Earn points, miles or cash back: How to maximize online shopping portals for your purchases

Editor’s note: This is a recurring post that is regularly updated with new information and offers.

Many of us regularly shop at retail stores and sites for pet supplies, home decor, clothing and gifts. In the face of rising costs, we also look for every possible way to save money.

Unfortunately, these types of purchases rarely fall into the bonus categories on rewards credit cards, making it harder to earn extra points, miles or cash back when you shop online.

That’s where online shopping portals come in.

Related: How to earn points, miles and cash-back rewards on pet expenses

Online shopping portals offer an easy way to earn bonus points, miles or cash back on purchases you’re already making. For instance, Rakuten is currently offering a one-time $30 bonus to new members who join with a referral link (and make qualifying purchases) and to the person who referred them.

In this guide, we’ll explore some of the top online shopping portals and how you can maximize your rewards when shopping.

Basics of online shopping portals

At the most basic level, shopping portals allow you to earn bonus points, miles or cash back at hundreds of online retailers.

You can either log in to your online shopping portal of choice, click the store where you want to shop and be redirected to the store’s website to shop as normal, or you can download the portal’s browser extension. Browser extensions make it even easier to receive rewards for online shopping because they will automatically display the earning rate and any available discount codes when you visit an eligible shopping site. Some portals, including Rakuten, also have an app you can use if you are shopping through a mobile device.

Related: The best travel rewards credit cards

You’re still purchasing the same items directly from the merchant, but because you started at the shopping portal, you’ll earn bonus points, miles or cash back. However, this generally only applies to the subtotal of your purchase (excluding taxes and shipping fees). In addition, you’ll still earn points or miles on the rewards credit card you use, making this an easy way to double dip.

Here’s an example using Rakuten: Let’s say you plan on buying $100 worth of school clothing for your children from Macy’s.

Before going straight to the store’s website, you visit Rakuten’s site and notice it is offering 2% cash back at Macy’s. So you click through to Macy’s from Rakuten and make your purchase as normal, earning $2 in the process.

If you had shopped directly on macys.com, you would’ve missed out on the extra $2 you got through Rakuten. You’ve earned additional rewards — and you’re still getting the same item for the same price. Plus, with Rakuten, you can opt to earn American Express Membership Rewards points instead of cash back. Therefore, from this purchase, you could earn 200 Amex points, which TPG values at $4 per our April 2025 valuations.

You might wonder how these portals can do this. After all, they do say nothing in life is free. But there’s no catch here. In exchange for directing you to a specified merchant, the portal will take a cut of any purchase you make from the retailer. It’s a win-win-win situation for all involved: The merchant gets more business, the portal generates more revenue and you earn extra rewards.

You may think that an extra few dollars or points here and there won’t make much of a difference. However, if you consistently utilize shopping portals, you can easily rack up a significant amount of points, miles or cash back in a year.

The beauty of this process is that you’re earning additional rewards for things you would’ve bought anyway — an especially savvy move to address cost increases for everything from groceries to furniture and computers.

Types of online shopping portals

Now that you know how they work, let’s take a look at the major types of shopping portals out there. You can generally group them into three categories:

• Airline loyalty programs
• Credit cards
• Cash back

Let’s dive into each one to get a sense of the possibilities.

Airline loyalty programs

Almost every major airline has an online shopping portal, and they work similarly. While the exact login process may vary slightly, each one will award bonus points or miles based on your purchases across hundreds of retailers.

These are the most popular airline shopping portals:

• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping
• American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping
• British Airways Avios eStore
• Delta Air Lines SkyMiles Shopping
• JetBlue TrueBlue Shopping
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Shopping
• United Airlines MileagePlus Shopping

In addition to the standard earning rates these sites offer, many frequently run promotions as an added incentive. These typically cover transactions across all participating merchants over a set period, and you can usually earn different bonuses depending on how much you spend in total. For example, bonuses often launch around the winter holidays or back-to-school time. Be sure to bookmark our permanent page to keep up with these offers.

Finally, some portals will allow you to link your credit card and earn additional points and miles for in-store shopping — like this set of retailers through United’s site.

Credit cards

Some card issuers offer their own online shopping portals where you can stack your credit card earnings. They are:

• Capital One Shopping (only cash back, not bonus miles)
• Barclays RewardsBoost
• Shop Through Chase
• Citi Shop

To utilize most of these portals, you must have an active, eligible credit card account that earns rewards in the bank’s program. The exception is Capital One Shopping, which is free and available to everyone. You can access some of these by shopping through the portal’s website, and others offer browser extensions.

If you have a Chase card that earns Ultimate Rewards points, keep in mind that Chase allows 1:1 transfers to more than a dozen travel partners. You could effectively earn Hyatt points, United miles or British Airways Avios, for example, by logging in to your Chase account and launching Shop Through Chase.

Although American Express doesn’t have its own shopping portal, there is a way to earn bonus Amex points when shopping online (more on that in a bit).

Cash back

The final category of online shopping portals consists of those offering extra cash back on your purchases. This is a great option for anyone who doesn’t want to bother with keeping track of airline miles or credit card points. In some instances, you can even earn bonuses for booking hotel reservations through these sites.

That being said, going for cash back also adds complexity, as there are over a dozen competing sites out there. Some of our favorites are:

• Mr. Rebates
• Extrabux
• TopCashback

Most rates are in the 1%-5% range, though you may find limited-time specials at select merchants.

Hybrid option

One of the best sites — and the one that TPG staffers use most frequently — is Rakuten. In addition to cash back, you also have the option to earn American Express Membership Rewards points at a ratio of 1 cent to 1 Membership Rewards point, so a merchant offering 1% cash back would instead provide 1 point per dollar spent.

Based on TPG’s April 2025 valuations, which peg Amex points at 2 cents apiece, opting for points over cash back effectively doubles your return with Rakuten. Since the site works with over 3,500 stores, it’s among the most expansive online shopping portals. It has a browser extension that will notify you when a merchant offers a bonus, and it also has in-store offers.

How do I find the best offer?

As you can see, this is a dizzying array of options — and if you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Fortunately, there’s a fast, easy way to sort through them for your next online shopping spree.

Let’s say you’re ready to make a purchase at a specific retailer, but you don’t know which shopping portal to use. You have accounts with virtually every program discussed above, but does that mean you need to manually load each portal to see what bonus you’d earn?

Thanks to the magic of shopping portal aggregators like Cashback Monitor, you don’t. If you’ve never used it, you should definitely bookmark it for future reference.

In essence, a shopping portal aggregator allows you to pull up a specific retailer and see the earning rate you’d get across all applicable shopping portals. This allows you to quickly compare earning rates and determine which portal offers the best return for your chosen merchant.

If you create a free account, you can access advanced features like choosing your favorite portals and setting a value for each loyalty currency. The default on the site is 1 cent per point or mile, but if you add the numbers from TPG’s most recent valuations (for example), the site will automatically update the return you’d get on your purchases — as you see in the above screenshot.

Related: Why transferable points are worth more than other rewards

Additionally, instead of trying to remember each different shopping portal, you can simply add a browser extension to Google Chrome. While you’re shopping, this browser extension will inform you of deals and discounts and sometimes offer coupons at checkout.

Important tips and reminders

Accessing online shopping portals is relatively straightforward, but there are a few essential things to keep in mind:

• You must click through the link on the portal’s site or activate the browser extension offer before making your purchase. Don’t navigate away and return later; you may miss out on rewards.
• You must ensure your browser has cookies enabled for the retailer’s site. This allows the portal to track your purchases and award bonuses accordingly.
• Only use promotions or promo codes found on the portal; if you use others, the purchase may become ineligible for bonus points or miles.
• Read the restrictions for each merchant. Many won’t count gift cards as eligible bonus purchases; others exclude specific products. Earning rates at a particular merchant may vary by category — for instance, appliance purchases at Home Depot may earn only 0.5 points per dollar spent, while home decor and kitchenware may earn 2 points per dollar.
• Use a credit card with the best earning rate on your purchase. Most of these merchants don’t fall into the traditional bonus categories, so you’ll probably want to stick with a good card for everyday purchases.

That said, you should be able to stack most Amex Offers, Chase Offers, Citi Merchant Offers and bonuses from American’s SimplyMiles site with rewards through online shopping portals. The vast majority of these offers are based solely on the total amount of your purchase and don’t require any coupon code, so it shouldn’t create any issues.

Aside from the rewards, shopping portals are an excellent way to keep loyalty accounts active since spending even a single dollar through a shopping portal can be enough to keep your points and miles from expiring. That can be a lifesaver if you haven’t banked travel to your account in a while and don’t have a viable option to transfer points from elsewhere.

Related: Your guide to airline and hotel dining rewards programs

Bottom line

Online shopping portals are a fantastic way to earn bonus points, miles or cash back for online purchases at various merchants. Even if you’re only earning an extra mile or two for every dollar you spend, these earnings can quickly add up and go a long way toward redemptions like first-class flights and luxury hotel rooms, or even spending money for your next trip.

Now is a great time to start if you haven’t already utilized these portals. We generally recommend Rakuten as one of the best options, thanks to the flexibility of Amex points and the sheer number of merchants on the site, but explore all of the above options to determine which would work best for you.