How to Earn Travel Points on Your Holiday and Thanksgiving Shopping (Without Spending a Dollar More)

How to Use Shopping Portals to Earn Points and Miles on Black Friday, Holiday Gifts, and Thanksgiving

November is a lot.

In my house, November is two birthdays, Thanksgiving, and holiday cards, all in the same 30 days. Gifts get ordered. Cards get designed and printed. Money gets sent. And I am the one keeping track of all of it.

If your November looks anything like that, here is the good news: you are already spending the money. You might as well earn travel points on it.

The tool that makes this easy is a shopping portal. It adds about ten seconds to each purchase. And you do not have to become a “points person” to use one.

Let’s walk through it.

Disclosure: This post may contain referral links. If you sign up through one, I may earn a small reward at no extra cost to you. I only share tools I actually use.

First, the Only Rule That Matters

This only works if you were already going to buy it.

A portal is never a reason to shop. Getting 2% back on something you did not need still leaves you down the other 98%.

The same rule from my sign-on bonus guide applies here too: if I can’t pay the balance when the statement arrives, it doesn’t go on the card. The holidays are exactly when balances sneak up. One month of interest erases every point you earned.

What a Shopping Portal Actually Is

A shopping portal is a website that pays you for shopping at stores you already use.

Here is how it works:

You log into the portal.
You search for the store and click through to its website.
You shop and check out like normal.
The store pays the portal a small fee for sending you. The portal shares part of that fee with you as cash back, points, or miles.

You still earn your regular credit card points, too. The portal reward is extra, on top of what your card already gives you.

There are three main kinds:

Airline portals, like Delta SkyMiles Shopping or United MileagePlus Shopping. These earn miles with one airline.
Credit card portals, like Shop Through Chase. These earn your card’s points.
Cash back portals, like Rakuten. These pay cash back, and some let you take it as travel points instead.

What My November Looks Like Through One Portal

I run almost all of my November shopping through Rakuten. The reason is simple: the stores I actually use that month are already on it.

Etsy for birthday gifts and personalized pieces
Shutterfly and Vistaprint for holiday cards and party printing
Western Union for sending money for the holidays

Etsy and the print shops pay a percentage of your order back. Western Union pays a flat amount on qualifying transfers. Rates change often, and print shops tend to raise theirs around the holidays, so check the store’s Rakuten page before you buy.

Here is the part that matters for travel. If you have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards, you can switch Rakuten to pay you in Amex points instead of cash. Every $1 of cash back becomes 100 points, and those points can be transferred to airline and hotel partners. Rakuten also offers Bilt points as an option.

One thing to plan around: Rakuten pays out once a quarter. Points from November shopping land in February. If you are counting on them for a specific trip, build in that wait.

Now the honest math. A $150 holiday card order at 2% back is 300 points. That will not book a flight on its own. But add birthday gifts, holiday cards, and everything else that lands in one month, and it adds up. And I earned it without adding a single thing to my to-do list.

How to Pick Your One Portal

Some points blogs will tell you to compare five portals before every purchase. You do not have to do that.

Pick one portal, based on the points you already collect:

You have an Amex card that earns Membership Rewards, or a Bilt card: start with Rakuten.
You have a Chase Sapphire or Freedom card: start with Shop Through Chase. It lives inside your Chase account.
You are loyal to one airline: use that airline’s shopping portal.

What you get: one login, one habit, and one place your points pile up.

The downside: sometimes another portal pays more for the same store, and you leave a few points on the table.

My recommendation: pick one and stick with it. A few missed points cost less than the energy of comparing rates every time you buy wrapping paper. If you ever do want to compare, a site like Cashback Monitor shows every portal’s rate for a store in one place.

Stack It: Portal, Card, and Holiday Bonus

One purchase can earn you rewards three ways:

The portal reward, for clicking through.
Your credit card points, for paying with your card.
A holiday bonus, when the portal runs a seasonal promotion.

That third one is live right now. In early November 2026, the Alaska (Atmos Rewards), American, Delta, Southwest, and United shopping portals all launched holiday bonuses. You earn extra miles when your total spending through that portal reaches set amounts during the promotion. Your purchases add up across orders, so you do not need to spend it all at once.

The deadlines are close:

Portal	Bonus ends
Alaska Atmos Rewards Shopping	November 20, 2026
American AAdvantage eShopping	November 20, 2026
United MileagePlus Shopping	November 20, 2026
Delta SkyMiles Shopping	November 21, 2026
Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping	November 23, 2026

Check each portal for its exact spending tiers before you shop.

One caution: use the airline portal for purchases you were making anyway, and stop there. Spending extra to reach the next bonus tier is the exact trap from the top of this post.

If you are working toward a new card’s sign-on bonus, your holiday spending can count toward that minimum spend, too.

What About Thanksgiving Groceries?

This is where a lot of people get confused. Most portals cover online stores. They usually do not help with your grocery run.

For Thanksgiving dinner, your credit card does the work. Many travel cards earn extra points on groceries. My Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 3x on online grocery orders, though Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs do not count.

Before you shop, check your card’s bonus categories. Then put the turkey, the sides, and the extra butter on the card that earns the most.

Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday Checklist

When portal points go missing, it is usually a tracking problem. Run through this before you click “buy”:

Turn off your ad blocker for the purchase. It can stop the portal from seeing your order.
Allow cookies. Strict privacy settings, including Safari’s tracking protection, can interfere.
Click through the portal right before you check out. Do not click through, wander off, and come back two hours later.
Stay in one tab. Clicking a coupon from another site can replace the portal’s tracking.
Use only coupon codes the portal lists. Outside codes can cancel your reward.
Watch for gift card exclusions. Many stores do not pay rewards on gift card purchases.
Save your order confirmation. If points do not show up, you will need it to file a claim.

Points usually show as “pending” first. That is normal. If you return an item, those points come back off.

Is This a Good Fit for You?

This is worth trying if:

You already shop online for the holidays
You pay your card in full every month
You can add one ten-second step before checkout

It is probably not a fit right now if:

You carry a balance
Seeing “earn rewards” makes you want to add to cart
One more login sounds like one more thing to manage

Both answers are fine. Your budget comes before travel perks. Always.

Final Thoughts

November already asks a lot of the woman who keeps everyone’s birthdays, dinner plans, and card list in her head. You do not need a new system. You need the one you already have to give a little back.

Pick one portal. Click through before you check out. Pay it off when the bill comes.

That’s it. Let the points pile up quietly while you handle everything else.

When you are ready to turn those points into an actual trip, one that works for everyone you are bringing, that is what the Travel Sanity Consultation is for. We look at the points you have, the trip you want, and the people coming with you. Then we build a plan around all of it.

You can schedule a Travel Sanity Consultation here. You do not have to figure out the points part alone.

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