The biggest shopping days of the year for the U.S. are Black Friday and Cyber Monday while here in Canada it has always been Boxing Day. In the last few years Canada has caught on to the whole craze and now we celebrate Black Friday and Cyber Monday as well. While many people will choose to camp out at their favorite retailers for those amazing deals, most frequent flyers, mileage and points hounds will actually be happy at home relaxing in front of their computers to get their Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping done. Why? The almighty miles and points. That’s why. When shopping online these people will be earning their regular credit card miles and points for purchases as they would in-store but will earn even more by shopping via online shopping portals. While many major loyalty programs have online shopping portals for shopping at your favorite retailers some stand out for the upcoming crazy shopping days as not only will you earn your base miles through the mall and you credit card miles but you’ll also earn bonus miles that these portals are offering! At the time of posting it appears that many of the U.S. based programs have not released their Black Friday/Cyber Monday bonus miles offerings yet or who knows maybe they aren’t having any any since they know people are going to shop anyways!
Here are RC’s top 4 online mall bonuses for the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping frenzies!
Air Miles
One of the largest and longest running Canadian online portals, airmilesshops.ca has some big bonuses in store! You’ll earn 10x reward miles offer valid on qualifying purchases of $20 CDN or more, excluding shipping, duty and taxes, made in a single transaction on top of additional bonuses for individual retailers. For example, The Source has 15x the Air Miles, which means even on a small $20 purchase you’ll earn 24 Air Miles, on a $100 purchase its 120 miles! Find all the details here.
Aeroplan eStore
Getting noticeably less play than their new big shopping partner, Shop.ca, the Aeroplan eStore is still around and they’re also having a Black Friday offer for online shopping. All purchases will earn 5x the miles per dollar spent and if you hold Distinction status you’ll earn your relevant Distinction bonus over and above the 5x miles. Find all the details here. (oh and if you choose to shop via Shop.ca they have lots of Black Friday specials and you’ll earn 5x the miles if it is your first purchase with them)
RBC Rewards eMall
One of the newest online portals in Canada, the RBC Rewards Mall is only for RBC credit card holders and they have quite the deal! Cardholders will earn up to 15x the RBC Rewards Points for online purchases made via RBC Rewards eMall. Since they state ‘up to 15x’ it seems like the bonus depends on the retailer, so some many not have any bonus while others will have the whopping 15x! Find all the details here.
Great Canadian Rebates / ebates.ca
Not into points or miles? You can always choose to earn cash back via the online portals that offer a rebate on online purchases. The two biggies in Canada are GreatCanadianRebates.ca and ebates.ca. ebates.ca will be awarding double cash back on Black Friday purchases, we have not seen what GCR is planning.