11 Ways to Save on Holiday Shopping 2023

The best welcome bonuses tend to earn points or miles that you can redeem for travel. So while this doesn’t provide immediate savings on your holiday shopping, it can be a great sort of “rebate” for the future when you plan a trip.

One of the top welcome bonuses currently available is offered by the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, which earns new cardholders 75,000 miles after spending $4,000 on purchases within three months from account opening. This bonus is worth at least $750 if redeemed for travel purchases at 1 cent per mile, but could potentially be worth even more if you transfer the miles to Capital One’s airline and hotel partners.

The card has a $95 annual fee, but its perks, like two complimentary airport lounge visits each year and a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® application fee credit every four years worth up to $100, help offset the fee. 

Some cards even have a 0% intro APR and a welcome bonus — the best of both worlds. One example is the Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards Card, which has a new cardmember offer of a $200 cash bonus once you spend $500 on purchases within three months from account opening and a 0% intro APR for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers (19.99% to 29.99% variable APR after that).

If you’re apt to forget to seek out a portal before doing your online shopping, then you can install a browser extension from your favorite portal. This extension adds a button on your web browser that will prompt you to activate cash back or travel miles to your purchase. Some browser extensions, such as Shop TODAY Savings, even automatically find and apply coupons.

You will need manually add offers to your card. Then, when you make the purchase at that merchant using the credit card with the offer attached, you receive bonus rewards or a statement credit back to your card. You’ll want to be sure to read the fine print for any exclusions and take note of the offer’s expiration date.

Examples of these programs include: 

• Amex Offers: These are card-linked offers from American Express. Deals typically require you to spend a minimum amount to receive money back, such as “spend $100 or more, get $20 back.” Depending on the card, sometimes deals may be in the form of bonus points instead of cash back, such as “spend $100 or more, get 2,000 Membership Rewards points.” Less frequently, you may see deals for a percentage off your purchase. These deals may not have a minimum spending requirement, but usually have a maximum cash-back amount, such as “get 8% back on purchases, up to a total of $250.”
• Chase Offers: These are card-linked offers for Chase credit cards. They are frequently percentage deals with a maximum amount of cash back listed in the fine print, though sometimes deals can be a flat amount of cash back, depending on the merchant. Unlike Amex, Chase Offers have not historically provided deals with bonus points.
• Citi Merchant Offers: Citi is similar to Chase in that its offers include flat-dollar amounts of cash back or a percentage back when you spend a certain amount.
• BankAmeriDeals: These are card-linked offers from Bank of America that work similarly to Chase and Citi. The big difference here is that BankAmeriDeals can be added to your credit or debit cards.

If the retailer also has a Chase Offer that you’ve added to your card, then you’ll receive additional cash back as a statement credit. And, before you shop, be sure to access the retailer’s website by clicking through a shopping portal for more cash back.

Extended warranty coverage can protect you in instances when your item breaks or stops working. While your purchase may come with a warranty from the manufacturer, your credit card can extend that warranty beyond the manufacturer’s time. For example, the American Express Gold Card adds an extra year to the original manufacturer’s warranty.

For example, if you frequently shop from Amazon, consider using CamelCamelCamel. It monitors prices on millions of products on Amazon and also you to view price history charts to get an idea of price changes over time. PayPal Honey is another option if you’d also like to track prices on other sites.

For example, consider doing gift exchanges with friends or coworkers. This way, everyone in the group gets just one gift for one person, which can save you money but still allow you to have an exciting gift-giving experience. You can also set a spending limit for the gifts, which can take away some of the pressure of feeling like you need to get someone a super pricey gift.

The earlier you can start saving up cash for holiday shopping, the better. By putting away small, non-intimidating amounts of money throughout the year — think $5 one week, $10 another week — you can give yourself an extra cushion of money to use when buying gifts, and it really adds up.

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