If you shop on Ebay, then you know how great it is. If you don’t shop on Ebay, then you should try it out. You can pretty much get anything you want at a nice discount. I have been using Ebay for years and have been highly satisfied. Over the past few years, Ebay has severed ties with many of the online shopping portals which gave miles or cash back for Ebay purchases.
However, there is still 1 good option for earning miles on Ebay: the Aeroplan Estore, an online shopping portal where you earn Aeroplan miles for shopping at different retailers. Aeroplan is a spun off loyalty program for Air Canada. For some odd reason, Ebay has not broken ties with Aeroplan, and you can still earn Aeroplan miles through Ebay’s Canadian site – Ebay.ca.
Normally, the Aeroplan Estore rewards 1 Aeroplan mile per $1 (CAD) spent through Ebay. However, they frequently run bonuses of 2x – 10x miles per $1 (CAD) spent. Currently, the rate is 2x miles per $1 (CAD) spent. For simplicity, since the US dollar and Canadian dollar are nearly equal in value, I assume that you earn 2x miles per $1 (US) spent.
This is not bad, considering Aeroplan miles can be converted to US Airways miles (eventually AAdvantage miles) at a pretty good ratio. According to this 2x promotion, you are essentially earning 1.68 US Airways miles for shopping on Ebay. Even the US Airways shopping portal doesn’t allow you to do that.
This method to earn Aeroplan miles if most efficient if you make “Buy It Now” purchases on Ebay. If instead, you bid on the item, you can still get miles if you win the item. If you are making multiple bids, you would have to go through the shopping portal each time you place a bid to ensure proper tracking. That is a pain and not worth it to me.
Here are the steps to earning miles for Ebay purchases:
- Make sure you have an Aeroplan account. If you don’t, you can signup here.
- Clear all the cookies from your computer to ensure your visit to Ebay is tracked appropriately.
- Go to the Aeroplan Estore and login
- Find and click on Ebay
- Click on “Shop Now”
- Notice that you will be taken to the Ebay Canada site. However, it does not matter whether its the Canadian or USA site. You can still buy any item from anywhere in the world.
- Use the “Buy It Now” button on Ebay to buy your item
- Pay for your item immediately using Paypal
Will I get the miles?
I have done this many times and have been successful each and every time. It does take 4-6 weeks for the miles to post. A while back, they had a 10x promotion for Ebay purchases and the 10x bonus did successfully post.
Keep in mind that this is also a good way to keep Aeroplan miles from expiring. So, if you are going to shop at Ebay anyway, you might as well earn miles for the process, especially when the bonus is more lucrative such as 5x – 10x. Checkout the Aeroplan Estore as they have popular retailers other than Ebay as well.