Are You Maximizing Your Points?

Did you know that you can get extra points and cash back from your credit cards and hotel reward programs with their online shopping malls? I’ve know about this for a while, but I never thought to write about it until my brother mentioned that he just found out about this gem of information.

His credit card has an online mall that had been available to him for over 2 years. All he had to do was link from his credit card’s website to get extra points at places he shops anyways and he just found out about it!

He’s a busy guy, but I was still surprised. I realized that the credit cards and hotels barely promote these online shopping malls. Even when they do, the shopping malls can be difficult to link to. I don’t know why these programs are under-promoted, but you should definitely know about them.

I will give some specific examples, but the extra points can add up quickly and turn into typical savings of 3 to 5 percent in cash back or points. Some merchants even reward you up to 20 points per dollar, but this is obviously not common.

Extra Credit Card Points

Chase has the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall. A few examples of the rewards they offer right now are 7 points/dollar at Drugstore.com, 6 points/dollar at Target.com, 4 points/dollar at Barnes & Noble, and many others. You can check out some of the offers for yourself at www.ultimaterewards.com.

Discover also has good incentives when you link to online merchants through their website. I believe they pioneered this idea. Discover currently offers straight cash back instead of points. Currently you can get 5% back from Home Depot Online, 10% from Barnes and Noble, and 5% from Sears.

Extra Hotel Points

Some hotel reward programs like Choice Privileges and Hilton offer online shopping malls as well. I have reviewed both of these programs before, but I failed to mention the extra points from online shopping.

In addition to the online malls, the hotels have other ways to get points. Hilton has a dining program that you can enroll in for an additional 3 to 8 points per dollar spent at participating restaurants and Choice will give you 5000 points for signing up for Direct TV or renewing your current cell phone contract.

I would also like to mention that I have used both the Choice Privileges and Hilton Hhonors reward programs. I had a credit card with Choice Privileges, but they suspended the program till July. I got several free nights with that one. I started using a Hilton credit card last summer and I have earned enough points for about $700 worth of hotel rooms over the course of a year.