Continuing with the cash back system overviews, today I am covering Ebates. Ebates is an online cashback site where you can earn cash back both in-store and online. Similar to Drop you purchase something by either linking your card or following their link and you will earn cash back on that purchase (in Ebates case it is cold hard cash as opposed to points).

Ebates is an interesting website it used to only offer, cash back online where you go to their site click their link which will take you to the partner site (Macy’s for example). You would make a purchase and the money gets added to your Ebates account. The new in-store cashback system is new and not as mature as the online selection.

When I say it’s not mature I mean that it doesn’t have as many stores, and it only accepts Visa & American Express cards. Meaning if you don’t use a cash back American Express card as your daily driver, you’re going to be limiting your cash back potential.

The in-store feature needs work, needs to accept more cards and with only 60 different types of stores not including any mainstream giants such as Target, Wal-Mart, it’s not as rewarding for most users. Additionally, a lot of places don’t take American Express but do take Discover (as well as Visa & MasterCard). The good news is though if you’re already carrying an American Express cash back card you can really start to rack up points by combining it with Ebates (& Drop if you have not signed up already).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5rkv1ohp7Y

I struggled to go through the in-store list trying to find a store I would shop at, there are generic ones though such as Office Max (you get 2% cash back), JC Penney (2%), & Under Armour (3%) which depending on where you shop can really save you some money. But we are going to move past the in-store feature. Instead, we will talk about the online shopping feature which is much more fleshed out.

Save Big Through Purchasing Online With Ebates

So the best thing about Ebates is the online cashback system. This system only applies to online sales (meaning it won’t apply if you go in-store) and to be more specific it saves you big on certain product types.

So for instance, I found Target and they had a 1% cash back offer for purchasing Jeans, I wear Jeans I am also a Target Red Card holder & my Drop App offers me 1% cash back from purchasing at Target.

So if I bought myself say $50 in Jeans (we are going to avoid adding in Sales Tax for simplicity).

$50 * .05 (my 5% off from Target Red Card) = $47.5 now I will get $0.475 back from Ebates. As well as $0.475 from Drop so I basically get $1 cash back between these 2 services and save $2.5 with my Target Red Card. Which might not seem like much but let’s take this exact same system and apply it to say Amazon.

Ebates currently has a 5% cash back on certain Amazon Product Categories. Now if you’re an Amazon Prime member you can get the Amazon Prime Credit Card (saving you 5% from Amazon Purchases (just like Target’s Red Card).

Say I purchase $100 of these goods I will now get.

$100 – $5 (Amazon Prime Card) 95 *.05 = $4.75 (in cash back with Ebates). So I saved 10% on my order just by combing my Amazon Card with Ebates. Of that $5 came back into my pocket and $5 was taken off the price.

Some important notes would be Ebates routinely runs standard Double Cash Back events. For instance, if the store previously was at 3% cash back on Ebates it can be 6%. I have seen some get double digits high. For instance, there is a 12% cash back on shoes.com now on Ebates, combine this with a Discover Card or American Express and you can be getting 13% / 14% Cash Back on your order!

Sign-up with my link: https://www.ebates.com/r/SCOTTH596?eeid=28187 and when you spend your first $25 I will get $35 from Ebates and you will receive, $10 from Ebates (doesn’t seem fair that I get awarded 3x as much, but at the same time I don’t make the rules).

Also, using my code will not take money away from you, my payment and your additional $10 payment all come from Ebates.

Scott Hartley

Scott Hartley, is a web developer, business owner, and a geek at heart. He loves to discover additional ways to make money and to help pass that knowledge on to others!

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