Earn points, miles or cash back: How to maximize online shopping portals for your purchases

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Nov. 21, 2024

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13 min read

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Most of us make regular purchases at retail stores and sites, whether for pet supplies, home decor, clothing or gifts. While these purchases can add up quickly — especially leading up to the holidays — they rarely fall into the bonus categories on rewards credit cards, making it harder to earn extra points and miles on them. That's where online shopping portals come in.

Online shopping portals offer an easy way to earn bonus points or miles on purchases you're already making. Some even provide discounts in the form of cash back. For instance, Rakuten is currently offering a one-time $40 bonus for new members who join with a referral link (and make qualifying purchases), as well as the person who referred them. Plus, many shopping portals offer lucrative holiday bonuses.

In this guide, we'll explore some of the top online shopping portals and how you can maximize your rewards when shopping.

Basics of online shopping portals

Let's start with a quick overview of what these portals do. At the most basic level, shopping portals allow you to earn bonus points, miles or cash back at hundreds of online retailers.

All you need to do is log in to your online shopping portal of choice. Then click the store where you want to shop, and you will be redirected to the store's website and can shop as normal.

You're still purchasing the same items directly from the merchant, but because you started at the shopping portal, you'll earn bonus points or miles. However, this generally only applies to the subtotal of your purchase (excluding taxes and shipping fees).

In addition, you'll still earn points or miles on the rewards credit card you use, making this an easy way to double dip.

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Here's an example: Let's say you plan on buying Grandma a gift from Macy's.

That item costs $100 if you purchase it directly from macys.com, plus $20 in taxes and shipping. Since you want to maximize your purchase, you plan to use your Citi Double Cash® Card (see rates and fees) to take advantage of the 2% cash back it offers on purchases (1% when you buy and 1% when you pay your bill).

However, you notice that Rakuten is offering an additional 2% back at Macy's. You begin there and click through to macys.com to complete the purchase.

Thus, you'll earn the following:

$120 x 2% cash back on the Citi Double Cash = $2.40
$100 x 2% cash back through the portal = $2

If you had shopped directly on macys.com, you would've missed out on the extra $2 you got through Rakuten. You've earned additional rewards — and you're still getting the same item for the same price. Plus, with Rakuten, you can opt to earn American Express Membership Rewards points instead of cash back. Therefore, from this purchase, you could earn 200 Amex points, which TPG values at $4 per our November 2024 valuations.

How is this possible?

You might wonder how these portals can do this. After all, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But there's no catch here. In exchange for directing you to a specified merchant, the portal will take a cut of any purchase you make from the retailer. It's a win-win-win situation for all involved: The merchant gets more business, the portal generates more revenue and you earn extra rewards.

You may think that an extra few dollars or points here and there won't make much of a difference. However, if you consistently utilize shopping portals, you can easily rack up a significant amount of points, miles or cash back in a year. The beauty of this process is that you're earning additional rewards for things you would've bought anyway — an especially savvy move to address some of the cost increases we've been seeing.

Types of online shopping portals

Now that you know how they work, let's take a look at the major types of shopping portals out there. You can generally group them into three categories:

Airline and hotel loyalty programs
Credit cards
Cash back

Let's dive into each one to get a sense of the possibilities.

Airline and hotel loyalty programs

Almost every major airline has an online shopping portal (as do select hotel programs), and they work similarly. While the exact login process may vary slightly, each one will award bonus points or miles based on your purchases across hundreds of retailers. Here's a handy list of links for the most popular airlines:

In addition to the standard earning rates these sites offer, many frequently run promotions as an added incentive. These typically cover transactions across all participating merchants over a set period, and you can usually earn different bonuses depending on how much you spend in total. For example, bonuses often launch around the winter holidays or back-to-school time. Be sure to bookmark our permanent page to keep up with these offers.

Finally, some portals will allow you to link your credit card and earn additional points and miles for in-store shopping — like this set of retailers through United's site.

Credit cards

Some card issuers offer their own online shopping portals where you can stack your credit card earnings. They are:

Capital One Shopping (only cash back, not bonus miles)
Barclays RewardsBoost
Shop Through Chase
Citi Shop

To utilize most of these portals, you must have an active credit card account that earns rewards in the bank's program. The exception is Capital One Shopping, which is free and available to everyone.

In 2024, Citi entered the credit card issuers' shopping portal space. Launched as a web browser extension, Citi Shop automatically scans for coupons and other offers at over 5,000 online merchants. These offers include coupons and statement credits. You're only able to use the shopping portal if you have an eligible U.S. Citi card. Users can find a list of participating cards when they go to enroll in the Citi Shop program, and you can download the Citi Shop extension in your browser's app store.

If you have a Chase card that earns Ultimate Rewards points, keep in mind that Chase allows 1:1 transfers to more than a dozen travel partners. You could effectively earn World of Hyatt points, United miles or British Airways Avios, for example, by logging in to your Chase account and launching Shop Through Chase.

Although American Express doesn't have its own shopping portal, there is a way to earn bonus Amex points when shopping online (more on that in a bit).

Cash back

The final category of online shopping portals consists of those offering extra cash back on your purchases. This is a great option for anyone who doesn't want to bother with keeping track of airline miles or credit card points. In some instances, you can even earn bonuses for booking hotel reservations through these sites.

That being said, going for cash back also adds complexity, as there are over a dozen competing sites out there. Some of our favorites are:

Most rates tend to fall in the 1% to 5% range, though you may find limited-time specials at select merchants.

Hybrid option

One of the best sites — and the one that TPG staffers use most frequently — is Rakuten. This portal started in the realm of cash-back earnings, but in 2019, it added the option to earn American Express Membership Rewards points. You can earn Amex points at a ratio of $0.01 to 1 Membership Rewards point, so a merchant offering 1% cash back would instead provide 1 point per dollar spent.

Based on TPG's November 2024 valuations, which peg Amex points at 2 cents apiece, opting for points over cash back effectively doubles your return with Rakuten. Since the site works with over 3,500 stores, it's among the most expansive online shopping portals. It has a browser extension that will notify you when a merchant offers a bonus, and it also has in-store offers.

How do I find the best offer?

As you can see, this is a dizzying array of options — and if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're not alone. Fortunately, there's a fast, easy way to sort through them for your next online shopping spree.

Let's say you're ready to make a purchase at a specific retailer, but you don't know which shopping portal to use. You have accounts with virtually every program discussed above, but does that mean you need to manually load each portal to see what bonus you'd earn?

Thanks to the magic of shopping portal aggregators like Cashback Monitor, you don't. If you've never used it, you should bookmark it for future reference.

In essence, a shopping portal aggregator allows you to pull up a specific retailer and see the earning rate you'd get across all applicable shopping portals. This allows you to quickly compare earning rates and determine which portal offers the best return for your chosen merchant.

If you sign in with your social media or Google account, which is free, you can access advanced features like choosing your favorite portals and setting a value for each loyalty currency. The default on the site is 1 cent per point or mile, but if you add the numbers from TPG's most recent valuations (for example), the site will automatically update the return you'd get on your purchases — as you see in the above screenshot.

Additionally, instead of trying to remember each different shopping portal, you can simply add a browser extension to Google Chrome. While you're shopping, this browser extension will inform you of deals and discounts and sometimes offer coupons at checkout.

Important tips and reminders

Accessing online shopping portals is relatively straightforward, but there are a few essential things to keep in mind:

You must click through the link on the portal's site and then purchase from the page that pops up. Don't navigate away and return later; you may miss out on rewards.
You must ensure you have cookies enabled in your browser for the retailer's site. This allows the portal to "track" your purchases and award bonuses accordingly.
Only use promotions or promo codes found on the portal; if you use others, the purchase may become ineligible for bonus points or miles.
Read the restrictions for each merchant. Many won't count gift cards as eligible bonus purchases; others exclude specific products. Earning rates at a particular merchant may vary by category — for instance, appliance purchases at Home Depot may earn only 0.5 points per dollar, while home decor and kitchenware may earn 2 points per dollar.
Use a credit card with the best earning rate on your purchase. Most of these merchants don't fall into the traditional bonus categories, so you'll probably want to stick with a good card for everyday purchases.

That said, you should be able to stack most Amex Offers, Chase Offers, Citi Merchant Offers and bonuses from American's SimplyMiles site with rewards through online shopping portals. The vast majority of these offers are based solely on the total amount of your purchase and don't require any coupon code, so it shouldn't create any issues.

Aside from the rewards, shopping portals are an excellent way to keep loyalty accounts active since spending even a single dollar through a shopping portal can be enough to keep your points and miles from expiring. That can be a lifesaver if you haven't banked travel to your account in a while and don't have a viable option to transfer points from elsewhere.

Bottom line

Online shopping portals are a fantastic way to earn bonus points, miles or cash back for online purchases at various merchants. Even if you're only earning an extra mile or two for every dollar you spend, these earnings can quickly add up and go a long way toward redemptions like first-class flights and luxury hotel rooms, or even spending money for your next trip.

Now is a great time to start if you haven't already utilized these portals. We generally recommend Rakuten as one of the best options thanks to the flexibility of Amex points and the sheer number of merchants on the site, but explore all of the above options to determine which would work best for you.

Featured image by POPARTIC/GETTY IMAGES

Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.