fine print to make sure you understand how to use the offers! American Express recently had an offer for Amazon!
5. Shopping portals
Almost every airline has a shopping portal that you can utilize to earn points and miles while shopping at your favorite stores! To make it even easier, you can even download the browser extensions to be able to activate the miles when you are shopping. This makes it so that you will not miss out on any opportunities to earn miles when online shopping! Once you go to the site you will see a pop-up similar to the one below and then, I can choose to activate the Delta Shopping Portal or the Rakuten shopping depending on what I am trying to earn.
Conclusion
Make sure to map out how you will be shopping over the next few months to get the most points possible. Last year I relied heavily on Rakuten but I am excited this year to be able to up my strategy by using Chase Freedom when I can pay with pay Paypal to earn additional points on top of one of the shopping portals, credit card offers or Rakuten.
The key to shopping for the holiday season and earning points and miles is double dipping. Using one of the above methods and then also earning points via one of your credit cards will allow you to maximize your points earnings! This will make your travel in 2025 easier. Once you get your points make sure to transfer to your favorite airline to get the most bang for your buck!
Save for Later!
| Travel Resources | Information about Resources |
| Airalo | If you need phone service while out of the country, check out Airalo to avoid all the fees. |
| Amazon | Find the perfect items for your next vacation! |
| Booking.com | If you want to book a mix of hotels and houses check out booking.com! |
| Expedia | If you need a package that includes flight + hotel or want to add a car? Expedia is the perfect site to book an entire vacation. |
| Priority Pass | If you do not have a credit card, you can still get lounge access by purchasing a Priority Pass Membership! |
| Ticketmaster | Heading to a concert or event, make sure to check out Ticketmaster. |
| Vrbo | Find the perfect rental house for your vacation and/or staycation. |
| Viator | The perfect place to find all your excursions and things to do in the many cities you visit. |
