Online shopping portals are an effortless way to earn bonus cash back and travel rewards — here's how they work (2023)

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• Online shopping portals help you to earn bonus rewards for online purchases.
• Many airline and hotel loyalty programs have their own shopping portals — and some credit card issuers, too.
• You can "double dip" on rewards by using a rewards credit card through an online shopping portal.
• Read Insider's guide to the best rewards credit cards.

Do you shop online with even mild regularity? If you aren't using online shopping portals, you're forfeiting cash, airline miles, hotel points, and bank points that could very well springboard your next vacation.

Using shopping portals is one of the most powerful steps you can take to immediately improve your rewards earnings. It's easy to do, and it doesn't alter the shopping experience in any way. Shopping portals are extremely low-hanging fruit that pay off in a big way.

Here's everything you need to know about shopping portals, including how to use them, tricks to maximizing them, and pitfalls to avoid.

An online shopping portal is a website that gives you bonus rewards simply for beginning your shopping with them.

You can access thousands of merchants through shopping portals. Once you find the store you want in the merchant directory, you'll be taken to the official store website. For the most part, you won't notice any difference during your shopping; the prices are the same and the merchant code won't change when the purchase posts to your credit card.

The only thing to note is that occasionally a shopping portal will specify that you can't use a store coupon or promo code at checkout. If you find this in the shopping portal's fine print, you'll have to do the math to see which route will save you the most money.

Each shopping portal offers its own unique payout for making purchases. For example:

• You may earn a fixed number of points per dollar you spend, unique for each merchant (for example, 5x points with Macy's versus 2x points with Apple)
• You may receive a few thousand points for enrolling in a food or media subscription
• You may receive 1,000+ bonus points if it's your first time using a particular shopping portal

Some portals also publish promotions that reward you for spending a specified amount of money.

Which programs offer online shopping portals?

The vast majority of airlines — and a few hotels — have their own proprietary shopping portals. This is a great way to rack up bonus miles and points from your couch.

Here are some popular shopping portals from travel programs:

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping
• American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping
• Delta SkyMiles Shopping
• JetBlue TrueBlue Shopping
• Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping
• United MileagePlus Shopping
• Wyndham Rewards
• Amtrak Guest Rewards

There are also many travel-unrelated shopping portals that pay you in cash back, such as:

• TopCashback
• Rakuten (you can choose to earn cash back or Amex Membership Rewards points)
• BeFrugal
• Upromise

Some credit card issuers like Chase, Citi, and Barclays have their own versions of shopping portals, which require you to log into your account to use them. With these portals, you can earn bonus bank points or cash back.

With all these options, it can be hard to discern where to find the biggest return for your shopping. Shopping portal bonuses are always changing, after all. Here's how to stay on top of the best deals.

Shopping portal aggregators allow you to view all the shopping portal deals in one place. This can save literally hours for those who shop online with regularity.

Examples of shopping portal aggregators are:

• Cashback Monitor
• Evreward
• Cashbackholic

My favorite by far is Cashback Monitor. It gives you a digestible rundown of the most viewed stores, as well as the stores currently offering the highest return.

With Cashback Monitor, you can simply enter the store at which you want to shop and it will display all shopping portals participating with that particular store. Results are organized by:

• Cash back
• Travel miles/points
• Credit card points
• Other reward points

And while the website orders its list of portals by return rate, you can rearrange this list to reflect your personal value of each rewards currency. For example, let's say you value American Airlines miles twice as much as Southwest points. If a shopping portal is paying 4 American Airlines miles per dollar and 7 Southwest points per dollar, Cashback Monitor would list American Airlines miles before Southwest because it knows the return rate is better for you.

To set up preferences like this, you'll have to create a Cashback Monitor account (it's free).

Tips for maximizing shopping portals

Use browser extensions

Internet browser extensions are an excellent way to save money when shopping online. They follow you around (in an extremely non-sinister way) and alert you if the product you're viewing will earn rewards through a shopping portal. If you install more than one extension, you may receive a series of handy pop-ups whenever an item qualifies.

The most helpful extensions include:

• Rakuten
• Capital One Shopping
• American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping
• Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping button
• United Airlines MileagePlus Shopping button

Again, Rakuten allows you to earn either cash back or Amex Membership Rewards points (1 cent = 1 point). In other words, if a store is offering 8% back via Rakuten, you can earn up to 8 Amex points per dollar.

Insider values Amex points at 1.8 cents each toward travel, meaning an 8% return is actually around 14.4%. If you know the best ways to use Amex Membership Rewards points, choosing to earn points instead of cash is the way to go.

Double (or triple) dip on rewards

The rewards you earn through online shopping portals are completely separate from the rewards you'll earn from other avenues on the same purchase. If you use a rewards credit card, you'll earn points, miles, or cash back from your credit card in addition to the shopping portal bonus.

For example, if you buy a laptop at Staples through the Wyndham Rewards shopping portal with your Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, you'll receive:

• 9 Wyndham points per dollar for shopping through the portal (offer current at the time of post writing)
• 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar (5% back) for using your Ink Business Cash at Staples (the card earns 5x points at office supply stores*)

That's quite a points haul — effectively 14 points per dollar. A reasonably priced laptop will likely earn you more than 10,000 points.

You can add another level to shopping portals by incorporating Amex Offers**. Amex Offers are targeted statement credits or bonus points that trigger when you enroll your card and spend at select merchants. For example, I've currently got an offer on The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express for 10% back at Dell, up to a total of $1,500.

At the time of writing, if I buy a $500 computer monitor from Dell via the American Airlines shopping portal, I'll get:

• 1,000 American Airlines miles (2 miles per dollar for using the American Airlines shopping portal)
• $50 statement credit (10% back on my Dell purchase with Amex Offers)
• 1,000 Amex Membership Rewards points (2 points per dollar for spending with The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express***)

That's 2,000 points and a $50 rebate for triple-stacking deals. Here's Insider's guide to stacking credit card rewards with portal discounts and promotions to learn how to save big on your shopping.

Look for holiday promotions

Throughout the year, but especially around the holidays, shopping portals issue promotions incentivizing you to spend specific dollar amounts with them. They're often tiered — something like:

• Spend $250, earn 500 bonus points
• Spend $500, earn 1,000 bonus points
• Spend $750, earn 3,000 bonus points

If you're going to be making purchases anyway, it's worth perusing your favorite shopping portal to see if they've got an active promotion like this.

In-store purchases

If you're the kind of person that will scratch and claw for every extra point, you can also use shopping portals in-store. If you see something you like, simply log onto your favorite shopping portal, make your purchase, and choose in-store pickup. Many stores prepare your order in about an hour — but this strategy is only worth it if you'll be hanging around the store for a while.

What to watch out for

Not all purchases qualify

Read the portal's fine print before you check out. Some items are exempt from earning bonus rewards (cash equivalents such as gift cards are commonly ineligible for earning shopping portal rewards).

Ad blockers may foil your earnings

A shopping portal works by directing you to your desired merchant and then tracking your activity until checkout. Ad blockers often prevent shopping portals from tracking you, meaning the portal won't have a record of your purchase — and you'll get no rewards.

Fortunately, many portals will warn you that your ad blocker is preventing them from tracking you, giving you an opportunity to temporarily disable it before checkout.

Some promotions disqualify your order

If you enter a promo code or coupon code at checkout, this will sometimes disqualify you from earning shopping portal rewards. It's not a rule — you can sometimes get away with it — but unless the savings outweighs the bonus points, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Bottom line

Shopping portals can earn you a significant amount of miles, points, or cash back on purchases you intended to make anyway. If you're not using them with regularity, you're losing money with every purchase.

With shopping portal aggregators, it's very easy to find the best portal for your specific purchase. And with browser extensions, you can often earn rewards without even visiting a portal at all.

*5% cash back and 2% cash back on the Ink Business Cash® Credit Card on up to $25,000 in combined purchases each year, then 1% cash back

***With the The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, 2 points per dollar on all purchases up to $50,000 per calendar year, then 1 point per dollar