Get Cash Back In-Store from Ebates and Upromise

In-Store Cash Back

Aside from earning cash back by shopping through online shopping portals, there are a few sites that offer cash or points for in-store purchases. Many mileage portals offer dining programs for in-store restaurant purchases, for example, and we covered recently that Plenti added a dining program too.

Ebates and Upromise offer cash back for in-store purchases at select retailers.

Here’s the Ebates in-store link and this link should work for Upromise. Both can be found by going to the home page of those sites and clicking on the In-Store tab.

If you like YouTube videos, here’s Ebates’ 1-minute video about their in-store cash back offers.

Available Offers

Ebates

Ebates has a bunch of interesting offers; nothing hugely exciting, but stores that you might be shopping at anyway. These offers will likely change over time, although many of these have been around for a number of months already.

  • The Body Shop 4% cash back
  • Sephora 4% cash back
  • Gap, Banana, Old Navy 2% cash back
  • Saks 4% cash back
  • J. Crew 2% cash back
  • Full list here

Upromise

The Upromise offers are a bit different. In some areas there won’t be anything at all. In other areas, there are tons off offers, all at mom-and-pop shops, not national chains.

Where Upromise really shines is for those who are cardmembers of the Upromise Mastercard. Pfdigest writes about offers such as 5% back at Home Depot, Papa John’s and more.

See these screenshots for some more examples.

Comparison

A key difference between Upromise and Ebates is that Ebates only allows Visa and Amex cards currently, while Upromise only allows Visa or Mastercard.

Theoretically, the Upromise system allows linking Amex and Discover too, but for retailer cash back it seems to always be limited to Visa/MC. Each offer indicates which cards will work with it, and they all say Visa and Mastercard only. Also note that some Upromise offers are targeted for Upromise’s own Mastercard members, not any other cards.

Both programs allow us to link multiple cards. There’s no limit to the number of cards which can be linked with Ebates.

With Ebates, you have to activate/save the offer on the card in order to get cash back, similar to the way you save an Amex Offer on a card. You also have to save the offer on each card separately. With Upromise, you typically don’t have to activate the small-shop offers, but the offers at big chains (these offers are usually available for Upromise Mastercard holder only) need activation.

Stack the Deal

With Ebates, if you use the Ebates credit card, you’ll get an extra 3% on purchases (this works for in-store purchases as well at eligible). Unclear if this works for Upromise too.

Another stacking idea is to order something online through a shopping portal, and select the in-store pickup option available at select stores. Then pay in-store with the Ebates/Upromise card and hopefully get the double-dip that way. (HT: IOE)

Final Thoughts

I found The Body Shop 4% offer interesting since there’s currently an Amex Offer to get $15 off $50 at the Body Shop. Register your card/s to Ebates and you’ll get an extra 4% back – $2 on a $50 purchase.

We’ve also seen in-store Gap Amex Offers (some people bought up a ton of Gap gift cards on those deals), and it’s neat to be able to earn a bit more with Ebates in-store cash back.

It’s truly a pain to register multiple Amex cards and it might not be worth the hassle for everyone. Still, if you’re making large or recurring purchases at one of these merchants, it’s worth registering your card beforehand.

Could also be useful for resellers who do in-store purchases.

Thanks to Taggingmiles for posting about Ebates in-store cash back and to PFdigest for posting about Upromise in-store cash back. If you are new to Ebates, consider using my Ebates referral link to sign up.

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16 Comments
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JT27MP
JT27MP (@guest_491585)
October 10, 2017 19:27

Any success in buying the 3rd party gift cards and getting the 2% in store cash back from ebates?

Db77
Db77 (@guest_275844)
July 14, 2016 10:59

Anyone else having issues linking serve or bluebird? Been trying to sync for a week now to no avail, and customer service has been no help.

Fiby
Fiby (@guest_275308)
July 12, 2016 13:39

I successfully registered my cards for the eBates in store cash back and linked The Body Shop deal. The cashback showed up today. Got an extra $2 of profit per card!

Dan
Dan (@guest_273931)
July 7, 2016 23:26

Does work with Serve cards. 🙁

IOException
IOException (@guest_273736)
July 7, 2016 12:37

Took some screen caps for you guys: http://imgur.com/a/uRpWA

IOException
IOException (@guest_273737)
July 7, 2016 12:40

You will notice that the chains require activation and the mom and pops don’t.

IOException
IOException (@guest_273738)
July 7, 2016 12:42

Finally, the stipulations for the mom and pops are more than simple cash back. You typically have to spend a certain amount or it’s capped at a certain amount.

Okay, I’m done dominating this post. 🙂

Information Booth
Information Booth (@guest_537051)
December 17, 2017 04:17

Hey, IOEXCEPTION, being as helpful as you’ve been, I really don’t think you need to worry about “dominating the post”. I realize you were joking, but I just wanted to stop for a minute and say, thank you. l counted 6 posts, so I wanted to congratulate for finding a way to stack your “heaven points”. That’s what this blog is all about , right? Love in Christ.

Raj
Raj (@guest_273722)
July 7, 2016 12:17

Seems decent, but wouldn’t it generally be more inexpensive to use discounted gift cards instead? I agree it’s good if there’s an Amex offer or if gift cards aren’t available.

IOException
IOException (@guest_273728)
July 7, 2016 12:22

In major metros, the majority of the offers you get will be for mom & pops that don’t have GCs. You’ll see all sort of companies from car repair shops to landscaping. Also, the restaurants in the dining program often don’t have GCs either.

I’m speaking about Upromise, that is.

IOException
IOException (@guest_273703)
July 7, 2016 11:26

If you live in a metro area and have a Upromise card, you get TONS of offers. Sometimes they’ll stack too. For example, go through the portal and you’ll normally get 5% + 5% for Kohl’s. However, if you activated the in store offer and do in store pickup, you’ll get another 5% + 2% category bonus.

Other times however, purchases just don’t track (I never have this problem with anyone else), or you won’t be given the 5% bonus. When they don’t track, just kiss your money goodbye because e-mailing/talking to their CS you’d swear they can’t hear you. It’s mainly because of this that the card is a wash for me, and I’ll always use a competing offer, even if it is slightly lower.

Mark Zhang
Mark Zhang (@guest_273702)
July 7, 2016 11:24

Good idea to combine with in-store transactions!! I’ve been using Ebates a lot yin the past couple of months. Seriously considering their card now. I received three pre-approval emails from them already.

PS Got declined twice by the Upromise card and decided to stay away from it. Score around 720 and 3 HPs in the past six weeks, with one year of average age (the oldest being three years now).

IOException
IOException (@guest_273708)
July 7, 2016 11:36

Barclay will always deny for inquiries within 6 mo. Even multiple 1 yr inqs will often prompt a manual review. They pull TU.

They also tend to start with small CLs and increase based upon utilization.

DDG
DDG (@guest_273697)
July 7, 2016 11:17

Ebates in-store offers have been available since February at least, that’s when I first saw them, but they only had a few stores back then. Didn’t know about Upromise.