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Southwest Airlines and United Airlines’ shopping portals launched new promotions today which offer between 250-2500 bonus points/miles when spending between $100-$600.
The Deal
The Southwest and United shopping portals are offering the following bonuses:
- Southwest
- Spend $125 and earn 250 bonus Rapid Rewards points
- Spend $300 and earn 900 bonus Rapid Rewards points
- Spend $550 and earn 2,000 bonus Rapid Rewards points
- Expires 8/15/22
- United
-
- Spend $100, earn 500 bonus United miles
- Spend $350, earn 1,500 bonus United miles
- Spend $600, earn 2,500 bonus United miles
- Expires 8/15/22
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Terms and Conditions
Southwest
- During the “Back-to-School Bonus” offer, which runs from July 18, 2022 at 12:00 a.m. ET through August 15, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. ET (the “Bonus Period”), Rapid Rewards Shopping® member will earn a one-time bonus of up to 2,000 Rapid Rewards® bonus points on qualifying purchases, in addition to the standard Rapid Rewards points earned from shopping online through Rapid Rewards Shopping.
- “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 points.
- This one-time bonus award will be determined using one of the following tiers, based on member’s cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period: Tier one bonus: Earn 250 Rapid Rewards bonus points for qualifying purchases of $125 – $299.99; Tier two bonus: Earn 900 Rapid Rewards bonus points for qualifying purchases of $300 – $549.99; or Tier three bonus: Earn 2,000 Rapid Rewards bonus points for qualifying purchases of $550 or more.
- Please allow up to 10 weeks after the Bonus Period for Rapid Rewards bonus points to post to your Rapid Rewards account.
United
- During the “Back to School Bonus” offer, which runs from 7/18/2022 through 8/15/2022 at 11:59:59 pm ET (the “Bonus Period”), Member will earn a one-time bonus of up to 2,500 MileagePlus® bonus award miles on qualifying purchases made through the MileagePlus Shopping Mall or from purchases made through MileagePlus Shopping in-store offers.
- This one-time bonus award will be based on Member’s cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period using one of the following tiers: Tier 1 bonus: 500 miles for qualifying purchases of at least $100; Tier 2 bonus: 1,500 miles for qualifying purchases of at least $350; or Tier 3 bonus: 2,500 miles for qualifying purchases of $600 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 miles.
- Please see the MileagePlus Shopping mall site for details on product eligibility and other restrictions.
- Please allow up to 6-8 weeks after the Bonus Period for bonus award miles to post to your MileagePlus Shopping account.
Quick Thoughts
As per usual, the United promotion gets less generous the more you spend, offering 5x on $100 spend, but only 4.17x on $300 spend. I just don’t understand why they use that format. Southwest, on the other hand, starts out at 2x for $125 in spend and goes up to almost 4x when hitting Tier 3. Either way, earning an additional 4-5x on both is a nice sweetener, provided you’re buying stuff that you would otherwise.
While gift card purchases are always listed as being excluded from these bonuses,the bonus miles can usually be triggered by buying gift cards from either Raise or Giftcards.com, as those purchases get tracked by the portal. The United portal has a card-linked feature where in-store purchases also count towards the spend for this offer.
These portal offers are always a nice bonus, but they aren’t world-beating. Be sure to compare portal rates on Cashback Monitor before committing to either of these.
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So if you bought, say, a Home Depot gift card on giftcards.com, then you could use that gift card on HomeDepot.com on the we ball and get the bonus with half the total spend. Quadruple dip (with credit card)!
Would the Southwest spend count toward companion pass?