Shopping Portals and Dining Programs

Post last modified:April 14, 2020
Post author:Katie Seemann

Using shopping portals and dining programs are a great way to supercharge your points earning. Getting new credit cards with sign up bonuses is great, but you need to also focus on earning points through everyday spending. The best way to do this is to get as many points as possible for each dollar you spend.

Shopping Portals

Shopping portals are a great way to supercharge your online purchases. Most airlines and hotel chains as well as some banks have their own portal to shop through. Unless you are only looking to earn 1 type of point (Chase Ultimate Rewards points, Southwest Rapid Rewards points, etc) then it is important to shop around to find the best points offering for the store you are shopping at. Thankfully, there are tools to help you with this. I use Cashback Monitor to check the bonus points at any store I am planning to make an online purchase through. All you need to do is search for your particular store and you will be able to see how many extra points are being offered through each portal.

Cashback Monitor — Search for the store you are shopping at

Just click through the portal to complete your purchase, just as you would through Ebates. (It’s always good to check Ebates too – sometimes they are offering a higher percentage cash back so it makes sense to go through them instead of a shopping portal)

See which shopping portals are offering bonus points

Here are the links to some popular shopping portals:

Southwest Airlines
American Airlines
Delta Airlines
United Airlines
Jet Blue
Hilton
Marriott
You can also shop through Chase by logging into your account, going to your Ultimate Rewards page and clicking “Earn Points>Shop Through Chase”

Dining Programs

I personally don’t pay much attention to dining programs, but depending on where you live and eat out at, they can be very valuable. Each airline/hotel has a different portal but most use the same program (you can earn points in each airline’s program.) All you need to do is sign up at your chosen program’s dining website, register your credit card and then use that card to dine at participating restaurants. I find that the restaurants I tend to eat at aren’t included in the program so I haven’t earned a ton of points this way, but every point counts so it can’t hurt to sign up! Most programs offer a bonus at the beginning of your membership to it’s smart to wait to sign up until you have plans to dine at a participating restaurant.