Save Money With Cashback Sites

Nick Saving Money 2 Comments

If you ever buy anything online, you can almost certainly save some money by signing up with cashback sites.

In this post I’ll be discussing the top two UK cashback websites, Quidco and Top Cashback, both of which I have belonged to for some years and can vouch for.

• You might also like to check out My Money Pocket, a new UK cashback website I reviewed here recently.

The idea behind cashback sites is that they are free to join (although premium membership may be available at a small cost) and provide links to a range of online retailers. When a member clicks through one of these links and buys something (or performs some other action) the cashback site receives a commission from the retailer. Rather than keep all this for themselves, the sites return some or all of the commission they get to the member in question.

So if, for example, you need home insurance, you could click through to a broker’s website from the cashback site. If you then buy a policy from that broker, some or all of the commission paid to the cashback website is credited to your account. You can then withdraw it to your bank account, PayPal or even as vouchers for your favourite merchant.

As mentioned, I have been a member of the two sites mentioned above for several years now, and have made hundreds of pounds from both. Via Quidco, for example, I made £110 when I clicked through their link to the Nutmeg financial services website and opened an investment account with them. Although described as cashback, really this was more like a bonus, as the money I invested with Nutmeg does of course remain mine and I can get it back at any time. My Nutmeg investment has actually risen in value by over £2,600 since I invested, so this has clearly been a worthwhile investment in more ways than one! You can read my full review of Nutmeg here, incidentally.

With Top Cashback I recently pocketed a more modest £40 cashback by switching my gas/electricity provider using a comparison service listed on the website (the cashback came from the comparison service rather than the energy provider). I shall be saving around £500 a year by switching provider, so again the cashback feels more like a bonus than the return of any money I have spent.

You don’t always have to spend money to benefit from cashback sites either. Both Quidco and Top Cashback list offers where you can get money simply asking for a quote or some other action. On Quidco you can earn 50p just by signing up for free with SearchLotto and making 25 internet searches (which also gets you a free National Lottery entry). And on Top Cashback you can get £7.35 if you order and activate a new SIM card from Giffgaff.

You can also make money by introducing friends and family to these sites. Offers change from time to time, but typically you are paid between £5 to £10 when someone joins via your link and earns cashback themselves. The links in this post are referral links, of course.

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of cashback websites. I highly recommend signing up with both Quidco and Top Cashback, as they compete feverishly with each other to offer the best deals.

• My money blogging colleague Will Pointing from GreatDealsMadeEasy.com is a fan of Airtime Rewards, a different type of cashback app. He says: ‘I use the Airtime Rewards app as it automatically lets high street retailers pay towards your smartphone bill (in the form of cashback) when you buy items. It is very similar to Top CashBack and Quidco, but you don’t need to manually select the retailers – it is all done automatically (you can also get two separate cashback amounts for a single transaction, essentially getting double cashback). All you have to do is download the app, register your card and then buy as you normally would. For example, if you bought some eye-drops at Boots for £4, you would get 5% back, so 20p. Once you get to £10 in cashback funds, you can select to pay this towards your phone bill – so free money!’

Do Cashback Sites have any Drawbacks?

Not drawbacks exactly, but there are certain things to be aware of.

For starters, you only get paid by the cashback site when they receive payment from the merchant concerned. Sometimes this happens within a week or two but other times it can take a lot longer.

Also, the system depends on your visit to the merchant being tracked by the software, and this doesn’t always work as it should. This happened to me recently when I made a groceries purchase from Asda. It didn’t track for some reason, so I had to open a claim via Top Cashback. Eventually I did get my money, but it took over three months.

So one thing to remember is not to rely on your cashback arriving quickly (or indeed at all). You should only make a purchase via a cashback site if you genuinely want- or preferably need – the item in question and believe it is good value. The cashback then will be a welcome bonus when it arrives.

For Readers Outside the UK

Finally, if you live outside the UK, there are cashback websites in many other countries as well (for example, Top Cashback now has a US operation, Top Cashback USA). Just do a Google search for “cashback website” plus your country’s name and see what results come up. Or check out this article on the MakeUseOf website which lists a number of such sites serving the US. Read the comments section below the MakeUseOf article for a range of international cashback sites as well.

As ever, if you have any comments or queries about Quidco and Top Cashback or cashback sites more generally, please do post them below.

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