US Airways Bundles New Shopping Toolbar With a Bonus

After 20 years working in the travel industry, and 15 years writing about it, Tim Winship knows a thing or two about travel. Follow him on Twitter @twinship.

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Are miles on your shopping list? They should be.

With Christmas looming, this would be a good time to consider your mileage-earning strategy to ensure you maximize your rewards for holiday shopping.

In future blog posts, we’ll round up and review the best seasonal shopping mile promotions from the airlines and hotels.

For now, here’s a shopping-related offer from US Airways.

Offer Details

US Airways wants you to use its new Dividend Miles toolbar to shop at the Dividend Miles Shopping Mall, a network of hundreds of online merchants that award miles for purchases. And to encourage you to download and use the toolbar, it’s offering what it calls a “first use” bonus: 500 miles for installing the toolbar and using it to either make one purchase or three searches. The bonus is upped to 1,000 miles for Dividend Miles Preferred members and Dividend Miles MasterCard cardholders.

Once installed, the toolbar generates one mile for every three searches.

Why bother using the toolbar? From the FAQ:

Will I earn miles if I forget to shop through the Dividend Miles Shopping Mall?
To earn miles, you must start your everyday shopping at the Dividend Miles Shopping Mall and click through to your favorite merchants. You may also install our browser-based toolbar, which tracks your transactions and miles even if you forget to start your shopping at the mall.

The toolbar is compatible with the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.

Deal or No Deal

If you’re an active Dividend Miles member, the toolbar is a constant reminder (in a good way) to make online purchases through the mileage mall, and makes doing so more convenient.

And if you’re an inactive member with miles in danger of expiring, this is a quick and easy way to extend the life of your miles and earn a small bonus in the process.

Otherwise, there’s no compelling reason to consume the bandwidth downloading the toolbar.

Reader Reality Check

Have you mapped out a strategy for earning miles when shopping over the holidays?

What are you waiting for?

This article originally appeared on FrequentFlier.com.

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