Triple Dipping to Earn Miles Outside of Airline Credit Cards

To fund future travel or flight upgrades, generating miles from everyday purchases is a no brainer. However, it's not just about using promotional credit cards. You can rack up bonuses through online shopping portals and mobile apps.

As an example, I'll walk through a purchase I completed last night:

A friend was telling me about the ready to bake almond croissants they purchase from Willams-Sonoma. I decided to treat myself due to a 20% off holiday sale online. Rather than go directly to the store's website, I started at the United MileagePlus shopping portal. After logging in with my loyalty information, I easily searched for the store name and found that I could earn 1 mile per dollar spent. To earn the miles, you simply click through the link to the store from the United MileagePlus shopping portal. Online tracking will link your Williams Sonoma purchase back to your United account. 

There were still more miles up for grabs, though. I fired up the United MileagePlus X mobile app on my phone (available free through the iTunes App Store or Google Play). I browsed through the current offers to find one for Williams Sonoma offering 3 miles per dollar, plus a 25% bonus for using a Chase card (due to their partnership with United), for a total of 3.75 miles per dollar. I simply input the dollar amount of my pending purchase and generated an instant gift card number for that exact spend amount.

I paid for the gift card from the MileagePlus X app with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card, earning me 1 Chase Ultimate Rewards point per dollar.

I then used that new gift card number to complete the purchase I'd started through the MileagePlus web portal. 

All in, using free web shopping portals and mobile apps allowed me to:

• Earn 1 mile per dollar by browsing to the retailer's site via the MileagePlus web shopping portal
• Earn 3.75 miles per dollar by generating an instant electronic gift card number for the retailer through the MileagePlus X mobile app, paying with a Chase card
• Earn 1 Chase Ultimate Rewards point per dollar by purchasing the gift card with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card
• Save 20% off my purchase using the retailer's promotional code, since all regular discounts and sales on their site still apply

While this particular example was for Willams-Sonoma, there are hundreds of other retailers that participate in the MileagePlus web shopping portal, or other online shopping portals for other airlines like American. The breadth of retailers that participate in the MileagePlus X app is more limited. 

If you're not using shopping portals on top of your credit card points, you're missing out on free future travel.