UA’s Shopping Portal—MileagePlus Shopping—has recently launched an fall shopping promotion: spend $200 and get 500 miles, valid through October 20.
At the same time, many merchants have increased their cashback/reward rates, including several beauty retailers:
Lancome: 15 miles/$, and for female accounts, Drop offers 75 points/$ (equivalent to 7.5%). Although the offer terms say you need to click through from Drop to trigger it, in practice it often isn’t necessary. YMMV. (I haven’t tested whether it still works right now; it was OK last year.) If you stack it with double rewards using an Amex authorized user card, it’s very strong. (How do I know all this? Because I’ve bought a lot of stuff for LD, so I can only save where I can.)
There’s also Bloomingdales: 12 miles/$, plus an AMEX offer of $75-$15 and an additional MR offer. At the same time, Drop offers 15 points/$ (equivalent to 1.5%). Last year, this also triggered without entering through Drop, YMMV. Likewise, if you use an Amex authorized user card to double up, the cashback is pretty good.
With the shopping season approaching, the discounts on major brand sites and department stores are also pretty good. There are lots of codes and coupons, so you can explore and stack them yourself.