Earn Bonus Airline Miles on Your Back-to-School (or Any) Shopping
Many airline shopping portals are currently offering bonus airline miles when certain spending thresholds are met.
These aren’t earth-shattering bonus amounts, but if you have any online shopping to do over the next weeks, why not focus your spend to bulk up your airline miles balance(s)?
Below are the major airlines and their associated bonuses.
United Airlines
- Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150
- Earn 1,500 bonus miles when you spend $350
- Earn 2,500 bonus miles when you spend $600
The United bonus miles promotion runs from July 22, 2019, through August 18, 2019.
Bonus award miles will be earned based on cumulative spend, meaning you don’t have to hit the specific spend levels with one purchase. As long as you go through the MileagePlus shopping portal, you can shop at 5 different, as an example, retailers with your total spend at all 5 retailers hitting $160, and you’ll earn the 500 bonus miles. The same, obviously, applies to the 1,500 and 2,500 bonus miles levels as well.
What’s unique about United’s shopping portal is that it includes an in-store earning option as well as an online earning option. And the in-store shopping counts toward the spending thresholds, too. Just be sure to link offers to your preferred credit card before paying in-store. Details on in-store shopping/earning can be found at the link above.
Keep in mind, for any airline shopping portal, “qualifying purchases” do not include shipping and handling and taxes. Adding those charges to your tally may mistakenly put you over a spending threshold.
You can read all the fine print info associated with this bonus miles promotion and shop at the link below.
United MileagePlus Shopping Portal
Southwest Airlines
- Earn 250 bonus points when you spend $125
- Earn 900 bonus points when you spend $300
- Earn 2,000 bonus points when you spend $550
Southwest’s bonus miles (points) promotion runs now through August 18, 2019.
Bonus points earning is based on cumulative spend, too, so no need to spend big on one shopping trip if you don’t want. Remember to not include shipping and handling as well as taxes paid when calculating how much you’ve spent toward a specific threshold.
You can read the Southwest promo’s fine print and shop at the link below.
Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping Portal
Alaska Airlines
- Earn 300 bonus miles when you spend $150
- Earn 750 bonus miles when you spend $300
- Earn 1,500 bonus miles when you spend $500
Alaska’s bonus miles promo runs July 22, 2019, through August 11, 2019. So, a shorter period of time than the United and Southwest promotions.
The fine print, however, remains the same.
You can read the promo’s restrictions and shop at the link below.
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping Portal
Wrap Up
Promotions like these are great ways to add extra miles (or points) to your preferred airline’s miles balance.
Remember, you’ll need to log in to the shopping portal using your frequent flyer account information to ensure bonus miles/points post to your account. So have that information at hand when you’re ready to shop.
And, there are restrictions on what kinds of purchases qualify toward bonus miles earning…or any shopping portal earning for that matter. Often, the purchase of gift cards does not count toward spend thresholds. But, as with anything in the Miles and Points hobby, your mileage may vary.
Happy shopping, everyone.
