I do a lot of shopping through shopping portals to earn additional cash back/miles. I’m always on the lookout for new portals that are offering good rates, sometimes they are good (Shop At Home) and sometimes they are bad (Inbox Dollars). A reader sent me a link to RebateGiant recently and asked me to review the site.
Double Rebates/Premium Account
RebateGiant offers a premium account, it costs $9.95 per month and comes with the following benefits:
- Get DOUBLE giant rebates
- Receive an extra $5 sign up bonus
- Enjoy unlimited savings, collect as many rebates as you want
- Save more with FREE SHIPPING
- Get coupon codes & bargain highlights
Cash Back Rates
I always recommend using Cashbackmonitor when comparing rates, as it makes it easier to compare to the top portals. I looked at the top ten stores on CBM and then compared them to the standard RebateGiant rates and also the doubled RebateGiant rates.
| Top CBM Rate | RebateGiant Rate | Doubled RebateGiant Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| eBay | 8%* (1.25%) | 0.75% | 1.50% |
| Staples | 5.00% | 2.00% | 4.00% |
| Best Buy | 5.00% | 0.63% | 1.25% |
| Sears | 6.00% | 3.00% | 6.00% |
| MacyÂ’s | 10.00% | 1.50% | 3.00% |
| Groupon | 10.00% | 5.00% | 10.00% |
| Target | 4.50% | 2.50% | 5.00% |
| Raise | 3.20% | onl1.00% | 2.00% |
| Walmart | 6.40% | 2.00% | 4.00% |
| Nordstrom | 8.00% | N/A | N/A |
eBay is 8% on iConsumer but it’s got a monthly limit of $20 cash back, so we also included the next best rate.
As you can see, RebateGiants normal rates suck. You really need the premium account to even been competitive and even then only eBay and Target had better rates and that was only by 0.25% and 0.5% respectively. You’d need to spend $2,000 a month at Target or $4,000 a month at eBay at the current rates to just break even.
Referral Program
Like all shopping portals, RebateGiant offers a referral program. You’ll earn $5 for every qualified referral you refer, there are also bonuses for hitting a certain amount of qualified referrals as follows (you have twelve months after your first qualified referral to reach these bonuses and you can only earn one of these bonuses per household):
- Three qualified referrals earn you an extra $15 cash back bonus.
- Five qualified referrals earn you an extra $35 cash back bonus.
- Ten qualified referrals earn you an extra $80 cash back bonus.
A qualified referral is somebody that earns $25 in cash back on the site (excluding bonus rewards). Referral bonuses also don’t count towards the $25 minimum cash out requirement. You can share your referral links in the comments, but you must retweet this tweet first (put a link to your retweet in the website field).
Our Verdict
Having a paid program is an interesting premise, but it doesn’t really make sense when you look at the actual rates RebateGiant is offering. I’ll probably keep an eye on their rates to see if I can find anything that makes signing up for premium make sense, but at the moment I’m not planning to add it to my list of shopping portals that I use with any regularity.
[Read: TopCashBack.com Review – Is It A Scam Or Legit?]
It seems like there could be some value to the free shipping aspect of the paid offering? Do they give any indication how that works?
Nope, that’s why I didn’t really include it.
It looks like the same company also runs RebateBlast and they have the exact same rates and conditions.