Early Holiday Shopping Can Build Your Airline Miles Balances with These Shopping Portal Bonuses Now Through Mid-November

The United, Delta, American and Southwest airlines shopping portals have introduced their early holiday shopping bonuses, and your airline mileage balances will definitely benefit.

As with past promotions, extra miles can be earned when specific spending thresholds are met now through mid to late November depending on the shopping portal you choose.

Here is a listing of each airline’s shopping portal holiday bonus miles promotion.

United MileagePlus

The United MileagePlus Shopping portal is offering up to 5,000 bonus award miles for purchases made between November 1 and November 18, 2023.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150
• Earn 2,000 bonus miles when you spend $600
• Earn 5,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,200

The one-time bonus will be based on cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period (11/1-11/20).  Which means, you can make multiple purchases at multiple retailers on the MileagePlus Shopping portal and all of those purchases added together will determine which bonus miles tier you fall into.

United’s MileagePlus Shopping “in-store offers” qualify as purchases, as well.  So, if you are an “in-store offers” user, those spend amounts will count towards bonus tier levels. 

And, of course, there is language that defines “Qualifying Purchases.”  The purchase of gift cards stands out as not being a “Qualifying Purchase.”  Click the United MileagePlus Shopping portal link above to read all the fine print.

Delta SkyMiles Shopping

The Delta SkyMiles Shopping portal is offering up to 2,000 bonus miles for purchases made between November 1 and November 17, 2023.

• Earn 400 bonus points when you spend $200
• Earn 800 bonus points when you spend $500
• Earn 2,000 bonus points when you spend $1,000

As with United’s bonus earning, the one-time bonus is based on cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period (11/1-11/17), and, once again, gift cards are not considered a “Qualifying Purchase.”  Check out the entire fine print blurb at the Delta link above.

Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping

The Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping portal is offering up to 4,000 bonus points for purchases made between November 1 and November 22, 2023.

• Earn 400 bonus points when you spend $100
• Earn 1,200 bonus points when you spend $400
• Earn 4,000 bonus points when you spend $1,000

As is standard with these shopping portal bonuses, the one-time bonus is based on cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period (11/1-11/22), and, once again, gift cards are not considered a “Qualifying Purchase.”  Check out the entire fine print blurb at the Southwest link above.

American Airlines Shopping

The American AAdvantage Shopping portal is offering up to 4,000 bonus miles for purchases made between November 1 and November 17, 2023.

• Earn 500 bonus points when you spend $200
• Earn 1,500 bonus points when you spend $700
• Earn 4,000 bonus points when you spend $1,600

Again, bonus amounts are based on cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period (11/1-11/17), and, as is typical, gift cards are not considered a “Qualifying Purchase.”  Check out the entire fine print blurb at the Alaska link above.

Wrap Up

No matter your preferred airline, this is a good way to grab some extra miles/points for doing nothing more than the shopping you likely were already planning.

Simply click through to your preferred airline shopping portal, find the retailer from which you want to shop, click the Shop Now button and you’ll be taken to the retailer’s website just as if you were shopping like normal…all purchases will be registered as coming from a specific portal, and the appropriate purchase amount will be recorded.

It’s always smart to keep track of your purchase amount/date just in case something doesn’t register correctly with the shopping portal, though.  If you’re making the effort to shop via a particular portal, you want to get the bonus points you’re due.

And, of course, bonus miles for hitting a specific spending tier are in addition to the typical miles-per-dollar-spent each retailer offers for making a purchase.

One caution when trying to meet bonus miles spending levels…each airline portal exempts shipping and handling and taxes from the amounts that are considered “qualifying purchases.”  Only the amount spent on the item(s) purchased will qualify.  This could mean the difference between hitting a spending tier level and not should you factor in the amount spent on shipping and taxes.

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to rack up a nice amount of miles/points just by doing your normal shopping via a specific portal.