Triple-dip using Shopping Portals for Online Purchases

Up until now, I’ve posted several blog posts focusing on cheap travel and credit. Those posts are probably for a specific group of people that like travel. This post is for anyone--even if you don't like travel. I'm talking about how to get extra cash back or travel points on normal things you buy online already.  This is a triple dip deal! I’ll explain. ***cool over 50% savings story at the end***

Shopping Portals

I’d like to share something, that you may already know about, called “Shopping Portals.” The way it works is that there are websites that will give you a reward for clicking through their website to an online retailer and making a purchase.

Example: Let’s say you wanted to buy a shirt at Macy’s department store that costs $30. Search for “Macys” on Topcashback.com after signing in. It currently offers 8% cash back on purchases at Macy's. Click “Get Cashback Now” and it will take you to macys.com where you can shop and checkout as usual for your $30 shirt. Afterwards—assuming things work smoothly—you’ll get an email saying “You have just earned cashback at Macy’s.” Your cashback will be pending for several weeks—then you can transfer your $2.40 back to your bank account.

Why do shopping portals exist? 

Online retailers give bonuses to other sites for driving web traffic to their sites. This is big money for them and they are willing to give a cut of the $$ away for it. It just happens that these shopping portal sites send some or all of the money they get from the retailer on to the customer as they can make money in other ways too.

There is big competition for this space. Check out all the different cash back and loyalty programs that are trying to get in on this just for macy’s department store.

There are tons of online retailers that participate in this system. The bigger the retailer the more it seems they get in on it: Amazon, Nordstrom, Macy's, Best Buy, Overstock, Ebay, Walmart, Target, Home Depot.

One of my favorite sites to look up cashback information, called cashbackmonitor.com, boasts 10,000+ online retailers internationally and 43 cash back or travel points programs.

Cashbackmonitor.com is how I optimize my return for online shopping expenses. The way you use cashbackmonitor.com is to look up the retailer at which you want to shop and see which of the 43 rewards programs offer the best cash back or miles for your online purchase. When you click through cashbackmonitor you are sent to the shopping portal site and then you can click through to the retailer to shop.

As you many have noticed, I like the chance to get miles and points for travel and this is a great way to do that. I think my favorite rewards program is Chase Ultimate rewards (you get these if you have a Chase credit card, like Freedom, Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus, Ink Bold, Ink Cash, or a couple others). I like them because you can get cash back or you can transfer the points to a variety of travel programs like United, Hyatt, or Amtrak. Chase has a shopping portal too.

Triple Dipping is super awesome!

Mostly I love this because it gives me a big opportunity to get a triple dip at different online stores. Here’s how: Let’s say there’s a sale for 20% off at Macy’s (which happens monthly it seems). This is dip one, a discount from the retailer itself. But on top of that 20% off you can get an additional 8% off by going through the shopping portal (dip two) and another 2% back using a no-annual-fee cash back credit card like Citi double cash or Fidelity rewards card (dip three).

In the end you could be getting about 30% off! And all this while other people are just getting the 20% off and some people are even paying full price. The savings seems to amplify on larger purchases too.

Here’s a real-life example from this past week. I found 2 pieces of furniture on a design site called Dot & Bo and cool a 10% discount there! When I had settled on the items I wanted to order, I decided to search the interwebs to see if there was cheaper price from any other online retailers . After finding the exact same items on Overstock.com for a cheaper starting price I used these tips to get an even deeper discount. I used a discount coupon Overstock had emailed me, a shopping portal and I choose the right credit card to reward the purchase, here’s how the numbers worked out:

That’s a 54% savings on the price I was willing to pay at first for these two furniture items!

Explanation: On Overstock, the exact items were $350 cheaper than Dot & Bo. My Chase Freedom card earned 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at Overstock. Shopping Portal earned 4 American Airlines AAdvantage Miles per dollar and I earned a shopping portal bonus of 2250 AA miles as this brought me over $700 at Overstock. Overstock rewards gives you 5% back to use at Overstock.com but costs 14.95 for a year- the savings were well worth that cost.

Isn't the Dr. pretty great at this stuff?? He's got me using shopping portals for everything I buy online now- clothes, beauty products, home and everyday items. There are usually better sales with online retailers and a wider selection of items at the stores I love not to mention online shopping is so convenient!  Please leave comments or questions below and I will make sure the Dr. is in to answer them!