15 Ways to Earn Points, Miles & Cashback from Everyday Spending
Many people earn the majority of their points and miles through credit card sign up bonuses but there are numerous other ways to earn points and miles that don’t involve getting a new credit card or even flying. It’s really easy to earn more points and miles if you pay attention to when and how you spend your money and what credit card you use. If you are currently using a debit card, it’s best to switch to credit cards as they are more secure and offer better protections and benefits. Here are the 15 ways to easily earn more points, miles and cash back from everyday spending:
1. Spend on the right credit card
Look at the credit cards you currently have and find out how many points you earn for each category. Some cards give you 4x on dining and grocery or some give 3x on travel or 8x on gas. It can make a big difference in your points balance if you pay attention to which card you use. You can put stickers on your credit cards to remind you of each card’s bonus categories or you can put notes in the notes app in your phone. Different banks have different inclusions for the travel category so just because something codes as travel for one card issuer doesn’t mean it will for another. Online travel agencies like Expedia, cruises, ferries, and campgrounds are some examples of travel purchases that might not code as travel on some credit cards. Award Wallet has a tool where you can look up stores and find their Merchant category so you can (mostly likely) know how it will code and the best cards to use. Here is the link : https://awardwallet.com/merchants. . It probably isn’t worth the time for a small purchase but if you have a larger purchase and aren’t sure how it codes then it worth spending some time to figure it out.
2. Make sure you have a credit card that earns at least 1.5x or 2x on all of your spend
This is what we call a “catch all” card. Any spend that you can’t earn more than 1.5 or 2x on should go on this card. There are quite a few cards that earn at least 1.5x to choose from. Feel free to get in touch and I can help figure out which one makes sense for you.
3. Earn points on paying rent and buying a home
A fairly new addition to the credit card rewards space is Bilt Rewards. This is a program that allows you to earn points on rent payments and on the purchase of a home when you use one of the real estate agents in their network. . Even if the place you rent isn’t part of the Bilt Rewards network you can still earn points on rent payments without any service fee. Bilt will mail your landlord a check for free. You’re paying rent anyway so you might as well be earning points for it to fund your next trip. Bilt also has a credit card which allows you to earn even more points. With the credit card you earn 3x on dining, 2x on travel and 1x on rent and all other purchases. You can transfer your Bilt points to 12 airlines and 2 hotel brands. In my opinion, if you are paying high rent then the Bilt credit card is a no brainer. You can earn up to 100,000 points a year on rent payments. Used correctly, these points could get you a roundtrip business class trip to Europe or quite a few economy roundtrips. This could also get you 15-20 nights at a Category 1 Hyatt Place. Bilt also has fun rent day challenges on the first of every month in their app. You can answer trivia questions and challenges to earn free Bilt Points. You can also earn points through their Bilt dining program and you can use that program even if you don’t have the Bilt credit card. You would just need to have the credit card you are going to use In your Bilt Wallet. You can also earn some extra points by linking your Bilt account with hotel and airline loyalty accounts. .
You can find out more about Bilt Rewards, sign up for a free account or apply for their credit card here : https://www.biltrewards.com/card/referral/NBS1-4N89
4. Take advantage of Rakuten, airline and hotel shopping portals
There are many shopping portals where you can earn points and miles for the shopping you were doing to do anyway. All you do is open the website of the shopping portal first, then find the store you want to shop at and click through the link in the shopping portal to that store. It’s free to create an account and will only take a few minutes. The best website for earning points for travel is Rakuten. Rakuten is advertised as a cash back website, and it is. However, you can change your earnings preference in your settings to earn American Express Membership Rewards Points. This is the way to go if you really want to earn more points and miles for travel since it is much more lucrative than cash back. Keep in mind you do need to have an American Express Card that earns Membership Rewards Points in order to earn points instead of cash back with Rakuten. You can pay for your shopping trip with any card you want, so you will earn the points or cash back and you will also earn credit card points as well. If you would like to sign up for Rakuten here is my referral link. http://www.rakuten.com/r/HOLLYC2147?eeid=28187 There is usually a sign up bonus. Make sure you read the terms to know how much you need to spend to qualify for the bonus. It’s usually $30 or sometimes $40.
If you have a Capital One credit card, they now allow you to earn extra points with shopping offers that are attached to your credit card. When you log into your account and click on your credit card you will see these offers. These are new offers. When you click on them it will give you the terms, make sure you read these to see any exclusions. Then it says “shop online” and you should click here to get credit for the shopping trip. You need to pay with the capital one card the offer is linked to.
Most airlines also have their own shopping portal. Delta, American, United, Alaska, Jet Blue, Southwest and British Airways all have shopping portals. Wyndham Hotels and Chase Bank also have them. Wyndham has been known to have some really great offers occasionally. They have had 10,500 points for Blue Apron and 9x for Apple Store purchases. In 2022 I earned 18,000 points for $30 of dog food from Nom Nom! Wyndham may not have the nicest properties in the US, but they have some nicer international properties and you can also transfer Wyndham points to Vacasa and book a Vacation rental for 15,000 points a night. Rakuten and all of the airline shopping portals have shopping browser extensions that you install in your browser so every time you visit a store that is offered in the shopping portal then you will get a notification at the top of your screen asking if you would like to activate that shopping portal. Rakuten typically tells you a % cash back , but if you have your settings set to earn American Express membership rewards points then 8% cash back is 8x points. You must have an American Express card that earns membership rewards points to earn them through Rakuten.
5. Save most of your shopping until holiday weekends if possible
Obviously this isn’t possible for grocery shopping, but it can be for clothing shopping, a major home renovation or a new computer. Shopping portals are known to have elevated rates around almost every holiday. If it’s considered a bank holiday, there is a good chance rates will be elevated. Also sometimes Rakuten has higher rates if you shop through their app, so don’t forget to check there.
6. Charge everything you can to credit cards
Take the time to go through your bills to see what you can pay by credit card and get your bills set up on autopay. Look at your power, gas , cable, internet, car insurance, homeowners insurance, health insurance, security alarm service, cell phone bill, streaming services and your property tax bill. If you are having work done on your house, see if they will take a credit card. Same with the yard guy, or any other service you pay for. Get in the habit of charging everything to your credit card. Sometimes there might be a small fee to use a credit card so that is something to take into consideration. Sometimes it’s worth it to pay a 3% fee if you really need the points for an upcoming vacation or you are working on a credit card welcome bonus and you need to meet the minimum spend requirements. My power company doesn’t charge a fee to pay with a credit card but my water company does, so you will just have to experiment. I can pay my health insurance without a fee with a Mastercard or Visa but not with an American Express card. If someone doesn’t accept credit cards but will accept PayPal the you can usually pay them with a credit card with the 3% fee and earn points. It will show you the fee before you hit send. If you pay for a good or service through PayPal then the service provider pays the fee. If you use Venmo or PayPal and send a friends and family payment with no fees for either party then this will not earn any points on your credit card and it most likely won’t count towards the minimum spend requirement.
7. Card linked offers
These are offers linked to different credit cards and you must activate them first. It’s basically a coupon. Some examples are 10% cash back when you stay at a Marriott property or use Instacart grocery delivery. The cash back will show up as a credit on your credit card statement. Chase, Amex, Citi, , Bank of America and Wells Fargo all have these offers. You can stack card linked offers with shopping portals.
8. Take advantage of dining portals
Most airlines and hotels have dining portals which are also free to join. These are similar to shopping portals but for eating out. Some of them are run by the same company, so if you sign up for multiple portals then you might be unenrolled from another one, so pick your favorite. If you live in large city you will typically have lots of restaurant options. Smaller towns may only have a handful of options. You link a credit card to your dining portal account and it will automatically track. Of course, use your card that offers the best rewards on dining.
9. Simply Miles
Simply Miles is a website that allows you to earn American Airlines Miles and Loyalty Points for shopping at certain stores. If your credit card isn’t in your Simply Miles profile you won’t earn the extra miles, so it’s best to go ahead and enter all of your Mastercards into your profile when you sign up. It’s no fun when you think you got a great deal and are going to earn lots of points only to find out you forgot to register that Mastercard. Keep in mind you have to activate the offers first. It’s also important to read the terms and conditions of each offer to see what purchases will count. The offers deactivate after a certain amount of time so you might want to make sure you are still enrolled in the offer before you make the charge.
You can sometimes double dip Simply Miles offers with Citibank Merchant offers. Citibank Merchant offers are offers attached to your credit card. You need to activate these. I earned 4374 AA Miles and Loyalty Points for purchasing a yearly subscription to Craftsy. I’m not crafty and have no interest in Craftsy other than for the points. There was also a Citi offer for 98% back so I paid $97 for the subscription and got a credit back to my Citibank card for $94. That means I got 4347 AA Points for $3! If you ever do a subscription deal, just make sure you stay on top of auto-renewals and cancel if you don’t want to renew.
Simply Miles can be very lucrative. They often offer thousands of miles for meal kit sign up’s and in 2021 they had an unbelievable deal of 240x for a charity donation. I donated $1000 and earned 240,000 American Airlines Loyalty Points! Some people donated $15,000 – $20,000! I don’t think they will ever have that lucrative of a deal again, but you never know.
Here is the link to sign up with Simply Miles:
10. Pay your taxes with a credit card
Currently there are 2 websites where you can pay your taxes by credit card for as low as 1.82%. This can make sense if you really need the points or need the spend to meet the minimum spend requirement for a new credit card welcome bonus. Here is a link to the IRS website with more information about paying by credit card. https://www.irs.gov/payments/pay-your-taxes-by-debit-or-credit-card
11. Other ways
Hilton and Delta partner with Lyft, Marriott with Uber/Uber Eats and Delta with Instacart, Ticketmaster, Turo and Starbucks. If you use any of these services, make sure you link your accounts so you can earn points and miles. If you stay at Airbnb’s you can earn miles on Delta, United, Qantas, ANA or British Airways. A simple google search should lead you to more information about this and how to link your accounts. Often there is a sign up bonus for linking your accounts so make sure to google that before you sign up. Marriott has offered 1000 – 3000. points in the past for linking your accounts. Delta is currently offering 2,000 miles if you link your Delta and Turo accounts and complete your first rental.
12. Buy a car with a credit card
Of course you would only do this if you were already planning to buy a new car and you can pay off the credit card without paying any interest. You never want to carry a balance on a credit card because the points and miles aren’t worth what you will pay in interest. . I have never done this and some people are told the dealership won’t accept credit cards, but it is always worth a shot. If you google “buying a car with a credit card” you will find some articles and reddit forums. If they say they will accept a credit card then I would call your credit card company to let them know you will be making a large purchase.
13. Cash Back Portals
Cash Back shopping portals are a great way to earn some extra cash and you can use the cash for travel. Cash Back Monitor, http://www.cashbackmonitor.com, is a website that monitors every shopping portal daily. It’s a good idea to look here first to see which shopping portal is offering the best rate the day you are going to shop. Some of the portals are cash back portals, which sometimes offer better rates than the other portals I mentioned. Some of the portals require $20 or $25 in earnings before they pay out, so it’s a good idea not to use too many portals because then you have a little money spread out in many portals. My favorite cash back portals are Rebates Me, Be Frugal, Max Rebates and Extrabux. I have never had trouble with a purchase tracking. Top Cash Back used to be bad about tracking purchases but they seem to be better in the past year or so and they often have the highest cash back offer. Some of these portals offer sign up bonuses for new customers.
14. Capital One Shopping
Capital One also has a website, app and browser extension called Capital One Shopping which is different than the Capital One offers linked to your Capital One credit card. Anyone can use Capital One Shopping. Their browser extension so it will notify you if you are shopping somewhere that has an offer. Capital One Shopping VERY frequently sends you better offers via email after they have seen that you were browsing a website but didn’t purchase anything. So install the browser and it will track what websites you have visited (assuming you are comfortable with this) , then wait a day or 2 and you might have a great offer emailed to you. Sometimes 30% cash back. They also have an app so make sure the offer isn’t better in the app. Sometimes offers will be different if you search for a store in the search bar versus just scanning through all of their offers. I had 20% cash back at Hilton that I found when I was scanning all of my offers but when I actually searched for Hilton it was only 3%. Make sure you read the terms because there can be exclusions or maximums they will pay out. Capital One Shopping for some reason doesn’t give everyone a referral link and I don’t have one. Sometimes they have a $40 sign up bonus. If you google “$40 Capital One Shopping referral link” you might be able to find one. Capital One Shopping doesn’t actually pay you in cash. You get a credit that you can use towards popular gift cards. Walmart has been an option recently.
15. Cash Back and Gift Card Apps
Pepper is a gift card app where you can purchase gift cards and earn a % back in rewards points that can be use towards future gift card purchases in the app. Let’s say you are about to make a purchase at Old Navy in person or online. You wait until the cashier gives your total, then you purchase a gift card in the Pepper app for the total amount of the purchase. It will generate a QR code and you give that code to the cashier. If purchasing online then it will give you a gift card number which you enter at checkout just like you would a physical gift card. Pepper sends you deals everyday in your Pepper inbox. Some good ones recently were 20x at Petsmart and 8x at Amazon. I then used that Petsmart gift card when Rakuten had Petsmart at 25x so that was quite a deal. Some stores won’t pay you if you pay with a gift card but most will. Currently the Pepper app codes as computer software which is one of the 4x categories for the American Express Business Gold. I am not sure if Amex is aware of this or not so there might be some risk using this. I don’t think they would shut down your accounts but they could take back your earned points on Pepper purchases if they decide they don’t like this. It will initially show up as Moocho, for 1x points then later it will code as App* Pepper and you will get 4x. You only get 4x on your top 2 out of the 6 categories that earn 4x so make sure you take that into consideration. If you would like to sign up for Pepper I would appreciate it if you use my referral code 594364. http://app.gopepper.com. I will earn some points.
United Airlines has a gift card app called MileagePlus X where you can earn United miles for e-gift card purchases. One time I needed 10 miles to be able to get the award flight I wanted so I purchased a $10 Starbucks gift card and got the points right away and booked the flight. The app isn’t very intuitive. To see a list of all stores click on buy e-gift card, then catalog at the top, then all. They will be in alphabetical order and you can also search by merchant name.
Dosh is a card linked app where you earn cash back when you spend at certain stores on a card registered in the app. Using these 3 Apps you can also double dip with a shopping portal and earn cash back through the app and the shopping portal.
Paypal also has a page titled offers that offers cash back. You do have to click on the offer within PayPal to activate the offer. You will have to pay with PayPal so keep in mind if you are trying to double dip with another offer it may not work since it will show up as a PayPal purchase. PayPal recently made updates to their offers so I am not entirely sure if you have to click through PayPal to redeem the offers of if just using the primary card that is linked to your PayPal account is sufficient.
Upside is a gas app that gives cash back for gas purchases. You also have to register your card within the app. This is my referral link and you can get $5 off your first gas purchase. You have to enter the promo code in your profile settings. Click this link or use promo code J2T2S4 to get a $5 bonus the first time you make a purchase. https://upside.app.link/J2T2S4 If you google “upside promo codes” you can often find promo codes to get more discounts after you use this first one.
A FEW OTHER WAYS
Register for every hotel and airline promo
Even if you aren’t sure you will stay at that hotel chain during the promotion go ahead and register. You never know when your plans might change. I try to post about the latest promos on Instagram and Facebook and you can usually see them in the promos area of your hotel loyalty account. This is a helpful website that lists all of the hotel, airline and rental car promos. https://www.frequentflyerbonuses.com. Also make sure you click through a shopping portal for any paid hotel stays.
Sign up for hotel and airline loyalty programs
Make sure you are signed up for hotel and airline loyalty programs and you use the name that is on your passport. Use the same name in the exact same way for all of your accounts. It’s a good idea to do this once you get started in the hobby. There are sometimes sign up bonuses for new members to a loyalty program so you could wait for that for hotels. But with airlines it’s a different story. Some of them are particular about transferring points into a brand new account and you might encounter problems. Never do a “test transfer” of a small amount of points before you do a larger transfer. That almost always causes problems and cause a delay in your transfer. There is nothing worse than finding the flight you want to book and your transfer getting delayed because it’s a new account or because the name doesn’t match. Once you get a transferable currency credit card then it’s a good idea to set up loyalty accounts with those programs. Bilt Rewards offers 100 points for every loyalty account you link to your Bilt Rewards account. If you are going to fly with a random airline on a paid ticket then you can usually credit those earnings to another airline in the same alliance. For example, I flew a few paid flights on Aegean Airlines in Greece. They are in the Star Alliance partnership. Since I have no use for Aegean Miles it made more sense for me to credit that flight to United Airlines. Here is a link to a website that will help you figure out where to credit your flights. This can also be helpful if you are trying to reach status with a certain airline and fly with one of their partners. https://www.wheretocredit.com
Earn miles with rental cars
Most rental car companies allow you to earn airline miles or hotel points instead of earning points with the rental car company. If you don’t rent a car frequently or aren’t loyal to a certain rental car company then it probably makes more sense to earn hotel points or airline miles. You need to choose this option within your profile on the rental car website. Typically airline miles are more valuable than hotel points so I normally choose to earn airline miles. You can also click through a shopping portal when you are booking that rental car also to earn more points and miles. I usually use Priceline.com for rental cars because they are usually 4 – 5% on Rakuten. Expedia is notorious for offering 10% back on Rakuten but if you read the terms usually rental cars are only 1%. If you are going to any sort of major event or vacation somewhere during peak season where rental cars will be booked up then you should book directly with the rental car company. If they are going to cancel anyone’s reservation it will probably be people who booked with a third party. The same goes for airfare and hotels.
I hope all of these suggestions help you earn tons more points and allow you to travel more , and of course, mostly free! 🙂
