Author Topic: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo  (Read 6735 times)

hodedofome

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Many on here know about eBates, but I thought I'd start a thread detailing exactly how to save 8-20% on most online purchases we make on a regular basis.

1) Sign up for an eBates account. After that, the easiest thing to do is to install the eBates Chrome extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ebates-the-free-cash-back/chhjbpecpncaggjpdakmflnfcopglcmi?hl=en-US and it will notify you if the store you are shopping at has cash back available. The cash back is at least 1% and for some stores can be as high as 10% or more.

2) Sign up for the eBates credit card (no annual fee) https://www.ebates.com/credit-card.htm You'll get an additional 3% cash back on those purchases made on a site that offers eBates cash back.

So, eBates 1% (at least) + credit card 3% = 4% cash back minimum

3) Raise.com. There are others, but raise.com I've used maybe 30-40 times and have had the best service with them. If there was ever a problem, they took care of it. I get the gift card in about 2 minutes or less. With other sites I've had to wait about a day sometimes. Anywhoos, you buy discounted gift cards at the stores you are already shopping at. Most stores are at least 5% discounted, and sometimes up to 10-20% discounted. As well, Raise.com supports eBates so while you're saving money buying the gift card, you're also getting cash back!

So let's say I'm gonna buy a toy from Toys 'R Us for my kid for his birthday. I first go to https://www.raise.com/buy-toys-r-us-gift-cards It says I can get a gift card for up to 7% off. I'll also activate my eBates chrome extension for an additional 1% cash back, and use my eBates credit card to buy the gift card (additional 3% cash back).

Then, when I buy the toy on toysrus.com, I'll activate the eBates extension AGAIN, and get another 1% cash back on the purchase, even when I used the gift card. It adds up to this:

Toys 'R Us
raise.com gift card: 7% off
eBates cash back on raise.com: 1%
eBates credit card on raise.com: 3%
eBates cash back on toysrus.com: 1%

Total we're looking at 12% cash back, just from buying intelligently. Works even better if you wait for a sale.

terran

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2018, 12:31:32 PM »
Does the 3% cash back work only for online purchases, or also in store? I'm looking at Walmart (I think the advertise 10% is only in select categories, but the 3% alone would be worthwhile) since that's where we do the non-Aldi half of our grocery shopping.

Toad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2018, 10:54:45 PM »
Nice idea...will definitely be looking into this.  I just discovered my bank of america has cash back deals along similar lines (knew about this for a while but just ignored it) that I can get using my debit card on some purchases (never do normally).  Just a few weeks ago I added $30 onto my Starbucks card and got 10% cash back.  If I can make that last until the deal pops up again (likely) then I will have a way to get 10% off my infrequent Starbucks.  I can definitely make better use of this for a wider array of more frequent shopping/purchases though.

Toad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2018, 11:08:01 PM »
Just tried this out (minus the eBates Credit Card)...it is very amusing to me how buying something in the most convoluted way ends up being the largest saving.  I basically ended up buying a giftcard to buy a giftcard to buy something...more steps = more saving :P.

Thanks again for this idea, I have a feeling I will be using this a lot since it is kind of fun to see how much you can stack to get the best discount (even if it really is only saving a dollar or two).

Toad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2018, 06:56:30 PM »
I am going to revise my assessment of this from being ridiculously epic to moderately epic.  Made a few gift card to online order purchases today and noticed that my gift card transactions did not seem to be registering as cash back.  As it turns out:

Quote
Do gift certificates qualify for Cash Back rewards?
Ebates cannot give cash back for the portion of a purchase that is made with gift cards or certificates. We can, however, give Cash Back on select gift cards purchased at stores via Ebates. To see a list of these stores, visit our Gift Card page.

So, you can get cash back to buy the gift card, but you don't then get cash back again when you use the gift card.

hgjjgkj

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2018, 11:09:50 AM »
Can you sell tradelines on an ebates credit card?

secondcor521

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2018, 09:16:00 PM »
Can you sell tradelines on an ebates credit card?

Probably not.  The issuer is Synchrony Bank, which isn't one of the usual issuers that work with the tradeline companies.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #7 on: March 21, 2018, 10:05:33 PM »
I bought a new laptop recently using a corporate discount. At the last minute I realized I could probably get a few bucks back going through ebates. I forgot what promotion they were running at the time for HP.com but it was some limited time offer that was maybe 5-6% (as I recall). I bought the laptop in mid-February but it wasn't going to ship until early March. Emailed ebates to confirm the purchase had counted. They sent a few emails over the next month basically saying they were still checking on it. It finally came through a few days ago and was $98! On a $700ish laptop. Somehow I got 14% cash back. Maybe that was the promotion since I bought it on Valentines Day so they were offering 14% on the 14th. I remember at the time thinking it was going to be maybe $30. Considering my corporate discount saved me a couple hundred bucks as well I feel pretty good.

Toad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2018, 12:27:59 AM »
Does the 3% cash back work only for online purchases, or also in store? I'm looking at Walmart (I think the advertise 10% is only in select categories, but the 3% alone would be worthwhile) since that's where we do the non-Aldi half of our grocery shopping.

I suspect this will work in stores as well...sort of.  I will be trying it out in a few weeks or so as I just applied for the credit card, but it looks like raise.com has Walmart cards frequently.  Almost seems like an unlimited amount of $5.00 ones for a small percentage off with a few larger denomination ones.

So even if you can only get 1% off vouchers through raise.com, you could potentially (I suspect) do a 1% (buying through Ebates) + 1% (assumed voucher discount) + 3% (Ebates credit card) = 1% discount + 4% cash back for anything from Walmart.  Vouchers can be used in store but I have yet to try that myself.

I will post again once I have tried this with the Ebates credit card.

Rhinodad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2018, 09:31:46 AM »
I will add to this as well, as we started doing all of our purchases this way, even household staples (TP, parchment paper, aluminum foil, ingredients to make our laundry detergent, etc) and bought these online. So for Target, we got 5.5% discount on the gift card, which we purchased with cash back cc for an additional 2%, and got 2% cashback from Topcashback. Then went through Topcashback again to Target.com and got an additional 2.25% cash back on those purchases. Also were able to use the $10 off of $40 purchase through the Cartwheel app. My math isn't great, but I think we saved~ 35% on those purchases. We did it 4 times during the promotion and are now stocked up for the year (unless we get the stomach virus:).

This is also a nice way to limit purchases. We almost don't buy anything without a gift card. You can even buy gas gift cards on the site. (1% off of gas card, bought with 2% cash back card, and 2% cash back through portal) Our discretionary spending per year (family of 5) is roughly $18000 (not including groceries, utilities, taxes, mortgage). If we can save 7.5% on those purchases, we are saving $1200 per year.

We also look for coupons on ebay. So, we re-did the bedroom floors in our basement (vinyl plank). Got some 20% off of $100 purchase at Lowe's coupons (6 of them for $5). Each case of planks was $51. Went through topcashback portal to Raise.com (2%) savings and purchased Found Lowes gift cards for 4.5% savings with our cash back CC. Went back through topcashback to Lowe's.com and made six different transactions for instore pickup and got another 2% cashback on those purchases. So, $108 dollars per transaction (with tax) - $20 off per transaction with coupon, paid with gift card (which was purchased with cash back card, which was purchased from Raise through topcash back portal) through the top cash back portal. For a $650(tax included) project, we ended up with all the going around, it netted to a $475 project.

One thing I did learn, is to go through the cash back portal to the intended store, put everything in the cart and get your total, then go to the gift card purchase site and buy as close to the denomination you need as possible, so you don't have much "dead" money sitting there with gift cards.

Toad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2018, 08:09:28 PM »
Bit of an update from me since I have been doing this for a while now:

Unfortunately I was denied the ebates credit card.  This is actually probably a blessing in disguise since I decided to start churning credit cards so it won't count against me.  Reasons for denial:

1. Proportion of satisfactory trades too low (I don't even know what this one means)
2. Not enough bankcard experience (I have only had one credit card...for the past 14 years so...ooook)
3. Not enough credit experience (...ooook...see 2)
4. Too few satisfactory accounts (...ooook...never had 1 late payment so I'm thinking this is just another "you only have one account")

Very surprising (and somewhat amusing) to get the denial for this one and approval for the 3 other cards (2 Chase and 1 BoA) I applied to around the same time.  It's all good...will just get this one in a year or so when they can't reject me for "not enough accounts".

Although this is the case, I can pretty confidently say that my thought on the 5% back (min.) at Walmart is accurate.  I have bought many Walmart vouchers and used them.  Best thing to do is put the Walmart pay app on your phone, buy the vouchers, add the vouchers to your account, and then use the Walmart pay in stores.  I discovered you can only add 5 vouchers at a time after thinking some of the vouchers I bought were bad since I was getting an error when trying to add more than 5.  Storing the vouchers in the Walmart pay app and using that in stores makes it easy to keep track of the vouchers and you also might get cashback from Walmart using their "Savings Catcher" in the app.

Basically it searches for stores around you with better deals and then credits you the difference if any are found.  For some reason a store that is 40 miles away from me and I would never go to is considered "near" me for the app...so win.  I have verified it does this accurately.  There is a Target right next to the Walmart and so I went in the Target and noted the costs of the items I was going to buy at Walmart.  Bought the items at Walmart, and was credited the difference a few days later since one of the items was on sale at Target.  Of the 3 times I have bought items at Walmart, 2 of the times I was credited back some amount.

I have also discovered what I suspect is nearly the (if not THE) cheapest way to buy pet food:

1. Buy Petco vouchers through Ebates on Raise - you can regularly get 10+% off.

2. Go to Petco through Ebates again - Ebates credits your account with Petco even if you are using vouchers...currently the credit is 4%.

3. Create a Petco account if you don't have one.  This is so you can do repeat a repeat delivery option and to get a Pals Rewards card going...Petco will count an order with a voucher towards your Pals Rewards.  The Pals Rewards is essentially 5% back.

4. Select the food you are purchasing and do it as an auto-delivery...doesn't really matter the frequency you set it at since it will pause immediately after you order assuming you don't already have an account with a credit card attached to it.

5. When you have added what you need and you get to your shopping cart, apply the code RDSAVE20 -- probably likely this will eventually go away, but it has been there for several months now.  This is a 20% off your first repeat delivery order code BUT this code will work for every order if you do it the way I am describing.

6. Specify your vouchers to use to pay for the order with.  Do not add a credit card.

7. Order your food.

For your next order just go to your account, cancel the repeat delivery, and repeat the process above (steps 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7) for your order.  I'm not sure why the RDSAVE20 code works multiple times doing it this way.  Possibly because the repeat delivery cancels immediately after your first order since there is no credit card (way for the order to be paid for) on the account.  Or possibly simply canceling a repeat delivery and re-setting it up allows for this to be used again.  Either way, I have now done two pet food orders this way and saved upwards of 40% which is significant for me since my cats get the foie gras of cat food...too bad I can't order their raw food this way.


A final point I have discovered is that Raise seems to quite often have 5% off everything in one order sales (up to $200).  These are the ideal time to stock up on stuff like Walmart vouchers, or Netflix vouchers, or gas vouchers...stuff that rarely goes above 2% on the site ever and stuff that you will use up quick or be able to immediately transfer to an account.

Rhinodad

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2018, 07:55:53 AM »
We have gotten to the point that we don't buy anything it seems without a gift card. We use Topcashback, because they give 2% cashback on Raise purchases. And like you mentioned, Raise frequently puts things on sale...like we were able to buy gas cards when they went on sale for %10 off, plus the cash back, plus the discounted gift card saved us 13% on gas. I even had my Mom set up an account so she could purchase some for us as well. Seeing as how we are foster parents, we end up having to do alot of driving to alot of different appointments.

Secretly Saving

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #12 on: May 17, 2018, 06:57:46 PM »
Great ideas.  Thanks for sharing!

Teachstache

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #13 on: May 18, 2018, 04:42:04 AM »
Replying to follow this

joe7886

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2019, 08:16:28 AM »
Has anyone noticed that raise.com isn't as good? I used to buy when they had an extra 5% deals but now I notice that they drop the original discount so you don't get as much savings as I'd like. For example something might be 14% off normally but when they have the sale it's now 9%-10%. I also used to try to get cards like Walmart at 1% but when they have the 5% deals they are unavailable.

I've also received cards with no balance on multiple occasions.They were very good reimbursing me but I still get nervous.I hear other people have trouble getting reimbursed.

Are there any other sites?

MrSal

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Re: eBates + eBates Credit Card + Raise.com = Killer Savings Combo
« Reply #15 on: May 24, 2019, 09:17:15 AM »
Has anyone noticed that raise.com isn't as good? I used to buy when they had an extra 5% deals but now I notice that they drop the original discount so you don't get as much savings as I'd like. For example something might be 14% off normally but when they have the sale it's now 9%-10%. I also used to try to get cards like Walmart at 1% but when they have the 5% deals they are unavailable.

I've also received cards with no balance on multiple occasions.They were very good reimbursing me but I still get nervous.I hear other people have trouble getting reimbursed.

Are there any other sites?

i dont bother anymore. The thing with popularity of these sites is that... arbitrage gets eaten away. The more demand of people buying these gift cards increases the bid and eventually the price reaches parity or very close.

I used to be able to buy Lowes gift cards at 15-20% discount from these type of sites 4-5 years ago... not anymore. 3-5% tops. Might as well wait for gift card deals at actual retailers that sometimes Lowes does (100$ GC for 90$ or something)