Why I’m writing my holiday shopping list today.

The past few days have brought an inexplicable (but welcome!) bounty of big online shopping portal bonuses.

Just yesterday, I went through the United Airlines portal to earn 8x miles at Bloomingdale’s.

When I stacked this with a few other tricks I had up my sleeve (which anyone could do – here’s a few hints!), I ended up with a nice 30% discount, plus 5,000 United miles…all for buying a few things I was going to buy, anyway.

These portal bonuses have come and gone with lightning speed – some disappearing within one day.  In fact, I was actually planning a post on the Bloomingdale’s deal and how I stacked savings, but the increased portal payout disappeared before I had the chance to publish it!

Luckily I saw the deal, then knew what I wanted, and had a few minutes to make the transaction during a quick lunch at my computer. If I had waited until last night after my kids went to bed, I would have missed out.

That’s why I’m writing my holiday shopping list today – I want to be prepared for the next deal. This way, I’ll be able to maximize portal bonuses and earn an avalanche of extra points…and I’ll get my holiday shopping done early, as well.

If you want to make sure you’re always in-the-know about increased portal bonuses, I recommend signing up for Frequent Miler’s Portal Alert emails. What a great idea!

Of course, if I see any amazing deal-stacking opportunities, I promise to post about them as quickly as I can. The next three months are historically a great time for these kinds of deals, so get ready for some shopping action!

Have you gotten in on any of the big portal deals recently? Any big scores?