Shopping Portals: Updated Gift Card Terms for Sears

The Cartera shopping portals now officially exclude both purchase and redemption of gift cards (HT: churningexploits). Befrugal added those terms as well.

Previously, Befrugal and all the Cartera portals excluded the purchase of gift cards but not the redemption, now both are officially excluded. This includes Splender, Southwest, United, Plenti, Barclay, and all the other portals that go through the Cartera system.

The lingo of “since 11/16/15” isn’t accurate since this is a more recent addition. It used to say, “Not eligible on purchase of gift cards as of 11/16/2015,” and they more recently added in the redemption part.

There likely isn’t any change in practice, and the portal will hopefully keep tracking for both purchases and redemptions. However, we’ll no longer be able to file a claim for untracked purchases.

List of Major Portals

Here is the updated info on the major shopping portals, from best to worst:

• Ebates Does not exclude either purchase or redemption of gift cards; they do exclude ShopYouWay redemptions
• Fatwallet Explicitly allows the purchase of gift cards but excludes the redemption (this is odd because Ebates owns Fatwallet and they’ll usually have the same terms)
• Topcashback Explicitly allows the purchase of gift cards but excludes the redemption
• Shopathome Excludes gift card redemptions; gift card purchases should be fine and have worked for me
• Upromise Excludes gift card redemptions; gift card purchases should be fine and have worked for me
• Discover Deals Excludes purchase and redemption of gift cards
• All Cartera Portals (Southwest, Splender, United, Delta, AAdvantage, Barclay, etc.) Exclude purchase and redemption of gift cards
• Befrugal Exclude purchase and redemption of gift cards

Basically, Ebates allows everything besides SYW redemptions. Topcashback, Shopathome, Upromise, and Fatwallet allow gift card purchases to earn cashback. Discover, Cartera, and Befrugal don’t allow anything to do with gift cards.