Black Friday is the time of year when it’s not just about saving – it’s about stacking. If you’re serious about travel hacking, every holiday purchase should be seen as an opportunity to boost your points balances strategically.
Whether you’re shopping for fashion, electronics, home goods, or holiday gifts, here’s how to maximize your points earnings across every category by using the right tools, portals, and credit cards.
General Strategy Before You Start Shopping
Before we break it down by category, here are a few universal moves to make:
Log into a cashback/points portal like Rakuten
👉 Sign up here for 5,000 bonus points when you spend $50. This will be on top of your regular credit card points earnings!
Choose to earn Amex or Bilt points instead of cash back for even more value.
Rakuten offers change daily and they’re bound to have some really great 15-20x offers as we get closer to Black Friday – so check daily!
If you’re having trouble figuring it out, you can watch the tutorial below:
Use the cards with the highest multipliers for each purchase
You can check this manually every day (the offers change!) or Use this app to track exactly which card to use at each store for bonus multipliers and cash back.
For example, right before writing this post I purchased something at Sephora. Normally I would use a card like a Capital One Venture for 2x on everything, but CardPointers notified me that I should in fact be using one of my Amex cards because they are offering +5x points per dollar at Sephora (on top of the regular 1x per dollar). So I stacked that with the current Rakuten promo and got a total of 8x points per dollar on my purchase – 4x more what I woud’ve gotten!
Chase Freedom, Amex Gold, Bilt, and Citi cards often have limited-time holiday offers on select retailers. Check your card’s Amex/Chase Offers or activate them automatically via CardPointers.
If You’re Buying Electronics…
Where to Shop: Best Buy, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Canon, B&H, Samsung, LG
- Use: Rakuten portal (often 5%–10% back)
- Card to Use:
- Amex Platinum: Offers extended warranty + potential portal stacking with offers or credits (Business Platinum has a Dell Credit!)
- Capital One Venture or Amex Blue Business Plus for 2x on general spend
Stack it:
Use Rakuten + Credit Card Offers to double dip on expensive gear.
If You’re Buying Fashion or Gifts…
Where to Shop: Saks, Nordstrom, SSENSE, Bloomingdale’s, Nike, Lululemon
- Use: Rakuten or Savewise to find the best cashback/points combo
- Card to Use:
- Capital One Venture or Amex Blue Business Plus for 2x on general spend / or Chase Freedom Unlimited for 1.5x
- Amex Platinum for Lululemon and Saks credits that stack with Rakuten offers
- Any card with active offers for the store you’re looking for!
If You’re Buying Subscriptions or Apps…
Where to Shop: Adobe, Canva, Notion, software bundles
- Use: Card-linked Amex Offers, Rakuten browser extension
- Card to Use:
- Amex Business Platinum for the $250 Adobe Credit
- Amex Business Gold for 4x on software and cloud subscriptions
If You’re Buying Gift Cards (or shopping on Amazon)
Where to Shop: RoveMiles, where you can buy gift cards and earn up to 7x points per dollar. You can even buy Visa or Mastercard gift cards and earn 5-6x per dollar – which you can then use on Amazon!
- Card to Use:
- Stack with Capital One Venture or Amex Blue Business Plus for 2x on general spend / or Chase Freedom Unlimited for 1.5x
If You’re Booking Flights, Hotels, or Travel Deals…
Where to Book: Airline direct sites, RoveMiles, hotel brand sites
- Use:
- RoveMiles to book hotels and earn up to 70x points per dollar. If you want to learn more about how Rove works, you can read this article.
- Airline sales — some offer portal bonuses for bookings too! Like this Delta Black Friday Sale.
- Card to Use:
- Amex Platinum for 5x on flights booked with any Airline
- Chase Sapphire Reserve for 4x on flights and hotels. Hotel bookings on Rove trigger this multiplier so you can stack.
- Any hotel card you have that earns a large multiplier with that hotel chain will also work on Rove, since it counts as a direct booking!
- Bilt for 3x on travel
Final Tips to Maximize Your Holiday Points
- Always double or triple dip: Use portals + card-linked offers (like Rakuten + Amex Offers)
- Use the right card at checkout: CardPointers will help you auto-select it
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