By now, you may notice that one thing that I am constantly stressing is ‘make your money work for you’. It’s one of the reasons why I am a huge proponent of responsible credit card use in that you are being rewarded (and in the US, handsomely) for things that you were spending money on anyways. I previously wrote about how to leverage spending by signing up for special promos and airline/hotel dining reward programs. Here are a couple more ways to not only earn more points but also to save you money and help you travel better. This post has some things that are applicable to debit and credit cards!

^{Reminder: credit cards are ONLY worth it if you can pay off the balance each month! Need to brush up on credit including basics, cards and myths?}

Maximize Spend with a Double/Triple Dip by Using Shopping Portals*

*While this next hack can be used with either a credit or debit card, it is only a double dip with the rewards that you earn using credit cards.

If you shop online at all, not using a shopping portal is likely causing you to lose out on easy money. Simplified version of why it works is that it’s a form of affiliate marketing – companies pay the shopping portal for generating business. In turn, you are rewarded with bonus miles/points/cashback when you start on the shopping portal (or thru the app or having the browser extension activated)! You will then click through to the merchant’s own webpage to complete the transaction. This is a “double dip” because you will earn miles and points twice: once from using a rewards credit card for the purchase AND secondly by making your online purchases through the shopping portal AND could be a triple dip if the merchant has its own loyalty/rewards program!

^{Want to learn the basics of travel hacking: primer on travel hacking}

Beautiful Tip: Cashback Monitor: A comparison tool to check different miles, points and cashback rates. These can vary dramatically by shopping portal so it’s a good idea to check before making your purchase. You can approach using portals by seeking the highest rate or being strategic and concentrating on just a few miles/points/cashback portals. FYI: rates also tend to fluctuate so if you are not needing to order right away, there is a Best Rate History link that can help you see if it might be worthwhile to delay the spending for a larger bonus – this is an advanced move and can really net you a lot more points!

Make It A Triple/Quadruple Dip by Activating Offers + Earning for Merchant’s Loyalty/Rewards Program

How to Guide for Shopping Portal: American Airlines (AA) shopping portal example booking Viator

(Top + Bottom Left): When you search for a merchant on the portal, you will come to this page that gives you the earning rate. Note: this can either be a flat rate which awards a set number of miles or a multiplier rate – which is X times spend (pre taxes and fee spend). 12x is a HUGE multiplier for Viator (notice how the normal rate is 5x) and had been 9x the previous day (and went back down to this the day after as you can see in the Cashback Monitor Photo). Scroll down and pay careful attention to the special terms as these are exclusions that can affect whether or not your purchase will be eligible for points. In this case, you cannot use a discount code/coupon that isn’t found on this site (it would have to be auto populated through the link for the sale to count) and similarly you cannot buy Viator gift cards or certificates – doing either of these would make the transaction ineligible for miles. This section will also list typical posting times – here, for Viator, it will be after the activity is completed whilst for other merchants, it can be as fast as 1 – 2 days after the purchase.

(Top + Right): Once you click on the merchant, this is the page that you will get showing that the shopping portal is transferring you to the merchant’s webpage. There are some very important best practices noted in Beautiful Tips you need to note when using the AA shopping portal.

(Bottom Right): Offers through credit cards can yield additional money savings (Amex typically has the highest dollars savings for me followed by Chase offers) or additional bonus miles/points. AA has an additional way to earn miles/LP through Simply Miles and registered MasterCards – in this case, a $300 purchase on Viator using my registered MC will earn 1,625 miles/LP (but unfortunately Simply Miles offers do not stack/allow for double dipping with shopping portal earnings). For Amex, Chase, Citi, Capital One card offers, this can be a triple dip as you will earn points by using the credit card AND miles for using the shopping portal AND either save $ or earn extra points by activating an offer!!

Viator has its own reward program that gives you 10% of the excursion back as Viator Rewards! This will be credited after the activity is completed (I have seen it be within 24 hours) and can be applied towards new bookings. A nice bonus is that the amount paid (activity minus Viator Rewards amount) will earn miles/point through shopping portals!

Beautiful Tips for AA Shopping Portal

• While this may seem like overkill, I have seen many people say that they haven’t gotten their miles/LP and whilst, I may have need to submit inquiries for some transactions, I have gotten miles/LP for every shopping purchase I made so the extra steps were absolutely worth the additional work! Amazing resource is Loyalty Points Hunter that gave me most of these best practices.
• I learned that Safari (and especially Firefox) while great for more privacy focused browsing are not ideal for using the portals since cookies and tracking are necessary to track your purchases.
• So I would clear my Chrome browser history and only have only one tab with the AA shopping portal up, sign into the portal, search for the merchant, and then click through to the merchant’s website.
• If you are using the AA shopping extension on your browser, make sure the tracking is activated (the little icon will change from green to blue).
• The tracking can get dropped as your session on the merchant site expires: ie if you are taking too long, you click away, etc so the fail safe is to reclick on the AA shopping link before checkout.
• You will not get credit for orders placed on a merchant’s app – they must be placed on the website!
• Take screenshots of each step in case you need to dispute with the portal or merchant.
• I developed my own best practices to do any comparison shopping beforehand especially when researching something as involved as excursions for cruise ships (ie making sure that pricing on Viator was comparable to tour operator’s pricing on their own website) or even looking through and comparing similar options by different companies. If I found one that I like, I would sign into Viator and save it as a favorite so I wouldn’t need to search for it again. Using the steps above, I would sign into the AAA shopping portal, search and click on Viator, and once signed into Viator’s site, be able to select and book the excursions quickly.

Advanced: Use Fluctuating Multiplier Rates to Maximize Earnings!

Viator is a company that partners with local agencies and operators to offer tours and excursions with Viator becoming the platform customers use to search for things to do and see. One great feature is you can book now and pay later option (charged two days before tour) with most excursions being refundable 24 hours prior to the local start time (so important to read through individual terms).

So for the trip, it was worth it to rebook a few of the excursions multiple times and there was no penalty to do so. The multiplier earning rate went from 8x/$1 to 9x/$1 and then a whopping 12x/$1 which increased my original points by 50%! I was still researching at this stage and saw a FB post on Viator becoming 12x in the portal and jumped on the opportunity. Booked a lot of possible excursions on that day with a just in case attitude. The 12x multiplier was live for ONE day so I am so glad I didn’t wait and was luckily checking FB before my PT appointment to see a post on this.

Take a look a the AA Account Details photo right column, three down for June 15, 2023: this was a whale watching tour we did in Akuyeri, Iceland and 8x would yield 8392 miles/LP, 10x would yield 10,049 and 12x would yield a whopping 12,588 miles/LP. I earned 118,000 AA miles/LP through the AA shopping portal for the trip!

Bonus: Quadruple Dip to Earn Elite Status!

There are a number of reasons why I focused on AA miles and the AA shopping portal as I detail in my post about earning the 1.1 million points, but being able to earn AA elite status was one of the biggest draws. From the trip alone, I was able to obtain the second highest elite tier AAdvantage Platinum Pro! I am now eligible for comp upgrades to premium cabins w/n N. America (confirmed as early as 72 hours before departure), comp Preferred and Main Cabin Extra seats with many other extras but one of the MOST EXCITING PERKS is oneworld Emerald Status which will grant me access to some incredible overseas lounges if I am not flying oneworld business or first class!

If you’re already going to spend the money, there’s often times ways that you can be rewarded for it!

Which shopping portal(s) do you use? Have you been able to double/triple/quaduple dip when using a shopping portal?