Please educate me about Cashback sites (ie eBates, uPromise)

[babyonway]

Title pretty much says it all. I have never used these sites and don't understand how they work. Upromise "sounds" the most promising (who doesn't want to have money go to DC's college :) ) but is hardly mentioned in threads.

Please educate me and can more than one be used, and if so, how? and besides the logistics of how these sites work, if you could tell me if you use one over the other it would be great.

TIA!!!

[KrisM]

I use Big Crumbs, Ebates, Fat Wallet and Mr Rebates. I check www.evreward.com (http://www.evreward.com) to see which is the best deal. I find Mr Rebates slow, so unless that is much better, I go with someone else.

To use, make an account and then shop through that site. You'll get a percentage of your purchase back into your account and you'll get paid out quarterly in most cases. Mine goes directly to paypal. I've gotten a few hundred dollars over the years, so I do find it worth while.

For example, I'm buying 3 bean bags from Land of Nod for $130 each. Big Crumbs (I think) is 8% back, so I'll get back $10.40 per bag or $31.20 total. It seems like a small percentage, but really adds up!

Ask your friends if they're members too. If they are, you can sign up under them and usually get bonus money for joining and they get a bonus for a referral.

[yalie2001]

Kris pretty much summed it up! I usu check cashbackmonitor.com to see who has the highest % CB, haven't compared it to evreward.com to see which one is better. just beware that sometimes if you shop a while it will timeout and you won't get your CB bonus. so what I normally do is I'll shop and put everything in my cart....then click through the CB site and then make my purchase in the window that is already open w/the full cart.

know that it takes 60-90 days usually for the money to show up, b/c they need to make sure you aren't returning the items. some sites are picky about coupon codes too and won't give you CB if you use a coupon not posted on their site (I think ebates does this???)

we have a upromise account but find that it requires you to buy particular brands (if we're talking groceries) and it's hard for me to keep up w/that. I do link it to my cards so we get some CB for groceries we buy but we don't get a lot of money from that. not sure about their CB program for online retailers though.

lately, I feel like bigcrumbs often has the highest % CB out of all the programs out there.... though we have over $1000 in CB from fatwallet over the years! :) (DH makes a lot of high $ purchases for his computer business)

[abh5e8]

thanks! i was wondering the same thing. i need to do this.

[Babymakes3]

I use shopathome, ebates, cashbaq and Discover cards cashback. I have a pretty decent check coming from shopathome soon :) Like someone else said, it doesn't sound like much but it adds up quickly! You just have to remember to click thru a site to shop and if you are like me check out all the cashback sites to see who gives you the highest percentage.

I also do what was mentioned above as far as doing all my browsing and putting things in my shopping cart and then closing that window and clicking thru a cashback site to checkout so there isn't any timing out issues.

Now I need to check out bigcrumbs and the comparison sites since I didn't know about those!

[essnce629]

I use evreward.com too and shop through all four places depending on who has the highest cashback: Ebates, Mr. Rebates, Big Crumbs, and Fat Wallet. I use Fat Wallet the least.

[star04]

I use ebates and MrRebates. I prefer MrRebates because the %back is usually greater than ebates (when both are offered), I rarely have an issue, and I get cash back every month (I request it the last day of the month and Paypal is received on the first day of the next month - request Oct 31 and receive Nov 1). I feel like it takes forever to get my money with ebates and sometimes the transaction doesn't go through when buying.