So what's a shopping portal you ask? It's a website where you start your online shopping. You "click thru" the "portal" (website) to get to the site you want to shop. In doing so, the portal site will give you something (like money) back by clicking thru their site. Got it?
My absolute favorite site is Ebates. They have a huge list of participating stores and also have the stores latest coupon codes. Ebates will give you a percentage back on what you spend. It can be anywhere from 1% to 50% (not kidding!) The best part, at least from my perspective, is Ebates doesn't care how you pay for your stuff.
Here are my most recent Ebates transactions:
I used a gift card for my Best Buy purchase...
...so I paid nothing out of pocket. Ebates though will give you money back on whatever your product subtotal was. I got 1% of my total purchase price back
If you look at my Vera Bradley receipt here, I paid $75.11 out of pocket. My subtotal though before I used my $30 off $100 coupon was $100.20 and Ebates gave me 3% of that money back.
It's a couple dollars here and a couple dollars there, but in the end it all adds up.
At the end of every quarter they will send you a Big Fat Check.
I also like Ebates because it is an automatic double dip for me if I use my credit card. I get credit card points for using my credit card plus I get money back from Ebates. Depending on where you shop, you can even make it a triple dip or quadruple dip. For instance, my Expedia purchase was for our Bites of Nassau Food Tour that we took on Fall Break. I got credit card points, Ebates cash back, plus I got Expedia rewards points. When we went to Costa Rica on Spring Break, I started out at Ebates, went to Expedia, then got airline tickets for United. I got credit card points, Ebates cash back, Expedia points, and United airline miles - a quadruple dip - credit for four different programs for the same dollars spent.
If you are interested in signing up for Ebates my referral link is HERE. I get $5 for any referral that spend $25 through Ebates this quarter. You can also go to their website and put in my email on the sign up page.
So my next favorite portal is MyPoints. MyPoints is not only a portal but a rewards site. You earn points per dollar spent for your purchases if you shop through MyPoints. You can also earn points by doing surveys or simply visiting other websites through links that MyPoints will email you. You can also earn points by printing coupons through their coupons.com link and you will get 10 points for every coupon redeemed. You can then redeem your points for gift cards... and go shopping through Ebates!
Since I don't automatically get cash back, I use MyPoints only when Ebates doesn't have the site I'm shopping. What I mainly do at MyPoints is earn points by printing coupons, doing surveys, and clicking thru their emails. I usually cash in a bunch of points in October for gift cards to do my holiday shopping.
If you are interested in MyPoints and want me to get some credit, I can send you a referral link. I get points for that too :)
Some of the gift cards you can earn at MyPoints
Although not an online portal, another site worth mentioning again is Plink. I talked about it HERE. This is a new site and they are adding new merchants every day. The merchants are automatically connected to your registered credit card so you automatically get credit when you buy from your selected merchants. The limitation at Plink is that you can only have 3-4 merchants in your "wallet" when you start. You can "unlock" more merchant sites by referring friends or downloading their free app. You are free to switch your merchants around in your wallet at any time though so if there is a merchant that you are planning to shop from that's not in your wallet, you simply remove the one you don't want and add the one that you do want.
You can actually do a triple dip pretty easily if you want to buy something from a Plink merchant online and you get credit card points because most of the Plink merchants are also on Ebates.
My Plink referral link is HERE. You will get 300 points for signing up. I get to unlock another slot in my wallet or get 100 points or something like that. It seems to change from time to time! 500 points will get you a $5 gift card.
Well, I suppose that's enough self promotion for one night. I hope you learned something. My philosophy is that if I'm going to spend money, I want the biggest bang for my buck; I want something back!
Happy Holiday Shopping! I'm doing most of mine from my couch. How about you?
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