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Shopping through online portals can be a great way to boost a loyalty account balance, save some cash, or to prevent a loyalty balance from expiring. Right now a number of shopping portals are offering improved earnings rates for select purchases made with Apple, so this may be a good time to buy any Apple products you have been considering.
Generally, I use the evreward.com site to check which sites are offering the best earnings rate at whatever store(s) I’m planning to shop at and this is what’s on offer right now*:
A maximum of 4x is on offer and you’ll only find the Alaska Mileage Plan and United MileagePlus portals offering that earning rate (so this isn’t one of the better sets of deals that we see), but the 3.5x on offer through AAdvantage* and the 3x on offer through BA may work for some.
For the purposes of comparison, Rakuten is currently offering up to 2.0% cash back on a very, very limited number of things that Apple sells, and TopCashBack.com (which evrewards doesn’t cover) is offering just 1.01% cash back and that’s on refurbished items only.
*Evreward is, at the time of writing, showing an incorrect earning rate for Apple purchases made through the AAdvantage portal. For today, the maximum earning rate is 3.5x and not 1x.
The more important terms
The key thing to be aware of is the fact that only some Apple purchases will trigger enhanced earnings.
Per the terms and conditions (which you’ll find on the individual airline portals) the following items will not earn rewards (per the Alaska Mileage Plan store):
- Apple Vision Pro
- All Apple Vision Pro Accessories
- Apple Pro Display XDR
- Apple Developer Programs
- AppleCare+ monthly subscription
- Orders purchased from government or veteran and military stores
- Shipping, handling and taxes
- Purchases made for resale and bulk orders
- Purchases of gift cards, gift certificates or cash equivalents
That list is considerably shorter than some of the lists we’ve seen recently and it’s good to see that most of the newer Apple technology hasn’t been excluded.
There are a few other restrictions you should know about too:
- You may not purchase products for resale.
- Customers will only earn miles on up to five units per eligible product, except iPhone, in which case only two units within a thirty-day period are eligible.
- Using a coupon or discount code not found on the portal will invalidate the mileage earning.
- Orders placed on the Government or Veterans and Military Stores are not eligible for rewards.
- Purchases made with coupons or discount codes not found on the shopping portal and purchases made using gift cards, gift certificates, or other cash equivalents are not eligible for the promotion.
Make sure you read the full terms and conditions of your chose portal before committing to any purchases.
Keep in mind!
The restrictions on how many items you can buy and still earn bonus miles have been seriously tightened up in recent mons and there are now “lifetime limits” in place.
Your rewards are subject to lifetime limits of:
- 6 units per model in each of the following product categories:
- iPhone
- Mac
- iPad
- Watch
- Vision
- Apple TV HomePod
- 32 units of AirTag 1-pack and AirTag accessories
- 8 units of AirTag 4-pack
- 10 units of AirPods and other eligible accessories.
This lifetime limit applies to any purchase you make from the Apple Store website and app and rewards/boosted earnings will not be issued once you exceed the lifetime limit for a product.
Which credit card to use
By shopping through an online portal you’ll earn the miles that the portal is offering and you can earn more miles, points, or cash back by using a good credit card.
If you’re looking to earn points, the best credit card to use will be the Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express which earns 2 Membership Rewards Points/dollar on eligible business spending (everywhere) up to an annual spending limit of $50,000 (1 point/dollar thereafter – terms apply).
If you’re looking to earn a good rate of cash back, the Citi® Double Cash Card is a good option as it earns 2% cash back on all purchases with no cap on the cash back you can earn (1% cash back when you buy and 1% when you pay for those purchases)
If you happen to hold one of the Citi ThankYou credit cards you can convert cash back earned from the Citi® Double Cash Card (review) into ThankYou points at a ratio of 1:1.
Bottom line
These Apple boosted earnings deals have almost never lasted for more than a day, and this remains the case with all the portals that I’ve checked confirming that the deal will be over when today ends.
If you’ve been planning to make an Apple purchase, now may be a good time to buy, but if you can wait, it’s possible that the next promotion will offer a slight better earning rate and it’s possible (I’d argue that it’s likely) that more portals will offer at least 4x on Apple purchases.
Note: Amazon often offers good deals on Apple products so make sure you’re not missing out on good savings by shopping with Apple directly via the portals (check Amazon here – affiliate link).
