@KarenLot has mentioned them a few times but also other people @Rachman maybe?
Who can tell me more? Do you use them? If yes which ones? Anything to look out for?
I haven’t used one on the grounds that things that look too good to be true usually turn out to be scams.
1 Like
It’s best to avoid scattering your data all over the place just to (possibly) earn a few measly euros…
One of the plusses of moving back to the UK is the crazy amount of freebies/discounts you can get if you’re a bit savvy.
Our Amex card gives us up to 2% cashback on purchases, Lloyds has 50 cashback offers every month (last week’s best offer was a 15% cash back off a one-off Aldi shop up to a maximum of £30) and all the supermarkets offer major savings off home deliveries.
How it works is that you access the site you want to order something from via the cashback site. They get a commission for redirecting you and pass some of it onto you. There’s igraal, Poulpeo ebuyclub and others. Those three are probably the only ones worth trying.
1 Like
I’ve just got a bonus of 50 euros from igraal for installing their extension on my computer browser. No requirement to leave it there just to install.
If you like sharing your data (I don’t) UK and some French banks have programs where you can voluntarily sign up your card to.what is basically ‘open banking’ though they don’t call it that in France. In return you get a form of lowish cashback from a long list of retailers if you use the card with them without doing anything more. The problem is open banking is basically a massive data grab - I gather they get to see everything on your account in the UK.and I bet it’s similar in France.
If you use cashback, on every transaction prepare what you want to buy and run it through in one short session staying in the window they give you from start to finish. Always start with a clean browser with settings that don’t block tracking. I’ve found Chrome and Opera good. You could set Opera up in that way and just use it for cashback, clearing cookies each time so that only the cookies of your transaction are in the browser to track. Take screenshots at key moments like the rate of cashback promised, the conditions, the retailers website when first opened with the cashback co"s affiliate ID probably showing in the website address, etc, and keep them till cashback is paid which is normally never immediate.
What is immediate, though, is gift cards for stores bought on cashback sites, they come at a discount, they arrive electronically virtually immediately, and you can spend them immediately online on the retailers site (though most have many months of validity). Many can also be used instore but online can be used immediately so less risk and pfaff.
If you use a generic gift card (eg the ones that used to be available at the Post Office in the UK) then sometimes you can even double dip if you use cashback on the retailers site (not all ban gift card payments from cashback). IKEA currently is 3% on cashback sites and I’ve occasionally seen 5% on Carrefour. It’s basically an immediate discount if you use it that way.
‘First delivery, or grocery pickup’ or insurance, magazine subscriptions or mobile phone sims and contracts usually pay nicely. Moneysavingexpert.com gives good summaries of how it works in general.
It’s good to check what the price would be without going through the cashback site, as sometimes there’s a mark-up for the latter, which defeats the purpose.