When it comes to points and miles, it’s important to “always be earning.” In my opinion, you can never have too many points but sometimes your earning opportunities may seem a bit limited.
There will be situations like the current one where traveling may not be an option, and therefore, you may not be able to earn bonus spend on certain cards. When this happens, you need to have a back-up plan. Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to earn points and some of them don’t require traveling or even spending any money.
Below you’ll find three great strategies that will allow you to grow your point balances without traveling or purchasing future travel. By utilizing them you’ll be able to ensure that you’re never too far from your next redemption.
Airline Dining Programs
Dining programs have been around for a couple of years but aren’t very popular or well-known. However, they can be a great way to earn multiple points at the same time. Basically, these programs allow you to enroll through a loyalty program such as Delta Skymiles or American Airlines Aadvantage and earn up to 5 miles per dollar spent at the restaurants that participate in the program in addition to the points you’d already earn from your credit card.
This is what we call “double-dipping” and can be quite the proposition since some cards like the Amex Gold card or Chase Sapphire Reserve earn 3x or 4x points on each dining purchase. Essentially, this could result in earning up to 9 points/miles per dollar of spend.
Signing up for these programs is completely free and should only take a couple minutes. Just make sure that you register for these programs with your best card for dining purchases and use that card for each dining purchase or it may not register the extra points.
Credit Card Shopping Portals
Shopping portals are credit card company sponsored shopping sites that allow you to purchase various retail merchandise online and get extra points. The credit card bank typically makes deals with different retailers to offer this type of special to incentivize the purchaser to conduct the sale through the portal. In return, the bank gets a kick-back and the retailer of the product you purchase gets more sales. This allows everyone to benefit and you, as the purchaser, get the merchandise you want and earn more points than if you would have just bought it from the retailer’s online store.
These portals can be incredibly lucrative as there can be options to earn up to 10x points for a purchase. While they won’t always be that high, if you were planning to purchase the items anyway, then checking to see if you can do so through a shopping portal will give you the best earning opportunities and ensure you’re not leaving any value on the table.
Typically, you can access these shopping portals by logging into your credit card account online and navigating to the section of the site that allows you to redeem points. From there you should see a “shopping” option or an “earn more points” option.
Here are the steps to use Chase’s shopping portal which is quite robust:
Step #1 – Login to your online account and click on “Redeem Rewards”
Step #2 – Go to the Ultimate Rewards Dashboard
Step #3 – Select “Earn More Points” from the left menu or on the main page
Step #4 – Search for your favorite stores or browse the featured deals
Referral Bonuses
One highly under-rated method of acquire points quickly without traveling or spending any money at all is through referral bonuses. Credit card companies offer these as incentives to cardholders that recommend their cards to friends or family. Upon an application submission and approval, the recommending party will be granted up to 15k points and the newly approved referee will be eligible for a sign-up bonus.
Personally, I’ve earned at least 80k points over the last year and helped others get into the points game at the same time which really makes this a win-win for all parties. This method can also be especially handy for couples that earn points and book travel together since you can earn a referral bonus by sending a link to your spouse or vice versa.
American Express is the most generous with these bonuses as they apply to all cards. Additionally, if the person you refer doesn’t get the same card you recommended, but rather a different card, you’ll still earn a bonus. To refer a card, you simply only need to login to your Amex online account and scroll down to see the box below recent account activity that is titled “Refer Friends, Get Rewarded” and click the blue button that says “Refer Now”.
Next you can either have Amex send an email to your recipients or copy the link provided and use it as you like. I recommend the latter as sometimes the email from Amex can get flagged as spam.
Chase referral bonuses aren’t as generous and only apply to certain cards. To see the full list of cards applicable and refer a friend, use this link.
From there, choose the card you’d like to refer and enter your information.
Conclusion
Travel isn’t always an option if you’re trying to save money or if there is a pandemic at hand, however, there are still plenty of ways to earn points or miles. By signing up for free dining programs, earning additional points on purchases through shopping portals, and leveraging referral bonuses, you can keep your point balances healthy while staying healthy and safe.
