If You’re Gonna Buy Online, Get Cash Back

November 20, 2005 By Jonathan Ping 9 Comments
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Oh, the smell of wallets opening is in the air. My parents have already directed me to find the most direct route to the nearest outlet malls. I’m so sad that I will be forced into the writhing frantic mass that is Black Friday shoppers. I like shopping online so much better.

If you’re gonna shop online, don’t forget to use Cash Back portals like Ebates and FatCash. If you carefully click through their link and then buy something, they’ll give you a percentage back as a rebate on your purchase somewhere down the line. This is in addition using a properly chosen cashback credit card. I always manage to forget to use them, so I’ve actually put a Post-it on my monitor with EBATES written on it. Check both to see which is offering the best cash back rate.

Here is a random comparison of stores:

Gap.com – FatCash 3.3%, E-bates 3%
Barnes & Noble.com – FatCash 4%, E-bates 4%
Half.com – FatCash 3%, E-bates 3%
Target.com – FatCash 4.4%, E-bates 3%
Priceline.com – FatCash 3%, E-bates 3%

Looks like FatCash tends to have better rates. I’ve gotten payouts from both with no problems from both sites. Be sure to click directly from their tracking link before you buy. I usually do my browsing and decide exactly what I want first. Then I click through their links, add what I want to the cart, and buy immediately.

Upromise has a similar thing, but the cash back seems to be always less, and you need to jump through extra hoops to get your money. There are also other shopping portals, like MyPoints and Mileage Malls like WorldPerks Mall that work in points, but I like cash.

Filed Under: Frugal Living
Last updated: December 29, 2014
My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

User Generated Content Disclosure: Comments and/or responses are not provided or commissioned by any advertiser. Comments and/or responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. It is not any advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Comments

  1. ivan says
    November 21, 2005 at 8:04 am

    there is also fatwallet.com

    Reply
  2. Jonathan says
    November 21, 2005 at 8:16 am

    Check out the links. FatCash = the original name of FatWallet Cash Back. Didn’t even notice it changed.

    Reply
  3. LSD says
    November 21, 2005 at 5:38 pm

    If You’re Gonna Buy Offline, Get Cash Back too. Upromise and Clubmom offer cashback for some offline purchases. Once you register your cards, cashback is credit automatically, no need to go through a special link. Check this site for some info(under section offline shopping): http://www.andrewcram.com/frequentflyer.html.

    CompareRewards.com also put out a cashback chart for some online places few months ago, it’s a bit old but nice for a quick comparison.

    http://www.comparerewards.com/shoppingcomparison05.html

    Some online programs will pricematch cashback of another program or give their best rate, so shop around 🙂

    Reply
  4. J C says
    November 21, 2005 at 7:31 pm

    Probably one of the fastest and best rebate portals is quickrewards.net They pay by paypal in just a couple of days, and also have some (as you put it) “bored money” signup stuff as well. Their rebates are pretty competitive.

    If you want to sign up under me use oligarch@mail2diplomat.com.

    You also mentioned barnes and noble in your post as an example. By far the best and most automatic rebate on that paritcular site is the discover card shop center. They pay 7% for clicking through their site and using discover card on your purchase. The rebates shows right on your bill.

    Some others I have considered but not used yet are:

    ebates (mentioned by you)
    thankyoumerchants (citi credit cards);

    Ones to avoid:

    Mypoints – too hard to get credit;
    Netflip – notorious for failing to credit or pay/

    Btw, I enjoy your blog, keep up the good work!

    Reply
  5. Jennifer says
    December 12, 2005 at 3:31 pm

    I love your blog! I’d be interested to know your opinion of the stockback program. Their rewards look similiar to the ones listed above, except you get an extra 2% when you use their credit card. I was thinking about talking family members to pool money together for a keepsake ring for my mom. I can get 14% cash back at ice.com through stockback.

    Reply
  6. Jonathan says
    December 18, 2005 at 7:41 pm

    Stockback looks interesting, I’m not familiar with them, but hey, if they pay more %, go for it!

    Looks like they also run the following sites:
    http://www.babycentersavings.com/
    http://www.nesteggz.com/

    Reply
  7. Dog says
    May 13, 2007 at 10:45 am

    Thanks for the post. I didn’t even know this kind of things exist.

    Reply

Speak Your Mind

*