Your Questions Answered
Last week I began a series of posts answering questions from readers. Now that I am back in town, I will do my best to continue to answer as many of the questions as possible. If I haven’t answered your question yet then please be patient. If it is something that is highly unique to you, feel free to email me. To ask a question yourself, leave a comment over on this original post.
Here are the previous posts from this round of questions:
- Will Sharing Restricted (Taxable) ThankYou Points with Another Account Remove the Restrictions?
- Q&A – My Thoughts on a Possible Chase UR Devaluation Given Recent Negative Changes & Multiple Staples Rewards Accounts
- Creatively Bridging AAdvantage One-Way Awards & How Hyatt Calculates the Expiration Date on their Credit Card Free Night Certificates
Question 1
Our first question is from Lydia:
I’m having some problems using any shopping portals like Ebates or Upromise, and I was wondering if you might know what is wrong. When I click on the link, it will open a new tab and start to direct me to the store site, but then it will just stop. I have Kaspersky for Internet security and I’m think that it is blocking the portals from working. I called Kaspersky’s tech line, and they were no help in trying to fix it. Have you ever had this problem? I’d love any suggestions if you have any!
Shopping Portal Troubleshooting
Hey Lydia. This is a great question because cashback from a shopping portal could make or break a deal. I personally have never had an issue with the popup just stopping, but I suspect it is either Kaspersky or even maybe a toolbar that you have installed in your browser.
My first test would be to disable Kaspersky to see if that is what is causing the problem. If you rule that out, I would install or use a different browser to see if it is still happening. I can almost guarantee that one of those things is probably causing the issue.
Finally, it may be a good idea to download and install a browser you never use for anything else. For example if you use Chrome as your daily browser, then install Firefox and only use it for shopping through portals. This way it is a clean install and doesn’t have any toolbars or cookies that could mess things up. (Thanks to The Devil’s Advocate for sharing that tip this past weekend!) It is always a good idea to use private/incognito mode as well.
For more, see: Shopping Portal Strategy – Save the Most Money in the Least Amount of Time
Question 2
The second question comes from Phil:
I just signed up with HHonors dining program and noticed that the website looks eerily similar to AAdvantage dining program. Do you know what happens if a card is registered to both program and used? Would you get one, two, or none miles? Thanks.
One Credit Card in Multiple Dining Programs
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could sign up one card in all of the programs and earn points/miles? Unfortunately they are on to our ways. The truth is that pretty much all of the dining programs are run by a company called Rewards Network. Lets take a look at the bottom of the site for a few of the popular dining programs.
The reason they looked familiar is because they are all skins of the same site. It isn’t all bad news though. You can still join all of these programs and earn any promotional or sign-up bonuses that they have. The only issue comes when you are using the same credit card.
As far as I understand it, you will earn rewards on the account the credit card has most recently been linked to. So you can use different cards for each program or simply hop from one program to the next, but you will not earn miles/points in multiple programs for the same dine.
Earning miles in a dining program is still something that a lot of people overlook, so it is definitely worth doing. I would evaluate each program against the value of the currency and your needs. For me, the Alaska Mileage Plan dining program is looking really good! Your priorities are different, so the right program will probably differ for you.
Conclusion
I still have more questions to get to and will answer many soon. I want to thank Phil & Lydia since I know these questions are things that many people have probably been wondering about. Have a great afternoon!
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Could you provide the direct link to Devil Advocate’s post on using a second browser? That link just took me to his overall site. Also, where could I find out more about private/incognito mode? Thanks..keep all the great information coming!
There is no post. It was a tip he shared when I saw him in person. I wrote the entirety of the tip in this post and gave him credit via a link to his main page since he told me about it. Sorry for the confusion.
Regarding the shopping portals, I only obtained points 1 time and i had to file a complaint to get it from TopCashback. I havent received points from Marriott Shopyourway (vitaminshoppe 9pt/$) or Topcashback (viator 4%). Both times i got the popup that said your click was tracked but didnt receive points.
The TCB was the one that hurt because i saved my entire itinerary and booked at one time with that single click. I added all tours to my cart, closed browser, opened incognito browser went to TCB, clicked on viator, everything was in my cart and i checked out, the popup showed and i thought i was good. That was two weeks ago and it shows $0 and nothing pending. Same thing with marriott, they are worse because there is no way to know you clicked through on anything.
Doesn’t The Alaska dining plan only offer some very low initial bonus, like 500-1,000 miles? The other programs tend to offer more initially, although I’m a big fan of the programs overall.
On the Dining programs pretty much the only time its worth the trouble is for the initial sign up bonuses. So wait for a good one, sign up, do the required spend/visits, write your reviews and take your points home.
On shopping portals there are other possible causes. Do you run an ad blocker? Disable it on the shopping site or as Shawn suggests use a different browser without an ad blocker installed. In Firefox there is now a privacy guard feature that you can disable up to the left of the favicon for the site. Click it and disable for the current site. Popup blockers in Chrome can get in your way even without any extensions installed. Make sure they’re disabled. Etc.