Earn Extra Rewards by Enrolling in Credit Card Shopping Programs (2019)
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.
In general, you can register with all these programs to increase the number of retailers where you can earn bonus rewards.
If a retailer participates in multiple programs, you'll typically earn rewards for each one. For example, every time you shop at Whole Foods, you can receive 1% back from Spent and .8% back from Drop, plus whatever rewards you earn from your credit card.
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Pei
Pei is one of the newer options, and is not yet open for you to immediately sign up. You'll need to join a waiting list and wait for an invitation to finish setting up your account.
Once you join and link your accounts, you'll start earning automatic bonus cash back at a range of major retailers. Some examples include Target (1%), Walgreens and CVS (1%), Starbucks (1%), Nordstroms (1%), Zara and H&M (1.2%), Trader Joe's (1%), Gamestop (1.2%), Chipotle (1.2%), Chick-fil-A (2%), Subway (1.5%), Petsmart and Petco (1%), Old Navy (1%), Gap (1%), Uniqlo (1%), Dunkin' Donuts (1.5%), Dominos (1.5%) and many more.
You'll also receive around 5% back at a wide range of restaurants, including many of the more popular spots.
Pei is probably the most useful and lucrative of the currently available options. But, with many of these programs, the cash back options get worse as the user base expands more widely. So, we'll see how good Pei winds up being once it gets more established.
Most of the major shopping reward programs (such as Pei, Spent, Drop, and Bumped) work by linking your online banking accounts, rather than linking individual credit cards. For example, rather than entering the credit card number, expiration date, and security code of each of your American Express cards, you simply enter your American Express username and password, and all your American Express cards are automatically linked to the rewards program.
If you want, you can then link and unlink individual cards. When you sign up for a new card from a linked bank, it is automatically linked to your shopping account, without you needing to take any additional action.
This is more convenient than linking individual cards, but it does give the shopping program access to information for all your accounts, including checking and investment accounts associated with the same bank.
If the shopping program is following the rules, it does not have access to your actual user names and passwords. Your bank controls the signin form that is displayed within the app, and returns an "access token" that the app uses to access the data in your accounts. But, in the end, you'll still need to trust the applications you are working with.
Drop
Unlike Pei, you don't need an invitation to sign up with Drop.
With Drop, you earn rewards with five merchants of your choice from a list that includes Target (.8%), Safeway (.8%), Whole Foods (.8%), Trader Joe's (1.2%), Macy's (.8%), Walgreens (.8%), Starbucks (1.2%), Uber (1%), Lyft (1%), Seamless (1.6%), Fred Meyer's (1.2%), Dunkin' Donuts (1.4%), Urban Outfitters (1.5%), Bath and Body Works (1.5%), McDonald's (.8%), Chipotle (1.2%), or Sephora (1%). In their earlier stages, they offered additional merchants (including Amazon) and slightly higher reward rates, but these are not available to new members.
Once you choose your five merchants, you can't change them. So, make sure sure to choose the merchants where you are likely to spend the most money each year. Like Pei, Drop’s points are only worth 1/10 of a cent, so 10 points per dollar equals 1% cash-back.
Along with these five merchants, called "Power Offers", you can also earn points with a variety of other in-app offers. These work like a typical shopping portal. You click a button to visit the merchant's website and earn points for your online purchases. For many people, mobile only shopping access is not particulary useful, and Drop's rates aren't anything special.
You are limited to $5 in rewards per merchant per week, and you need to cash out using small denomination gift cards from a set of merchants including Amazon and iTunes. Like Pei, you link your entire account to Drop, not individual cards.
While it is inconvenient that you can't change merchants or redeem somehow in cash, it is still worthwhile to sign up for Drop to earn extra rewards from a handful of generally useful retailers and restaurants.
Spent
Spent is another option that works like Drop and Pei.
Spent works with a very small set of merchants, but it is a generally useful list—you'll earn 1% at Whole Foods, iTunes, Starbucks, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and MacDonald's.
Alongside this list of core merchants, Spent offers a variety of other cash back options. You'll get shopping portal benefits with a wide range of additional merchants, automatic rewards at over 10,000 restaurants through the Spent dining program powered by Empyr (see Earn Extra Rewards by Enrolling in Credit Card Dining Programs), access to private hotel deals through Spent's travel program, and access to "Pay in Store" merchants.
With "Pay in Store" merchants, you receive "cash back" by essentially buying discounted merchant gift cards. For example, if you need to make a $42 purchase at Staples, when you are checking out, you can use the Spent app to purchase a gift card that exactly equals the payment due. The cashier will scan the app, and you'll receive 2% cash back. Spent winds up charging your credit card, instead of Staples, so you'll want to avoid doing this at any store where you would earn bonus rewards from your card, or where you'd be earning rewards with another shopping program. Paying in this way is also considerably less convenient that just using a card directly, but the extra rewards can be nice, and Spent supports a small, but useful set of "Pay in Store" merchants, such as Staples (2%), Lowe's (1%), Nordstrom (2%), Nike (5%), Cabela's (4%), and Bed, Bath & Beyond (2%).
Like Pei and Drop, you register your cards by providing your online account information, rather than individual card numbers.
Bumped
Bumped is another new rewards option that works like Pei, Drop, and Spent. Like Pei, you'll need to sign up for a waiting list, and wait for an invitation to join the program.
One of Bumped's twists is that instead of earning cash back, you earn fractional shares of the company's stock. For example, each time you spend $13 on Netflix, you'll earn 26 cents in Netflix stock. That means that you'll actually be opening a real brokerage account with Bumped. But, there are no ongoing maintenance fees, no fees to sell your fractional shares, and no fees to transfer cash out to your bank account.
Another twist is that you choose one company from each company. For example, you can choose to earn 1% with Target or Walmart, 3% at McDonald's, Jack in the Box, or Wendy's, or 1-3% with AT&T, Verizon, or T Mobile. There is an excellent set of partners, but as with Pei, we will need to wait to see what remains available when the app is available to all comers.
Linking your credit work works the same as Pei, Drop, and Spent. There is a reward limit of $250 per brand per year, and $50 for any individual purchase.
Ebates, Alaska, & United
Ebates operates its own credit card based shopping program, called "In-Store Cash Back Offers".
Unlike Pei, Drop, Spent, and Bumped, Ebates' program is not a "Set and Forget" program. You don't just automatically earn rewards whenever you shop with one of your linked cards.
Instead, you have to activate each offer on their website. Once you do, the offer remains active for about 45 days, and you can activate offers with as many merchants as you'd like. Once you earn rewards with a participating merchant, you'll need to revisit the website and reactivate the offer to qualify for rewards on your next visit.
Also unlike the programs discussed above, you link individual Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards (using their credit card numbers) rather than linking entire online accounts.
Ebates also operates in-store shopping programs for Alaska Airlines and United Airlines. With these airline shopping programs, you'll earn miles rather than cash back. You'll typically get 1.5 miles, instead of 2% cash back; 2 or 2.5 miles instead of 3% back, or 3 miles instead of 4% back. While earning miles might be more valuable than the cash back rates, many of Ebates best retail partners aren't included in the Alaksa and United programs. The airline programs only work with a subset of the stores available directly through Ebates.
If you are willing to make the effort, it is worthwhile to link each of your cards to eBates, visit the site every 30-45 days, activate any potentially interesting offers, and earn some extra rewards from your purchases. If you are even more diligent, you can try to remember to return to the site to reactivate any offers you wind up using.
Other programs
RetailMeNot
RetailMeNot is probably the top "promo code" site on the web, but it also offers a shopping portal. Unlike other shopping portals, it doesn't typically based its rewards on a percentage of each purchase. Instead, you'll earn a fixed dollar reward for any purchase over a minimum size. For example, instead of earning 8% cashback at Macy's or 3% cashback at Staples, you might earn $10 off a $50 Macy's purchase or $5 off a $75 Staples purchase.
If your purchase is exactly the minimum amount, the rewards from RetailMeNot are usually higher than you would get elsewhere. For example, you'd be maxing out at 20% at Macy's, and 15% at Staples. But, if your purchase is smaller than the minimum, you'd get nothing. And as it starts getting larger than the minimum, the reward rate drops.
At a few merchants, RetailMeNot supports in store purchases via linked credit cards. These include Macy's, Home Depot, Kohl's, Nordstrom Rack, Papa Johns, H&M, Lane Bryant, and a few others. There is no convenient way to see the card-linked retailers, your only option is to scan through the list of all of their merchant partners.
Dosh
Dosh is primarily a dining program that runs on the same Empyr platform as Yelp Cash Back. But, it also offers rewards at a few additional partners. The current set of direct partners include Sam's Club, Pier 1, Pizza Hut, Dunkin' Donuts, Jack in the Box, Cost Plus, and Bark Box.
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.
They have a small set of card-linked partners that includes: Sam's Club ($1 for $50+ order), Bark Box (5%), Dollar Shave Club (5%), and Brandless (5%). Along with these partners, Acorns has many additional shopping portal partners.
Square Cash App
If you get a Square Cash Debit card, you'll have access to their Cash Boost program. You'll receive bonus rewards when you use your card at one of several merchants. This is almost the opposite of the other programs. You don't earn extra rewards for your credit card spending; you have to use your Square Debit card instead.
The only reason to mention it is that the reward rates are 10%. It can be a worthwhile option at Whole Foods, and possibly for their supported fast food chains (Chick Fil A, Dominos, Chipotle, and Taco Bell). You can only choose one merchant, but you can make a change your boost every day. Instead of 10% off one of these partners, you can choose to get $1 off at almost any coffee shop, which can work out to an even bigger savings.
Of course, you'll need to keep some funds in your Square Cash account in order to make your purchases.
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 the occasional retailer. Most people will access this program through Uber.
Other Empyr Programs
Yelp Cash Back and the other Empyr-based programs are mainly restaurant reward programs, but they provide rewards for the occasional retailer as well. 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 you you probably want to register with one of these programs anyway (for your restaurant spending).
Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines has a card linked program that is primarily focused on businesses located in Hawaii. But, they also support earning 2 miles per dollar with Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic. If you use your Hawaiian Airlines credit cards, you'll also get access to restaurants that participate with the Empyr platform.
Unfortunately, this program is powered by the same back end as Ebates, and you can't participate with both. Most people will prefer using Ebate's mush more extensive program.
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 and probably the best of these programs. 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. Amex Offers can be specific to individual Amex cards, and are sometimes personally targeted, so not everyone has access to the same set of offers.
- Chase Offers. Chase's offers work like Amex's Offers. Once they are activated for a specific card, you simply use that card to make a qualifying purchase, and and'll get a rebate on your statement. Chase makes fewer offers available and more of them are targeted to specific customers. At least for now, you need to view and activate your offers in their mobile app (either the Chase app or the Chase Pay app).
- 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 any of your Bank of America cards. Most deals are cash-back based (typically 10%), with the money being automatically applied to your credit card statement.
- 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. Even though offers have always been officially limited to a single card, you had previously been able to add them to multiple cards, and take advantage of them multiple times. This is no longer the case.
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.
