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The holidays are nearing which means that it’s time for the airline shopping portals to start offering bonus miles/points when shopping through them. Those promos started with a bang today as four of the airline portals are offering bonuses worth a total of 12,000 miles/points between them.
The Deals
There are four airline shopping portal promotions, each of which have three spending tiers:
- United
- Spend $150 & get 500 bonus miles
- Spend $600 & get 2,000 bonus miles
- Spend $1,200 & get 5,000 bonus miles
- Direct link to offer.
- Expires November 18, 2022.
- Delta
- Spend $200 & get 500 bonus miles
- Spend $400 & get 1,000 bonus miles
- Spend $800 & get 2,000 bonus miles
- Direct link to offer.
- Expires November 18, 2022.
- Alaska
- Spend $150 & get 300 bonus miles
- Spend $350 & get 750 bonus miles
- Spend $650 & get 1,500 bonus miles
- Direct link to offer.
- Expires November 20, 2022.
- Southwest
- Spend $100 & get 500 bonus points
- Spend $500 & get 1,000 bonus points
- Spend $1,000 & get 3,500 bonus points
- Direct link to offer.
- Expires November 21, 2022.
Key Terms
Terms below are for the United portal. Terms for the other portals are similar other than the expiry dates, spending tiers/bonus miles and the fact that the Delta and Southwest portals don’t have a card-linked in-store shopping program.
- During the “Holiday Bonus” offer, which runs from 11/1/2022 through 11/18/2022 at 11:59:59 pm ET (the “Bonus Period”), Member will earn a one-time bonus of up to 5,000 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: 2,000 miles for qualifying purchases of at least $600; or Tier 3 bonus: 5,000 miles for qualifying purchases of $1,200 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
These types of bonuses can tip the balance in the favor of using one of these shopping portals over other portals. As always though, you should use Cashback Monitor to compare rates for the retailer(s) you’ll be shopping at to ensure you get the best overall return because some cashback portals might still provide better rewards.
In case you weren’t aware, both the United and Alaska portals have a card-linked program, so the spending thresholds for their bonuses can be earned in part or in whole through in-store shopping rather than having to rely on online spending. Here are links for a list of eligible in-store retailers for United and Alaska.
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One thing to possibly be aware of is that Southwest sent a message after my purchase that said if you order online but pick up at the store, you won’t get points. Not sure if that was just the points they were normally offering or the bonus points described in your post. I didn’t know this until I spent $600 at Lowe’s and got the message that my purchase was tracking. I assume that language might be common for all the portals.