Bonus Spending Offers: Round-Up and Tips to Maximize
As the holiday season approaches and we turn into spending machines, there will be countless deals to take advantage of. In the past month, several targeted credit card and shopping portal bonuses have surfaced. We thought it would be a good idea to remind you about these great deals and give you a few tricks to get the most bang for your buck.
What makes these deals even more exciting, is that they can often be stacked for deep discounts and triple dip opportunities. Bonus spend offers are found in the following categories.
- Walmart
- Department Stores (excluding Target, KMart and discount stores like T.J. Maxx)
- Amazon.com
- Target
- Clothing Stores
- Computer and Electronics
- Toy Stores
- Department Stores
- Online (excluding dining and entertainment)
- Book Stores
- Sporting Goods Stores
Credit Card Spending Bonuses
Chase Freedom 4th Quarter- Earn Up to $75 (7,500 Ultimate Rewards Points)
Earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 in combined purchases from October 1 – December 31, 2017 at Walmart and Department Stores. See full details here.
Discover It Card- Earn up to $75
Earn 5% cashback on up to the first $1,500 in purchases from October 1- December 31, 2017 at Amazon.com and Target. See full details here.
Citi Thank You Premier- Earn Up to 2500 Points
Earn 5 ThankYou Points per $1 spent, up to 2,500 points, through 12/31/2017 on eligible purchases you make at clothing, computer and electronics, toy and department Stores. More details here.
Citi Thank You Preferred- Earn Up to $25 Statement Credit
Earn 5% back as a statement credit up to $25, through 12/31/2017 on eligible purchases you make Online (Excludes dining and entertainment purchases.) More details here.
JetBlue Card
Spend $500 or more in November, December, January and get 5,000 bonus TrueBlue points.
JetBlue Plus Card- Earn up to 5,000 TrueBlue Points
Spend $1,000 or more in October, November and December and get 1,000 bonus TrueBlue points for each month the spend level is achieved. Get an additional 2,000 bonus points for spending $1,000 in all 3 months to earn a total of 5,000 bonus points.
Alaska Airlines Card
Receive a $75 flight discount after you spend $250 or more in purchases with your Alaska Airlines Visa Signature credit card at qualifying department, electronics, toy, book and sporting goods stores from now through December 31, 2017. See details here.
Barclaycard Arrival Plus
Spend $500 per month for November, December, January and receive a bonus of 5,000 miles.
Barclaycard AAdvantage Aviator Red
Spend $2000 per month for October, November, December, and receive a bonus of 5,000 miles.
Shopping Portal Bonuses
American AAdvantage eShopping Bonus- Earn Up to 4,000 Bonus Miles
From 10/30/17 through 11/19/17 earn a one-time tiered bonus of up to 4,000 AAdvantage miles in addition to the standard miles earned from shopping online through the AAdvantage eShopping mall. Details here.
Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping Bonus- Earn Up to 3,000 Bonus Miles
From 10/30/17 through 11/20/17 earn a one-time tiered bonus of up to 3,000 bonus points on purchases in addition to the standard points earned from shopping through Rapid Rewards Shopping. Details here.
United MileagePlus Shopping Bonus- Earn Up to 5,000 Bonus Miles
From 10/30/17 through 11/19/17 earn a one-time bonus of up to 5,000 MileagePlus bonus award miles in addition to the standard miles earned from shopping online through the MileagePlus Shopping mall. Details here.
Stacking for Major Savings
The beauty of these bonus spending categories and portal promotions is that they’re not mutually exclusive. You can and absolutely should use them together. Just be sure that the portal payout (with the bonus included) is equal to other cashback portals. There should also be plenty of opportunities to triple dip with stores that have their own loyalty and rewards programs.
Let’s do a quick example. I’ve been on the lookout for a non-toxic cookware set and after doing a little research I find the one I want on sale at Kohls for about $225 before coupons or other discounts. I input Kohls into Cashbackmonitor and see that all 3 shopping portals are paying 2 miles per dollar spent. Let’s use American for our example. Click on American straight from CBM.
As you can see, you’re directed right to the AAdvantage Shopping portal page for Kohls. From there you click shop now and it takes you to the Kohl’s homepage.
Once you place your items in your cart, click checkout. At this point, if you don’t have a Kohl’s Loyalty Account you can sign up for one. Then you simply choose which promo codes to apply and you’ll see any rewards you’ve earned plus your total.
Rewards Earned from this Transaction
I’ll use the 5% Back from Chase Freedom simply because Chase listed Kohls as a Department Store. Although, If I were sure that the Alaska “Department Store” category included Kohls, I’d definitely use that one and potentially add another $70 to my cart to get more Kohl’s Cash and the $75 discount.
Let’s have a look at the earnings:
- Ultimate Rewards = 986
- American Miles Portal Miles 394.5 + Bonus Miles 500 = 894.5
- Kohl’s Cash = $45
- Yes to You Rewards Points = 182
I estimate the potential value of these rewards to be between $75 and $100 (or $130-$155 in the case of the Alaska bonus). Not too shabby!
Conclusion
While this type of stacking can save you big bucks, it’s not necessarily the cheapest way to shop online- sometimes cashback portals offer way more of a return or you can find a much cheaper price at a store like Costco which doesn’t seem to be included in any of the categories. Basically, it pays to shop around and if prices and offers are comparable then go for the bonuses!
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
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Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Why, THANK YOU!
Nice work – very informative!!