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Update 7/27/20: The American Airlines shopping portal is offering a similar deal now too – details have been added below. h/t Doctor of Credit
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Several shopping portals are offering bonuses over the course of the next few weeks. Three of them are for airlines shopping portals, but the Upromise offer which provides cashback rather than miles is particularly notable.
The Deals
- The following offers are available through select shopping portals:
- United
- Spend $150 & get 500 bonus miles
- Spend $350 & get 1,500 bonus miles
- Spend $600 & get 2,500 bonus miles
- Direct link to offer
- Expires August 16, 2020
- Alaska
- Spend $150 & get 300 bonus miles
- Spend $300 & get 750 bonus miles
- Spend $500 & get 1,500 bonus miles
- Direct link to offer
- Expires August 9, 2020
- Southwest
- Spend $125 & get 250 bonus points
- Spend $300 & get 900 bonus points
- Spend $550 & get 2,000 bonus points
- Direct link to offer
- Expires August 16, 2020
- Upromise
- Spend $250 & get $10 bonus cashback
- Spend $1,000 & get $100 bonus cashback
- Direct link to offer
- Expires July 31, 2020
- American Airlines
- Spend $150 & get 500 bonus miles
- Spend $300 & get 1,000 bonus miles
- Spend $500 & get 2,000 bonus miles
- Direct link to offer
- Expires August 17, 2020
- United
Key Terms
- During the “Member Appreciation Bonus” offer, which runs from 7/20/20 through 8/16/20 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 $150; 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 10 weeks after the Bonus Period for bonus award miles to post to your MileagePlus Shopping account.
- The Tier 3 bonus provides the maximum number of miles that will be awarded.
Quick Thoughts
This is a great selection of shopping portal promotions, although the value of each one will vary depending on how much you’ll be spending and how you value each set of miles/points.
The United portal offers the opportunity to earn the most miles seeing as the top threshold offers 2,500 bonus miles, although that requires $600 of spend. If you value Alaska Airlines miles more than MileagePlus, spending $500 for only 1,500 bonus Mileage Plan miles might still be a better offer.
Having said that, the most eye-catching offer here is the one from Upromise. The top tier comes with the requirement that you spend $1,000, but getting back $100 means you’ll get a 10% return if spending exactly $1,000. That’s an incredible return and so is one worth considering.
In case you’re not too familiar with Upromise, their intent is to help you save for college. However, you don’t have to be a student or have a child heading to college to use them, nor does the cashback earned through their portal have to be credited to a 529 account. You can therefore use it like a regular shopping portal and have the cashback earned sent to your bank account.
Be sure to note the different expiry dates of these offers. The Upromise offer ends at the end of this month, while the airline shopping portal offers expire on different dates next month.
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The $100 UPromise credit just posted today. Thanks Stephen!
Awesome! They’ll hopefully run a similar deal in the next week or two.
I am hoping, but with giftcards.com limiting to 250, the cost is going to be bit more. Do you know if officedepot gitfcards can get portal benefits from uPromise
I don’t think so unfortunately. I certainly haven’t seen any data points of it tracking for people.
[…] Most of the airline shopping portals are offering bonus miles when meeting certain spending thresholds right now (see Shopping Portal Bonuses: Earn Up To $100 Cashback / 2,500 Miles (Upromise, Alaska, United, Southwest…). […]
Does it matter if I purchase eGC or it must be physical gift cards purchased on giftcards.com? Will it count as cash advance on CapitalOne cards? When I called, I was told that I can’t decrease the cash advance limit on my two cards.
Thanks.
Physical or digital gift cards should work. As for Capital One, I’m not sure if it would count as a cash advance. I certainly wouldn’t have thought so, but I don’t have any Capital One cards and so have never tried.
I’ve never been charged a cash advance fee for buying gift cards with our Capital One cards.
Hi Stephen,
So a GC from GC.com will trigger the bonus but one (Say for Safeway from Staples) won’t?
That’s certainly how I expect it to work, yes. Having said that, if a gift card purchase (e.g. Safeway from Staples) happened to track through the portal inadvertently, I’d expect that to trigger the bonus too.
[…] Shopping Portal Bonuses: Earn Up To $100 Cashback / 2,500 Miles (Upromise, Alaska, United & Sout… (Upromise expires 7/31/20, Alaska expires 8/9/20, United & Southwest expire 8/16/20) […]
Hi Stehen
Last holiday season, I spent $250 on UPromise and ot $100 back. I spent it on giftcards.com. Will giftcrads.com , $500 bonus qualify for the $100 cashback , also does it have to a singe purchase of $1000
Raghu
It’s $1,000 in cumulative purchases, so spending $500 at GiftCards.com and $500 elsewhere should trigger the $100 bonus cashback.
For anyone else reading this comment – although gift cards are specifically excluded in the terms, purchases from Raise and GiftCards.com have triggered these portal bonuses in the past seeing as they’re eligible retailers on the portals.
Thanks a bunch Stephen!
Hi Stephen,
How long does it take for purchases to track on UPromise from real world experience? I placed an order two days ago and nothing shows as pending (this is my first time using this particular portal). I’ve heard people had lots of issues with orders tracking in the past. Thanks for any info you or other readers can share.
When I took advantage of a similar deal last year, it actually took a few weeks to receive an email from Upromise confirming that my purchase had tracked. It then took a month before the bonus was actually credited to my account, so hopefully your purchase will still track.
Stephen, these bonus points are not Companion Pass earning eligible for SW, correct?
Correct. The regular points you earn through the portal are Companion Pass-eligible, but my understanding is that bonus points from promotions such as these don’t count towards the CP.