Earn Cash-Back For Your Online Shopping
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There are a whole crop of websites out there that offer cash back when you shop at major online merchants through their site, at no cost to you.
Earn Cash-Back: A Primer
How do these sites work?
- Each cash back site, such as Ebates, maintains a long list of merchants, such as ProFlowers, Travelocity, BestBuy, Barnes and Noble, and many many more, with which they have affiliate commission agreements.
- Say you need to buy something at Barnes and Noble.com. Ebates has an arrangement with Barnes and Noble where they offer 4% cash back.
- To earn that cash back, you need to click on the link to Barnes and Noble at Ebates; when you do that, Barnes and Noble records that you came from Ebates.
- Shop as you normally would. Other than having to make sure that you complete the purchase in one session (without closing your browser window, for example), your shopping experience at Barnes and Noble will be no different.
- Complete and pay.
- Several weeks later, once Ebates has confirmed that the transaction went through and was not returned, you’ll get your 4% cash back.
It’s a win-win scenario — Ebates gets a commission for sending you to Barnes and Noble, and Ebates passes some of that comission on to you.
Cash-Back Sites
There are a whole slew of sites that offer cash back, many with initial sign-up bonuses. Some of the major ones include:
- Ebates.com - Earn $5 for free with your first purchase (If you use this link, I get $5, too)
- Cashbaq.com - Earn $5 for free with your first purchase (Again, if you use this link, I get a referral commission).
- Fatwallet.com
And many more, each with slightly different lists of participating merchants. Also, note that many airlines and hotel programs offer affiliate programs that offer rewards in the form of frequent flyer miles per dollar spent — unless you’re a frequent traveler, these aren’t the best deals — but they can be useful in extending the expiration date of your frequent flyer miles.
Comparing Cash-Back Sites
One of the most frustrating aspects of these cash-back programs is that the list of merchants is different at each site, and the same merchant at one site may have a different cash-back than a merchant at another site. Knowing which is the best cash-back site to link through is a lot easier when you use a website like RewardsDB; simply go to RewardsDB and enter the website from which you are looking for cash back, and RewardsDB will tell you the different rewards you can get at different cash back sites. Definitely useful.
Enjoy!
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