Shortly after signing up for my Capital One Venture X card, I started receiving emails about Capital One Shopping. While I originally thought the shopping portal would add points to my Capital One account (and I’d be able to transfer those points to travel partners), the rewards from Capital One Shopping can only be redeemed for gift cards. The interesting thing about Capital One Shopping is that you don’t have to be a Capital One customer to enroll. Anyone is eligible to earn cash back on purchases made through the portal.
I always look at Cashback Monitor to see who’s offering the most points before buying anything online. I added Capital One Shopping as an additional option. Capital One Shopping also has a browser extension that has three functions for the user. It will search the items you are shopping for on Amazon.com and check if you can get the item for less from a different retailer. If you’re buying from a website, the extension will search for active coupon codes and ask if you want to apply them to your purchase. Finally, you’ll get notifications if there’s a price drop on an item.
For this service, you have to let Capital One Shopping see your browsing activities. If you’re not comfortable with this, you can use the extension on a browser you don’t often use or only turn it on when shopping.
I downloaded it to give it a whirl and see if I could save any money. It turns out that I’m a pretty good shopper and Capital One Shopping wasn’t able to find any better prices or portal payouts than I found myself. I was getting ready to turn it off.
Then I saw a post on Running for Miles about a deal on Saucony running shoes. By combining a 50% off code with an AMEX Offer, it was possible to save up to $120 on a $200 pair of shoes.
After activating the AMEX offer and adding items to my cart, I found out that the 50% off coupon did not apply to the style that I wanted. Oh well. I left the site shoeless.
Then two days later, I received an email from Capital One Shopping.
This offer is handpicked for you. Terms and conditions apply. Exclusions may apply, see exclusions below and merchant site for more details.
Capital One Shopping was offering me 30% back on the shoes I had in my cart. This was not the offer on the portal, which still showed 5% back.
I wanted the shoes and decided to give them a try. I clicked on the activate offer button and went to the Capital One Shopping portal. From there I went to the Saucony site and completed the purchase with my AMEX card.
It took a few days but I eventually received this email.
It actually worked and my purchase tracked to earn the $42 in rewards. Shortly thereafter, I received an email from AMEX.
At the end of the day, I purchased the shoes for $149.10 with free shipping. I’ll get back $42 from Capital One and $20 from AMEX, putting the final price at $87.10.
When I looked online, the least expensive price I could find was $130, which means I saved $43. I’m still not sure if I’ll keep the browser extension turned on but I might use it when I’m shopping for things online as it looks like Capital One sends out personalized offers based on your history.
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