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A bunch of different shopping portals launched holiday bonuses a couple of days ago which are offering thousands of bonus miles when hitting spending thresholds. Most of these are airline portals, but the Upromise shopping portal is also offering a decent cash bonus that could be pretty easy to hit with a Visa gift card order.
The Deals & Key Terms
Alaska Airlines
- Spend $150 & earn 300 bonus miles.
- Spend $300 & earn 750 bonus miles.
- Spend $500 & earn 1,500 bonus miles.
- Expires November 21, 2019.
- Direct link to offer.
American Airlines
- Spend $150 & earn 500 bonus miles.
- Spend $600 & earn 1,500 bonus miles.
- Spend $1,200 & earn 3,500 bonus miles.
- Expires November 21, 2019.
- Direct link to offer.
Delta
- Spend $150 & earn 500 bonus miles.
- Spend $300 & earn 1,000 bonus miles.
- Expires November 14, 2019.
- Direct link to offer.
Southwest
- Spend $150 & earn 500 bonus points.
- Spend $500 & earn 1,000 bonus points.
- Spend $1,000 & earn 3,000 bonus points.
- Expires November 21, 2019.
- Direct link to offer.
United
- Spend $150 & earn 500 bonus miles.
- Spend $750 & earn 2,500 bonus miles.
- Spend $1500 & earn 5,000 bonus miles.
- Expires November 21, 2019.
- Direct link to offer.
Upromise
- Spend $250 & earn $10 bonus.
- Spend $1,250 & earn $100 bonus.
- Expires November 10, 2019.
- Direct link to offer.
Quick Thoughts
These portal bonuses are worth up to 3.33 bonus miles per dollar on top of the earnings you’ll already receive, so there’s the potential for some lucrative earnings here. If you know you’ll be spending $1,250, earning $100 from Upromise is also pretty enticing as that represents a bonus of 8% on top of the cashback rate for whatever store(s) you’re purchasing from.
If there are some bonuses you’d like to earn but would have a hard time hitting the spending thresholds, it might be worth considering purchases from Raise or GiftCards.com. The portals have wording excluding gift card purchases from earning the bonuses, but that seems to refer to standard gift card purchases from retailers where you wouldn’t normally earn miles/cashback anyway. Craig at Middle Age Miles has received bonuses from both the American and Alaska shopping portals in the past after purchasing Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com, so it’s not unheard of.
There’s no guarantee that’ll continue, but I’m certainly going to give it a try; clicking through to GiftCards.com from the Upromise portal and buying three $500 Visa gift cards should generate ~$115 cashback which is far too good an opportunity to pass up. The worst case scenario is that I only earn $15 (the standard cashback rate) which would virtually cover the activation fees anyway.
The Upromise bonus expires in a week, so you don’t have too long to take advantage of that. The other portal bonuses end on November 21, other than Delta which ends on November 14.
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[…] the end of last year, Upromise offered an excellent bonus of $100 when spending $1,250 or more. This offer is clearly not as generous, but the spend requirement is much lower […]
Just a DP on Upromise…I and 2 family members opened new Upromise accounts to take advantage of this deal. We all ordered gift cards from GCC. Nothing has tracked to date on any of the 3 accounts. I did do a “missing rewards” report today. Anyone else with a DP?
It appears that Upromise was just slow to track but all 3 of our accounts now show the basic cash back. So, all is good!
That’s great news – I’m glad it’s tracked for you too.
I looked at Upromise Holiday binus T&C it says
*During the “Holiday Bonus” offer, which runs from 11/01/19 through 11/10/19 at 11:59:59 pm ET (the “Bonus Period”), Member will earn a one-time bonus of up to $100 bonus cash back on qualifying purchases, in addition to the standard cash back earned from shopping online through Upromise Shopping. This one-time bonus award will be determined based on Member’s cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period using one of the following tiers: Tier 1 bonus: $10 cash back for qualifying purchases of at least $250; or Tier 2 bonus: $100 cash back for qualifying purchases of at least $1,250 or more. “Qualifying purchases” do not include returns, cancellations, shipping and handling, taxes, gift card or other cash equivalent purchases, and certain products that are not eligible for bonus cash back. Please see the Upromise Shopping site for details on product eligibility and other restrictions. Please allow up to 10 weeks after the Bonus Period for bonus cash back to post to your Upromise account. Void where prohibited by law.
It specifically says Gifts do not count as qualifying transaction for holiday bonus. Has anyone received the $100 bonus for the $1250 in giftcards.com spend
No one will have received the bonus yet as it’s not awarded until up to 10 weeks after the promotion ends today. As noted in the post though, Craig at Middle Age Miles has earned portal bonuses at least twice when ordering through GiftCards.com.
I just received confirmation that I received the holiday bonus for my GCC VGC order on the Southwest portal.
Awesome, thanks for the data point – glad this worked out for you 🙂
Is there any difference with regards to portal tracking (upromise -> GiftCards.com) with ordering Visa vs Mastercard GC? I haven’t used giftcards.com before and was considering getting Mastercard to pay bills on Plastiq with the 1% fees.
I’m not aware of any difference, but it had been years since I last ordered VGCs from GiftCards.com. I’ve had a look on Upromise and I’m not noticing any different wording, so I’d assume it’s the same.
Has anyone seen Upromise track doing a GCC order? I ordered a few days ago and haven’t yet received any pending transactions.
I ordered last night and got confirmation about an hour later.
They like you better than they like me!:) Funny but P2 and P3 didn’t track either. Not sure why?
Confirmation of your order from gc.com or transaction tracking confirmation? I too placed an order 3-4 days ago and upromise still hasn’t tracked anything for me. Another day or 2 and i’m going to have to figure out how to open push it through. When i go to the shopping sites visited it has GC so it should be on there
I have confirmation from GCC. I also have GCC as one of my shopping sites but no record of purchase. I sent them an email and upromise sent this response:
We are sorry to hear that you have not received an order confirmation email for the transaction that you have made with GiftCards.com.
In general, the Order Confirmation email is sent within 1-48 hours from the time you have made an eligible purchase with a Upromise participating online merchant; however, at times due to some order delays at the merchant level, the email may not trigger.
Also, Upromise posts contribution data to your Upromise account as soon as we receive it. Contributions generally take about 15 days after you receive your purchase or service to appear as pending in your Upromise account. Transactions with some contributing companies — such as those that bill you monthly — may take longer, depending on the company’s policies and reporting methods.
If you are still missing contributions after this time, or you believe there is an error with the contributions you have received, please contact us back and we will be happy to research this further.
Stephen, you have any Upromise referral links I can sign up through?
I don’t think they have a referral scheme for their shopping portal, but thanks for asking 🙂
[…] Portals to get some miles while you’re helping to make kids’ Christmas! In fact, here’s a roundup of some great shopping portal bonuses good until Nov 14th (Delta) and Nov 21st (the […]
Is the upromise one actual cash back or does it go into some sort of college savings account? I have always been somewhat confused by this, since it specifically says to help pay for college as opposed to just saying earn cash back
It can be used for college savings, but you can also link a regular checking or savings account and have earnings paid there.
My VGC gift card order with GiftCards.com via UPromise did not track for the bonus, either.