While Sharon and I write plenty of posts about using credit cards to enhance our travel style, I try not to obsess about the little stuff. I’m fine if she uses a card that earns 2 points per dollar instead of one that earns 3 points. Making one extra Ultimate Rewards point on a $10 Publix purchase isn’t worth fussing over.
I’ve adopted the same philosophy when it comes to using shopping portals. When Sharon is getting ready to make a sizeable internet purchase, she’ll ask me if there’s a portal that she should use (and that’s true love).
My favorite source to learn the best online payouts is Cashback Monitor.
There I can find which shopping portals pay the largest rebates for online purchases. Despite the name, Cashback Monitor shows the various cashback portals and bonus points available from travel portals. If I’m making a small purchase, using a shopping portal is a great way to keep points in a loyalty program from expiring.
Sometimes, airline and hotel shopping portals only pay 1 point or less, and cashback portals have a better payout. I’ll opt for the cashback on an expensive purchase where the money can add up quickly.
Previously we exclusively used Ebates, now Ratuken, as our cashback portal. However, I saw another portal consistently offering a better percentage rebate.
That’s how we found TopCashBack.
I was hesitant at first. How could one website consistently offer more money back than another? There had to be a catch. I’d read multiple horror stories about how people had to fight with some portals to get payouts, but I couldn’t find many complaints about TopCashBack.
I signed up through a referral link and after my first purchase, I received my shopping bonus and a sign-up bonus. I’ve never had a problem with collecting a bonus when I used the TopCashBack portal. The only drawback is that it sometimes can take several months for a payment to go from “Pending” to “Payable.”
It seems that you can’t cash out your earnings until the partner website pays for the referral. While the payout may take a while, I blame this on the referral payment processor rather than the website passing that payment to you.
Occasionally the website will run sign-up bonuses for new members, like the one I took advantage of when I joined. There’s no sign-up bonus at the moment, but we have a referral link if you’d like to sign up. We receive payment for referrals using the Tell-A-Friend link.
I’d only sign up if you find a large bonus for a purchase you’re going to make anyway. Otherwise, it makes sense to wait until a bonus offer shows up.
I held off on recommending TopCashBack because I wanted to make sure I didn’t have any problems. After purchases from multiple vendors, I can say that I’m comfortable referring people to the website.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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2 comments
TopCashback is pretty good. You do have to watch out for some misleading offers with some vendors. For example they’ll show 8% back at Lowe’s but it’s really 1% on everything but curtains and blinds, or 10% back at Sam’s Club but the 10% only applies to new memberships. Stuff like that. Also, some vendors really drag their feet on paying. I think that the longest I saw was 30 something weeks. That said, I use them a fair bit, just to put the shortcomings in perspective.
Beware when booking IHG. Even when the cookies are cleaned, IHG claims that stays are bookes through other platform and deny cashback. Now I stopped booked them.