Difference between revisions of "Credit card shopping programs"
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<li>'''[//promotions.bankofamerica.com/deals/ BankAmeriDeals]'''. Bank of America’s program works like Amex Offers—you need to activate the offers on their website first. Once activated, they are automatically applied, when you use your card. Most deals are cash-back based (typically 10%), with the money being automatically applied to your credit card statement.</li> | <li>'''[//promotions.bankofamerica.com/deals/ BankAmeriDeals]'''. Bank of America’s program works like Amex Offers—you need to activate the offers on their website first. Once activated, they are automatically applied, when you use your card. Most deals are cash-back based (typically 10%), with the money being automatically applied to your credit card statement.</li> | ||
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| + | <li>'''[//flexperkspromos.usbank.com FlexPerks Offers'''. U.S. Bank provides a limited set of special offers to its cardholders.</li> | ||
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Revision as of 23:39, 27 August 2018
There are several programs that provide bonus rewards when you use your credit card to shop at a participating merchant.
Our advice is to take a few minutes to sign up for all the set-and-forget programs. Once you’ve registered, you’ll automatically earn extra rewards, without having to take any further action, or even remember that you've enrolled.
If you want to earn even more rewards, you can take advantage of some additional programs, where you have to “claim’ your awards first.
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Spent
When you register your credit card with Spent, you'll automatically earn extra rewards, when you shop at one of their participating merchants.
Spent works with a nice set of merchants, including Amazon, Whole Foods, McDonald's, Starbucks, iTunes, Netflix, Uber, Walgreens, and Lowes. Once you've activated each store, you'll earn an extra 1% in rewards just by using a linked card, whether you are shopping in-store or online. Monthly rewards are limited to $100 per merchant. To actually receive your cash back, you can transfer (amounts over $20) to a PayPal account.
Their partner list can be confusing, because they also act as a shopping portal (where you can get extra rewards for shopping at certain stores, as long as you visit the store by clicking on a link on the Spent website or app), as well as a linked-card program. While their shopping portal rates are decent, you can usually earn more by going through one of the best online shopping portals instead. So, the interesting set of partners are really limited to the ones that mention "via linked card", and work simply by using your linked credit card to make a purchase.
Unlike some of the other linked credit card services, you need to register each individual card with the service, rather than linking all the cards from each bank. Nevertheless, it only takes a minute to enroll a new card. You also need to individually "activate" each merchant where you want to earn rewards.
Spent relies on a back-end that is provided by a company called "Empyr". As a result, the same credit card can't be used with both Spent and other Empyr-based programs, such as the one offered by Yelp (and described below). Ideally, you can link your "restaurant" credit card to Yelp (or similar program), and link some of your other cards to this program.
Drop
Drop works similarly to Spent. Once you register your card with the service, you'll automatically earn extra rewards, whenever you shop at one of their participating merchants. Their points can be redeemed for gift cards. Be award that Drop’s points are only worth 1/10 of a cent, so 10 points per dollar equals 1% cash-back.
Drop works with many of the largest merchants, including Walmart, Target, Safeway, Whole Foods, Macy’s, and Starbucks. You’ll typically earn 1-2% cash-back, in addition to whatever you earn from your credit card, the store’s own loyalty program, and any other shopping program. Unlike Spent, you can only earn rewards with five specific merchants, which you choose when you sign up for the program, and you can’t change later. But the earning rates are slightly higher than with Spent.
You can earn rewards with the same merchant using both Spent and Dosh. For example, if you choose Whole Foods from Dosh, you can earn 2% from Dosh, 1% from Spent, and whatever you earn from your credit card.
Acorns Found Money
Acorns helps you save and invest money, by rounding up all your purchases to the nearest dollar, and adding the extra money to your investment account. They also operate a program called Found Money, that will automatically give you cash-back, whenever you use your registered card at a participating retailer.
To earn rewards with a retailer, you must activate that retailer in the app. Monthly rewards are capped at a maximum of $40.
They only work with a small set of retailers, but they include very useful options like Walmart (1%), Macy’s (5%), Apple (1.2%, with some products excluded), Airbnb (1.8%), and Expedia hotel stays (4%).
Visa Local Offers: Uber and Trim
Visa operates a "local offer" program that is primarily focused on restaurants. But, it also provides extra rewards at a few major retailers, such as Staples (5%), Petco (5%), Whole Foods (x%), and Williams-Sonoma (10%). As with most of these programs, all you need to do is register your credit card (Visa only), and when you use the registered card to make your purchase, you’ll automatically receive the rewards.
Visa doesn't directly offer this program to consumers. You have to work with one of their partners. The easiest way to access the program is through Uber. If you have at least one Visa card set up with your Uber account, you can click a button in the app to join the program. You can also browse participating restaurants and merchants within the app. It is also possible to access the program through a company called Trim.
Yelp and Dosh
Yelp Cash Back and Dosh are mainly restaurant reward programs, but they give rebates for a few retailers as well. As with restaurants, you can expect to get 5-10% back, and can view participating stores in the Yelp app and website. There aren’t many participating retailers, but it is very easy to register and earn extra rewards; and you probably want to do so anyway (for your restaurant spending).
Yelp, Dosh, and a few other companies' programs, operate with the same back-end, and you can only use one of them at a time. Many people prefer to use Yelp, because the participating restaurant (and store) information is integrated directly into the often-used Yelp app. However, other people may prefer to use Dosh, because they are also an interesting option for private-deal hotel booking. Find Lower Room Rates on 'Private Deal' Websites
But it is also not possible to use any of the different versions of this service with the same card that you are using with Spent (described above). Ideally, you'd link your "restaurant" card to Yelp, Dosh or one of its sibling cards, and then other cards with the Spent service.
Upromise
Upromise is a program set up by SallieMae to help people save for college. As a result, it makes it easy to transfer your rewards to a college savings plan or student loan. But, you don’t have to use the program for college, and you can always withdraw your rewards by requesting a check.
They primarily operate one of the better online shopping portals, where you can earn bonus rewards, with many online merchants.
But, they also offer an In-Store Offers program that works by simply using a registered credit card, at one of their participating physical retailers. You'll typical earn 5-10% cash back. Most of the retailers are local stores, not national chains. You can only use a Visa or Mastercard, and it only works at the participating retailer's brick & mortar locations.
Hawaiian Airlines and Ebates
Hawaiian Airlines and Ebates have reward programs, where you can register your credit card. and earn extra rewards when you use them at participating retailers. Both programs are operated by the same company, so you can only register your card with one program or the other.
Even though they are operated by the same backend company, the two programs work very differently, and have very different sets of participating retailers.
- With the Ebates In-Store Cash Back program, you need to click a button on their website to activate cash-back for each of the retailers. Then, you need to activate that merchant again, after every purchase, to re-qualify for your rewards. For most people, this is too much effort; but it can be worthwhile for larger purchases. They do have a good set of retailers.
- Hawaiian Airline’s Registered Card Offers works like the other set-and-forget program. Once you’ve registered your card, you’ll automatically receive a discount at any participating merchant. But, they have a different and much smaller set of retail partners (outside of Hawaii itself), mostly Old Navy, Gap, and Banana Republic. You’ll typically earn 2 miles per dollar.
Special “offers” from credit card companies
Several credit card companies give their cardholders access to special offers and discounts.
- Amex Offers. Amex Offers is the most talked about program, but it is not the only option. To take advantage of an offer you need to log into your account online, and activate each individual offer you might want to use, from the ever-changing set of available offers. Offers are based on the individual card, and sometimes personally targeted, so not everyone has access to the same offers.
- Visa Offers. The Visa program provides a changing set of offers that you typically redeem using a promotional code, or by mentioning the offer.
- BankAmeriDeals. Bank of America’s program works like Amex Offers—you need to activate the offers on their website first. Once activated, they are automatically applied, when you use your card. Most deals are cash-back based (typically 10%), with the money being automatically applied to your credit card statement.
- [//flexperkspromos.usbank.com FlexPerks Offers. U.S. Bank provides a limited set of special offers to its cardholders.
Many offers are in the form of “Spend $x, get $y back”. But there are also “x% off your entire order” offers, and opportunities to earn bonus Membership Rewards points on your entire purchase.
Once activated, you’ll automatically receive the offer, the next time you use your card at that merchant. Offers are associated with each individual Amex card. Once you’ve activated the offer on one card, you are not supposed to be able to also activate it on another card. However, if you open each of your cards in separate browser tabs, you should be able to apply the same offer to multiple cards (and therefore use it multiple times).
Programs from small-business cards
Each of the major credit card networks operates a special discount program for holders of their small business cards. Simply enroll your card, and you’ll automatically get the rewards. whenever you use your card at a participating retailer. You should take a minute to enroll each of your business cards in the corresponding program.
- Visa SavingsEdge. Some notable partners include National and Alamo Rental Car (4%) and Chevron (2%). Promotional rates are sometimes available, with activation, such as 10% back from Office Depot.
- Amex Offers for Business. Amex used to operate a small business program called the "OPEN" Savings program, but they have consolidated that with their regular Amex Offers program. Business cards will be targeted for a number of lucrative business oriented offers, such as 10% back on up to $1,000 in purchases at Staples.
- Mastercard Easy Savings. The most notable partners are Avis and Budget (5%), Registering your card also gives you a 4% rebate, whenever you user your card at more than 14,000 restaurants, including many chain restaurants.
