What do you do when the credit card bonuses have been met and its six months before another round of applications can be submitted to earn points: go shopping. I know, I said that earning these travel points would not have a person spend more than their means and I'm standing by that statement. What I mean when I say go shopping is think about the way you shop. Sure it's great to spend $1000 on normal everyday expenses in a 3 months time span and earn 50,000 points but you can't sustain your travel based on credit card bonuses alone.
Once the mandatory spends have been met it's time to earn points for supporting this habit. How do you use the cards you have to make everyday purchases pad your points stash: enter shopping portals. Many airlines and some banks are associated with shopping portals. Storefronts that you sign onto to access other merchants for online shopping. For example: I was thinking about the things I had to do for the upcoming weekend and a big portion of it would be spent on a home improvement project meaning a trip to Lowes was in order. A person who does not collect points would simply go to Lowes make their purchase and pay with either credit, debit or cash and be done. Not me, and hopefully those reading who want to travel this way will follow suite. I knew I would be spending around $50 at Lowes and while going to the store and making my purchasing, paying with a credit card would net me 50 points/miles depending on what card I used is certainly better than the zero points I'd acquire if I paid cash, but isn't 2350 points much better?
I happened to be aware American Airlines sent out a promotion stating if you spent $35 going through their shopping portal they would give you 2000 bonus point (see link here). I signed into the portal, you have to be a registered user and saw that Staples was a store supported through this storefront. I immediately switched over to Staples site. Why Staples? I have a Chase Ink card that provides 5X your purchase as a bonus if you use the card at office supply stores. OK, I fear the glassed over eyes look from my readers because I said I needed to go to Lowes. Turns out Staples sells gift cards online just like they do in the store although more limited online. I simply typed in gift card in the Staples search bar and voila, like magic, there they were; cards for Southwest, Home Depot, Gamestop, iTunes Lowes and more. I found the $50 card and put it in my cart to begin the check out process. I used my Ink card to pay, no additional fees were added since it is an e-certificate, checked out and waited for my e-certificate to appear in my in box. For doing what I was planning to do anyway this weekend I earned a tidy amount of points. The breakout: 2000 for going through AA's shopping portal, 250 for the Ink bonus and 100 as a standard bonus for going through the portal. Just make sure you order the e-gift cards, physical gift cards may charge a delivery fee.
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