Lazy Tips for Holiday Shopping
Tl;dr: Take advantage of credit card points and protections, shopping portal rewards, merchant offers, and Amazon points discounts to get the most out of holiday shopping deals.
The holiday shopping season is upon us, including big sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The best way to save money, of course, is to save money—buy less, and buy on sale when you do. But assuming you’re going to be spending some money this holiday season, here’s some quick and lazy tips to do so more safely and with more rewards.
Protect your purchases
Before we turn to rewards and points, an underrated aspect of credit cards is the protections they can offer on your purchases. All credit cards offer protection against fraud, but several go further, offering purchase protection, return protection, and extended warranties on purchases. (The following is an overview, but always be sure to read the fine print!)
Purchase protection. Purchase protection is compensation for damage, loss, and/or theft within a certain period of time after purchase, with the exact details depending on the card. Many top credit cards offer this protection, including Capital One Venture X, Amex Platinum and Gold, Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve, Citi Strata Premier, Bilt Mastercard, Chase Freedom Unlimited, Amazon Visa, and Amex Blue Cash EveryDay. The last four are no-fee cards.
Extended warranty. Many credit cards also offer extended warranty protection, which is just what it sounds like—if your purchase has a warranty (like a TV, for example), the credit card will extend the validity of that warranty, up to certain limits. Top cards with extended warranty protection include the Capital One Venture X, Amex Platinum and Gold, Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve, Citi Strata Premier, Chase Freedom Unlimited, and the Amazon Visa.
Return Protection. This feature allows for compensation if the merchant won’t allow you to return an item. Of the major credit cards, the Capital One Venture X, Amex Platinum, and Chase Sapphire Reserve offer this protection, with each covering items within 90 days of purchase. Capital One and Amex cover up to $300 per item, while Chase covers up to $500; each has an annual limit of $1,000 total. Generally, the item must be in like-new condition and certain items are excluded (including but not limited to customized items, tickets, animals, etc.).
Only the Capital One Venture X, Amex Platinum, and Chase Sapphire Reserve have all three protections, so consider whether certain purchases (like electronics) might be best left on one of these cards.
Maximize your credit card points
Most major credit cards will get you at least 1 point or 1% back per dollar spent, which is better than (almost) every debit card, at least. But you can do better.
The Amex Blue Cash Everyday earns 3% cash back on online retail. The Discover It earns 5% back on rotating categories, and this quarter that category includes Target and Amazon (as usual). Amazon’s Visa card earns 5% back on Amazon purchases year round.
But you don’t need to shop at any specific merchant to earn double points on the Venture X or a 2% cash-back card like the Citi Double Cash or Wells Fargo Active Cash.
Also, check your email for targeted offers from your bank. I currently have an offer from Barclays for 2,000 bonus AA points if I spend $300 in November, December, and January on my AA Aviator. If I spend at least but not much more than that, I’ll earn about 3 AA miles per dollar.
Bonus tip: you can use a couple of Amex, Chase, or Citi points to potentially save on Amazon purchases.
Get extra rewards with shopping portals
When shopping online, you can often earn extra miles, points, or cash back by using a shopping portal. You can get a head start on your rewards by signing up with a referral like, like this one from Rakuten or this one from Swagbucks. If I’m shopping at a specific store, I like to check Cashback Monitor for the best rewards rate. But you can also install a browser extension to have the rewards rate pop up as you browse. Although you typically won’t get shopping portal rewards with Amazon, Rakuten’s browser extension will alert you if there’s a better price on the item you’re looking at elsewhere on the internet.
If you’re an in-store shopper, consider Dosh. Although much more limited than online retail options, you can still save on the occasional brick-and-mortar purchase.
The in-store offers available through Dosh in my neighborhood.
Finally, you can get some small rewards on any purchases by scanning receipts with Fetch or link your credit cards to Pogo.
Activate your merchant offers
In addition to your credit card points and any rewards you might earn from a shopping portal, you can also earn cash back or extra points with offers from merchants linked to your credit card. There are a ton of great merchant offers floating around right now.
My favorites include 10% on Rover petsitting with my IHG Premier (useful for those extended holiday travels), 10% back on Southwest flights with the Premier (same), 2 extra AA miles per $1 spent on Lyft with SimplyMiles, 1 extra AA mile per dollar spent at Amazon and Walmart.com via SimplyMiles,, and 10% back at Quince with my Premier.
I’ve already written about these offers before, so here is the quick recap:
Activate offers within your Amex, Citi, or Chase app
Link one or more Mastercards to SimplyMiles.com and active offers there
Consider using Cardpointers’ free extension to activate all your credit card offers in a single click
Conclusion
There’s tons of great ways to protect your biggest holiday purchases this year and get maximum rewards, even while saving money by taking advantage of savings on sales like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. So break out the Venture X, sign up for Rakuten and download the browser extension, and activate all the credit card deals you can find. Happy holidays!