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Wouldn’t it be great if we could get paid for buying things we were already going to buy? Wouldn’t it be great if we could earn our next free vacation from the purchases we make?

Well, I’m here to tell you that you can if you shop online through online shopping portals.

Online shopping portals are a great and easy way to earn cash back from purchases you’d probably make anyway. You can also earn hotel points, airline miles and credit card points simply by shopping online and visiting the retailer’s website through a shopping portal.

The great thing about online shopping portals is that nearly all airlines, hotels and credit card banks has an online shopping portal with hundreds of merchants we all shop at. Retailers such as Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Macy’s, Apple and any other retailer you shop at all likely do participate in many of these portals. Leveraging online shopping portals for anything and everything you buy online is a surefire way to get paid or earn some kind of reward for your purchases.

Here, I will show you everything you need to know about online shopping portals and how easy it is to use and earn rewards.

Basics of online shopping portals

All right, let’s first start with the basics. Online shopping portals are websites that allow you to earn bonus points, miles or cash back on your purchases as long as you shop online. Instead of normally going directly to the retailer’s website, you must first start at the online shopping portal and then click through to the retailer’s site. You are still purchasing the exact same items at the exact same price directly from the retailer on their website – the only difference here is you started at the shopping portal and will earn a reward for your purchase.

How do online shopping portals work?

When you click the link, the shopping portal places a cookie in your browser to track your shopping activity. After you complete a purchase on the retailer’s website, the online shopping portal will validate your purchase with the retailer and reward your account with bonus points, miles or cash back for the purchase.

And yes, this does mean that your personal data is tracked. The thing is, even if you use incognito mode or something similar, your information can still be tracked regardless of whether you use an online shopping portal or not. If you are the type who wants to avoid having your information tracked, then online shopping portals may not be for you. I personally do not mind since there are so many ways to get our information in today’s online world. I recommend reading their privacy policy to learn how they collect your data and what they do with it.

Another thing to note is that the bonus points/cash back applies only to the subtotal of your purchase (excluding taxes and shipping) and it can take days or weeks to credit your account with your rewards.

Do you have to shop online?

Although online shopping portals are meant for online shopping as the name implies, you do not necessarily have to shop online to use them and take advantage of the bonus earnings. Select cash back shopping portals, such as Rakuten, allow you to earn cash back by shopping in the store just like you would online.

All you need to do is manually link your credit card to the offer provided by the portal for the merchant you want to shop at. You will need to manually link the offer to your credit card for each merchant and the linked offer is only valid for one purchase. Next, you go to the store and pay with your linked credit card. You will then earn the cash back once the portal gets confirmation of your purchase from the merchant.

Based on my experience, the number of merchants available with in-store cash back is fewer than if you were to shop online. The earning rates are also usually lower. So if you want to maximize your earnings, shopping online is your best bet.

Double-dipping on rewards

What makes online shopping portals great is that you can double-dip and fast track your points and cash back earnings as you will still earn points or cash back on the credit card you use. I always recommend using a credit card for any and all purchases because it is a great way to build credit and get money back or rewards from your purchases. However, this only works if you use credit cards responsibly and pay the entire balance off each month.

Here’s a quick example on how you can double-dip on rewards.

I had to buy food for my dog Blue because I was running low. The food cost $48.44 after discounts and taxes from Petco and I paid with my Chase Freedom card through PayPal to take advantage of the 5% cash back it offers in Q4 of 2020. I also went to Petco.com through the AAdvantage eShopping portal, which offered 3x miles per dollar spent at Petco. Below is my receipt of the purchase.

I thus earned the following:

$48.44 x 5% on the Chase Freedom card = $2.42 (or 242 Ultimate Rewards Points)
$48.44 – $2.85 = $45.59 x 3 miles per dollar through the portal = 137 miles

Had I started directly at Petco.com, I would have missed out on the 137 AAdvantage miles – and I would have gotten the exact same item at the exact same price.

Sounds a little too good to be true?

You may be thinking that there is a catch. I mean, why would anyone pay or reward you to go shopping? It does sound a little bit too good to be true, but rest assured, there is no catch here.

Retailers have worked it out with the banks, airlines and other sites that own these online shopping portals so that they get a cut of any purchase you make from the retailer. In return, these portals help promote and direct consumers like us to the retailers, resulting in more business.

It’s a win-win-win. You get bonus points/cash back, the retailer gets additional business and the portal gets a cut from the retailer. Of course, the cut the online shopping portals receive from the retailer needs to be more than the expense of buying the points/miles they give us consumers or the cash back they give us. This means the points/cash back you earn is typically determined by how much the portals get from the retailers – the more they get, the more they can give you.

Are online shopping portals worth it?

You might be wondering if online shopping portals are worth it. After all, they do require some effort on your part. For one, there is an additional step you have to take, which is going through the portal first before visiting the retailer’s site. You also have to remember to do so; otherwise, you will not earn any additional bonus points or cash back.

Browser extensions

Thankfully there are browser extensions you can install so that you will be prompted to activate the portal, which makes it easier to remember although this could get a little annoying since you will be prompted every time you visit a retailer that participates in the portal – and the more portals you have, the more prompts you’ll have.

The amount of points/cash back you can earn from these online shopping portals can be quite lucrative. They can range anywhere from 1% to 20% cash back or 1 to 20 points per dollar.

You may also be thinking that an extra 100 points here or $10 there won’t make much of a difference. After all, in order to get $10 cash back, the portal needs to give you 10% cash back AND you would need to spend $100. However, if you consistently use these portals for everything you purchase online, you can easily and quickly rack up a significant amount of points or cash back in a year.

For instance, I use about six different online shopping portals, but I have racked up over $300 through Rakuten (referral link) in just three years. That’s over $100 a year from only one portal! The great thing about this process is I am earning additional bonus points/cash back for things I would have bought anyway.

And you can do it too!

Automatically applies discount codes

Besides earning bonus points, miles or cash back from your purchases, another feature that makes online shopping portals great is that all available discount codes offered by the retailer are automatically applied. When you go to check out and you have the portal activated, you will be prompted to apply the available discount codes. Each of the discount codes will be automatically applied one at a time and the best one will be used. This ensures you get the best savings.

Earn airline miles without flying

Before I learned of online shopping portals, I thought I would have to fly a lot to earn airline miles. I was quite discouraged to find out how slowly I was racking up points even though I was flying once or twice every other month with the same airline.

And I thought that was already a lot.

I was only accumulating on average 1,000-2,000 points per round trip so in a year I would total about 10,000 points. It was not fast enough for me for the amount of flying I was doing.

However, airline shopping portals allowed me to rack up points quickly without ever having to fly a single flight with the airline. Below you can see I enrolled in Alaska Airline’s shopping portal in May 2, 2020 and since have earned 9,850 miles from spending $1,315 on purchases I was going to make anyway. That’s nearly 10,000 points in 6 months without having to fly with Alaska Airlines at all. Now I can redeem those points for free flights with Alaska Airlines or any of their airline partners.

Additional bonus points/miles

Occasionally, airline online shopping portals will offer additional bonus miles for your purchases. For example, AAdvantage eShopping offered a tiered bonus of up to 4,000 additional miles that went until 11/22/2020.

Unfortunately, I was not able to take advantage of the entire bonus. However, since it’s a tiered bonus, I was able to get 500 bonus miles by spending $100. That 500 was on top of the 475 points I got from my two purchases totalling $133.

You can see how quickly points/miles or cash back can add up with online shopping portals. Those 975 points are nearly half the way there in getting a free one-way flight. According to The Points Guy, there were recent award sales that dropped Delta flight prices to as low as 2,500 miles. Although I don’t use Delta’s online shopping portal, you can see how easy it can be to score a free flight if Delta offered a similar bonus.

Different types of online shopping portals

In my opinion, there are four major types of online shopping portals: airlines, hotels, credit card points and straight cash back. One of them is a hybrid of credit card points and straight cash back.

Let’s look into each type so you can determine which one(s) would be best for you.

Airline shopping portals

The first type is airline shopping portals. Nearly every major airline has its own online shopping portal so you can likely earn bonus miles for your favorite airline(s). Here is a list of the major airline shopping portals:

As mentioned earlier, airline online shopping portals frequently run bonuses over a certain period of time to further incentivize you to shop. These bonuses typically are not based on purchases from a single store but rather across all participating retailers, making it more flexible and easy to earn the bonus.

The two portals I use are Alaska Airlines and American Airline because of their value and my travel goals. American miles allow me to book business/first-class flights on Qatar Airways to the Maldives whereas Alaska miles allow me to book business/first-class flights to one city in Asia with a free week-long layover in a second city.

Hotel shopping portals

There are only two hotel online shopping portals: Choice Privileges and Wyndham Rewards. Marriott and Hilton both used to have their own shopping portal but both have been discontinued.

Credit card shopping portals

The third type is credit card shopping portals. Several credit card issuers/banks have their own shopping portals. These portals allow you to fast track your credit card points or cash back earnings. There are currently four of these portals:

Barclays: RewardsBoost (points)
Chase: Ultimate Rewards Shop Through Chase (Ultimate Rewards Points)
Citi: Bonus Cash Center (cash back)
Wells Fargo: Earn More Mall (points)

You must have an open, active credit account that earn these points or cash back in the bank’s own program. For instance, you must own a Chase credit card that participates in their Ultimate Rewards program (either Sapphire cards, any of the Freedom cards, or any of the Ink cards) to use the Shop Through Chase online shopping portal. Using credit cards with online shopping portals automatically puts them at an advantage over other credit cards because you can earn more rewards.

But, remember, not all of these portals are created equal. Chase Ultimate Reward Points can be transferred to different partners so they are more valuable. For example, you may want to use Chase’s shopping portal instead of United’s and earn Ultimate Reward Points because United is one of Chase’s transfer partners. Since the transfer ratio is 1:1, getting more Ultimate Reward Points is better in this case because you can decide to turn them into United miles or transfer them to another airline or hotel whereas you would be stuck with United miles if you had used United’s portal. Unless you really are sure you want United miles and United is offering a higher earning rate, going with a flexible points program is the better choice.

Cash back shopping portals

The fourth and last type is cash back shopping portals. These portals are simple and straightforward – they provide you a percentage of your purchase subtotal back in the form of cash. These portals are great for those who do not like or want to bother with the hassle and headache airline miles and credit card points. The downside of these portals is that there are so many to choose from.

Here are the ones I use and recommend (normal, unaffiliated links are provided; affiliate links with sign-up bonuses are in parenthesis):

Cash back earning rates are typically in the 1 to 5% range, though you could find limited-time specials ranging 5 to 10% or more, especially around and during the holidays.

You can also sometimes earn cash back for booking airline tickets and hotel stays either directly or through online travel agencies (e.g. Expedia and Orbitz).

The cash back, credit card points hybrid portal that I referred to earlier is Rakuten (formerly known as Ebates). Starting in October of 2019, Rakuten allows you to choose between earning cash back or American Express Membership Rewards Points. This means if a merchant is offering 5% cash back, you can instead choose to earn 6 Amex Membership Rewards Points per dollar spent.

Rakuten is my top cash back online shopping portal of choice because of the flexibility of earning either cash back or Amex Membership Rewards Points at over 2,500 retailers. I used to earn Amex Membership Rewards Points but have recently switched back to cash back. I already am earning many different types of points (Chase Ultimate Rewards and airline miles) and I like to have a balance between points and cash back.

It’s worth noting that you can sign-up for Rakuten and currently earn $40 (or 4,000 Amex points) when you spend at least $40 through the portal in the first 90 days. This is only available through a referral link.

Payouts

Each online shopping portal has its own way of giving you your rewards. Airline portals automatically transfer your earned points to your Airline loyalty account as the two accounts are linked. Credit card portals are similar in that the points go directly into your credit card rewards account. Cashback portals do a couple of different things. For example, Top Cashback requires you to manually request a payout via bank transfer, PayPal, or gift card. Conversely, Rakuten automatically mails you a “big fat check” or credit your Amex Membership Rewards account every three months.

How to find the best shopping portal to use?

So how do you find which online shopping portal to use? Do you have to manually go to the merchant’s website through each portal to find out the earning rate?

Thankfully the answer to those questions is no. If you are like me and want to earn points, miles and cash back, you can use an online shopping portal aggregator like Cashback Monitor to determine what portals are offering the highest rewards for any merchant.

Online shopping portal aggregators

Online shopping portal aggregators are sites that keep track of all shopping portals and show you their earning rate. They allow you to quickly compare earning rates and determine which one offers the highest return for your purchase at an individual merchant. This is important because earning rates change daily.

Below are three aggregators:

My personal favorite and the one I use is Cashback Monitor because it’s always up-to-date and it has great features if you create an account. You can save your favorite portals (up to eight) and even assign a specific cash value to points and miles. Remember, miles and points can have very different values. Instead of displaying the number of points or miles you earn, you can display the percentage you are getting as a return, which is based on the value you assign.

The default value is 1 cent per mile or point. Above you can see I changed it to 2 cents per point for Chase UR and Rakuten (Amex MR). Now when I look up the earnings rate for a merchant, PetSmart for example, across all shopping portals, I can see which portal gives me the best value according to how I value each point currency.

Even though American AAdvantage is offering the same 4 miles per dollar as Chase’s 4 points per dollar at PetSmart, I am better off choosing Chase based on my value of Chase’s Ultimate Reward Points. According to The Points Guy and other points and miles sites, Chase UR points can be redeemed on average 2 cents per point. This feature in Cashback Monitor makes it easy for me to choose which shopping portal to use.

Helpful reminders and tips to maximize earnings

Now that you know all about online shopping portals, here are a few important tips and reminders to keep in mind.

You must first click through the shopping portal and then make a purchase from the retailer’s website page that pops up. Do not exit this page or wait too long before making the purchase – you may miss out on the bonus.
If you are shopping in-store, check to see if there is an in-store offer for the retailer and link the offer to the credit card you will be using.
Make sure to have cookies enabled and Ad blockers disabled on your browser for the retailer’s site. Portals need cookies to track your purchases so they can award you and ad blockers may prevent this tracking.
Be sure to read the restrictions for each retailer.
Use a credit card that gives you the best rate for everyday purchases. Most of these retailers do not fall under conventional bonus categories such as dining, travel and groceries. I recommend using a card that gives you at least 1.5x or 1.5%.

Non-qualifying/ineligible purchases

Not all items are qualified for bonus rewards. Be sure to read the restrictions in the fine print. Generally, gift cards are not eligible for bonus rewards through the portal.

Also, only use promotions or discount codes found on the portal. If you use other codes, the purchase may become ineligible.

Install a web browser extension

Adding a browser extension is a great way to ensure that you will not forget to use an online shopping portal and leave rewards on the table. They also make things easier by not having to go to the portal’s website. You can go directly to the retailer’s website and see a pop-up button prompting you to activate it if the portal is a partner of the retailer.

The button will automatically pop up, showing you the earning rate. Simply click “Activate” and earn the rewards for your purchase. The button also will show you the earning rate directly above the participating retailers that show up in your Google search results.

Keep track of promotions

Add your favorite stores to your online shopping portal(s) or Cashback Monitor so you can be alerted via email when there are higher bonus offers. If you do not want to be alerted, log-in to your accounts once in a while, especially around holidays, and look for promotions.

As an alternative, you can follow me on Twitter to be alerted to special promotions offered by shopping portals and credit cards. I monitor these kinds of things every week and can let you know about the ones I think are worthwhile.

Combine credit card offers with shopping portals

You can combine credit card offers with the rewards earned from shopping portals to get even greater returns. For instance, you can stack Amex Offers or Chase Offers.

Here is an example from a few months ago. I needed to buy a wireless keyboard for my home office and I found one I wanted. I could have bought the Logitech Craft keyboard from many retailers but I chose to buy it from Dell. There was an Amex Offer on my Blue Business Plus card that gave me 10% back on up to $1,500 and a $100 sign-up bonus credit.

At the time, American AAdvantage was offering 2 miles per dollar spent at Dell and a limited-time promotion for 2,000 bonus miles for spending $500.

My subtotal was $199.99 ($212,49 with taxes) and this was the last purchase I needed to earn the bonus miles.

Since I clicked through to Dell’s website via the American AAdvantage portal, I earned the following:

274 Amex Membership Rewards Points from standard earning rate of 2 points per dollar
400 miles from AAdvantage
2,000 bonus miles from AAdvantage

All of this amounted to a total of 2,400 AAdvantage miles (worth $24 or more) and 274 Amex MR Points (worth $2.74 at minimum) and I only had to spend $91.24. I also received a discount of $121.25 on the keyboard, which is 57%. Not too shabby!

Earn online shopping portal rewards in the store

As mentioned earlier, you can earn portal rewards by shopping in the store. This is great because you can go to the store and shop as you normally would. Go try out that comfy couch, pair of sneakers, or TV. When you find the items you like to buy, simply whip out your phone, visit the shopping portal to link your in-store offer with your credit card, and pay using that credit card at the cash register.

If there is no in-store offer, you can pull out your phone and buy your items online for in-store pickup through the shopping portal instead. You may have to wait an hour or longer – or you could go somewhere else, maybe eat some lunch or grab a cup of coffee to pass time until your order is ready.

Check to see if points have been posted

Rewards may take several days to several weeks to post in your account depending on the shopping portal. If you do not receive your points, miles or cash back within the specified time frame or you notice the transaction wasn’t tracked, contact the portal via the “Contact Us” or “Help” section.

This has happened to me a few times, especially with using the button, where the portal is activated but the transaction was not tracked. In these cases, I usually wait a day before contacting the portal because transactions being tracked is different than having points posted in your account. Transactions are usually tracked in a day or less whereas points can take several days or weeks to post.

Final thoughts

Online shopping portals are a great way to earn money back or reward points/miles for your online purchases. Instead of getting nothing in return, why not get something back for your purchases? Even if you are only a few dollars or points/miles here and there, they can all add up quickly and go a long way. You can rack up a lot of cash and do whatever you would like with it. If you are earning points or miles, they can go towards redeeming first-class flights and luxury hotel stays.

Aside from earning rewards, shopping portals are a great way to keep your loyalty accounts active and reward points/miles from expiring.

Online shopping portals are completely free with no catches other than providing your personal data. If you are comfortable with that and what they do with that information, I recommend using them and making it a habit of clicking through a shopping portal for all online purchases.

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Online Shopping Portals: Earn Money and Other Rewards from Your Online Purchases