If you’re like me, you probably make lots of purchases on the internet.
You probably also use your favorite mile or point card to make those purchases so that you earn miles on those purchases.
So far, so good!
But did you know that you could earn even MORE miles by making your purchase through airline or hotel shopping portals?
Air Miles Shopping Example
Say you want to buy a $100 microwave oven from Target.com
If you buy the microwave from Target.com you will earn 100 miles if you use a regular mileage card such as the Citi AAdvantage Visa or the Chase United Mileage Plus Visa (which earns 1 mile per dollar spent).
But by clicking through to Target via the AAdvantage e-shopping mall you will earn an EXTRA 3 AAdvantage miles per dollar or an EXTRA 300 miles.
Earn 300% MORE Miles By Shopping Through An Airline Shopping Portal
That’s right – by using the AAdvantage e-shopping mall you earn 300% EXTRA miles!
Gary Leff of View From the Wing Blog posted again today about a neat website which I’ve been using for some time - EV Reward.
And do take advantage of online shopping portals, and let EV Reward be your guide to which portal offers the best deal for a given purchase.
BTW, if you’re serious about increasing your miles and points knowledge, you have to read View From The Wing – it is one of the best sources for airline award booking tips, ways to earn miles, and how to spend miles and points in the most decadent way possible. Gary freely shares his extensive knowledge acquired over many years of travel!
EV Reward evaluates which online shopping portal offers the best deal (cashback or miles and points) for your purchase.
Let’s continue with our example of wanting to purchase a $100 microwave from Target.
Enter “Target” in th EV Reward search box and hit “Find Rewards.”
Use EV Reward To Get More Miles While Shopping Online!
You’ll see a list of options sorted by:
- Cash Back Rewards
- College Saving Plan & Other Savings Rewards
- Frequent Flyer Miles & Hotel Rewards
Usually you can earn more Frequent Flyer Miles or Hotel Points than Cash Back, but keep a look-out for cases where the Cash Back is much more than the Frequent Flyer Miles or Hotel Points.
In our example, we can earn between .25 Air Tran Rewards per $100 spent to 6 Choice Privileges Points per $1 spent.
Now, more points thru one program does NOT necessarily mean that it is a better program. You need to evaluate the value of each point to you.
In this example, I would prefer 3 AAdvantage miles to 3 Delta SkyMiles because I value Advantage miles more than Delta Sky Miles and also because currently each AAdvantage mile counts towards lifetime Gold or Platinum status.
EV Reward Results For Shopping At Target
Once you have identified in which program you’d like to earn additional miles, click on “Go” and you will be taken to that program’s online shopping mall. In our case, it will be the AAdvantage e-Shopping Mall.
Complete your purchase and by clicking thru to Target.com from the AAdvantage e-Shopping Mall.
This simple change in your online shopping habit will earn you many more miles! Bookmark EV Reward now!
I regularly use the AAdvantage e-Shopping Mall to make my Groupon purchases. Groupon.com offers you great deals every day and you can check out my review of Groupon here.
Update: Million Mile Secrets reader Larry (Thanks, Larry!!) reminds us that some portals may require us to register our credit cards to get the extra bonus points.
If you liked this post, why don’t you sign-up to receive free blog posts in your email or in a RSS reader …because that way you’ll never miss another tip on earning more miles and points!
Are there any other ways to juice up your online spending to earn even more miles?
Update: Blog reader Mary Alice (Thanks, Mary Alice!!), informs us that United is offering an extra 1,000 Mileage Plus miles if you spend $100 via the Mileage Plus Shopping Portal by June 30, 2011.
I have earned and redeemed millions of airline miles and hotel points to travel the world for free. Now I'm blogging to help more people do the same! 
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Hey there, I saw you over on FT.
Just an FYI, United is running a June promo for shopping, so if you spend $100 by June 30th, you will get a 1,000 mile bonus!
Happy Blogging.
Mary Alice
@Mary Alice – Thanks for the tip – I’ve updated the blog post to reflect the United promotion!
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Wow! I’m already hooked on your blog. You are part of my Google reader each morning and I have shared your blog with several of my friends. Are you planning to attend the Chicago DO this October? You would be a great addition to the list of speakers.
@Michael - Thanks for your kind words! I will be attending the Chicago DO this year, so perhaps we can meet and chat over there!
I tried searching for Safeway on EV Rewards and the results were offering 800 AAdvantage miles per $. Does that mean per dollar? That can’t be right, can it?
@Peter - I checked EV Rewards and it did show 800 miles! With trembling fingers, I hurried over to the AAdvantage shopping portal, entered, “Safeway, ” and clicked on “retailer details” only to find the offer terms said “Valid for new customers of Safeway only. You must make a paid transaction on Safeway.”
So it seems like it is 800 miles per order, ONLY for NEW customers. My heart is still pounding at the thought of 800 miles per dollar!
It looks like evReward’s engine doesn’t look at Capital One’s shopping portal, Perk Central. I would expect to see them listed in the Points Programs section of the results page. But I did a search for several of CapOne’s retailer partners with evReward, and came up empty each time. Check out Sears.com, Walmart, Best Buy. Maybe I’m missing something.
CapOne Venture is a very popular card among travel hackers now, after this spring’s huge point giveaway. I hope evReward can close this gap in their coverage.
Same problem with Chase’s Ultimate Rewards shopping portal. Another big program missing from their coverage.
So, even after checking evRewards, I still have to check the CapOne and Ultimate Rewards portals individually. This reduces the value of evRewards to me quite a bit.
@Joe- I just checked – and you’re right! – evReward doesn’t appear to check Capital One and Chase. But since, evRewards does check Citi and Amex, perhaps they will add in Capital One and Chase later.
However, evReward is still useful to me, because even with this miss in coverage, I only need to check 3 websites instead of a gazillion! But thanks for letting us know!
The Safeway offer is 800 miles per order. And you need to order for at least $50 in order for them to deliver. So it is not a very good deal unless you are ordering something that you would have ordered anyway
@The Nomad - The Safeway offer was for NEW users only. There was also an offer for free shipping for new users which means that you could order something really cheap like a toothbrush, and get 800 miles for it. But otherwise, you’re correct in that it is not such a great deal!
I was just rereading this post and realized that you never mention that on some of these shopping portals they require you have your credit cards registered to get the extra miles from using their shopping portal.
@Larry -Thanks! I’ll update the post to reflect that you may need to register your credit cards on some of these portals to get the extra miles.
In your experience, have you received credit from the Aadvantage shopping portal without registering your credit cards. I have purchased quite a few things through there, but didn’t register my credit cards. Worried i may not get the miles. Just curious, how long after purchasing your groupon have the miles posted to your AA account? 6-8 weeks like it says or longer? Thanks. Great blog.
@NW – Yes, I have received credit when I’ve shopped at the AAdvantage shopping portal even though I used an unregistered card. At least for the AA shopping portal, registering your cards ensures that you get miles when you shop at brick & mortar retailers, but you’ll get miles for shopping online as long as you access the retailer through the AA shopping portal. I’ve always got my miles within 4 to 5 weeks, so yes, it does take time to get the miles!
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I might be wrong but I never saw anybody talking about this: we can make 2 miles per dollar when booking online through American airlines and using your Citi card, right? But you know, you could go to AAeShipping and buy American airlines gift certificate from giftcertificates.com and you will make 4 miles per dollar, plus an extra mile if you use your Citi card to pay for it, total 5 miles instead the 2 offered by AA. Better then that, AA allows you to use up to 8 giftcards to book your ticket so, it is much bigger deal buying gift certificates instead.
@Josinei – That’s a great idea – especially since some AA cards give you 1 mile per $1 spent!
I saw Josenei’s post above and it got me thinking…. Could you use AA miles to book an economy level award flight, and then buy the AA certificates mentioned with 5 points for $ spent, and then use those gift certificates to upgrade from economy to first class? Would there be value in this, or better to use additional AA miles and upgrade when booking the initial flight? I can’t remember the upgrade costs for AA….