Put the Money Back in Your Pocket!

If you're reading this blog, you're probably someone who likes to stretch your pennies.  My wife and I don't live on a big budget, so we have to make our pennies go as far as they can!  

Earlier, we discussed getting cards like the Virgin Velocity Escape card.  While it's not the most lucrative card on the market, it can still get you a free one-way flight between a few cities here in Australia.  Hey, free is free!

But are there any other ways to save actual cash on travel?  On even everyday items?  Recently, I explained ways to save BIG on last-minute travel with Expedia.com.au.  But how about saving even more cash.  Here's an easy way.


SHOPPING PORTALS
Most large retailers have joined the bandwagon in partnering with other large retailers to offer their services.  This makes larger profits for both retailers.  

Velocity has its own online portal, and when you click through to retailers they recommend, you receive extra points for beginning your shopping at Velocity.  They get a referral commission from the store they recommended to you, and at which you then made a purchase.  We'll calculate the actual payback to you if you use the Velocity portal, in another post.

Start your shopping here and earn more points

But most of the time we prefer actual cash!  Not surprising, in recent years cashback portals have sprung up and are offering some cold hard cash for those of us that prefer it.

CASHBACK PORTALS  - HOW DO THEY WORK?

We will keep this post VERY simple.  No need to get into the nitty gritty details at this time of how affiliate marketing works.   But suffice to say, it is a huge business..billions.  

Essentially, a website gets paid to sell, the products of another company.  They receive a commission or one-off fee.

Now, along the way, a few companies decided to start giving back some of the commissions they were being paid.  Why would they do that?

They could attract even more shoppers to their site!  

But what would they be getting out of it?  Definitely a smaller commission, since they were now giving away some of their profits.  

But they also received HUGE page impressions.  When a website gets lots of visits, or page impressions, they can start to charge other companies more to advertise their products with them.  Even if there is no sale.  More people are seeing the products with every page impression, and businesses will pay for that.

WHICH PORTALS SHOULD I USE?

There are many portals, and one may be better than another, depending on what you buy, where you live, when you shop, etc.  Really, we all want the highest payout for our shopping.

There are more limited options here in Australia, since there are less Aussie stores that advertise on portals.  We just don't have the offerings to be had in Europe or the USA.   But we still have many options!  

First though, think about where you plan to shop.  Would you have gone to Qantas, Expedia, Travelocity, Avis, Hertz, Best Western, Accor Hotels?  

They are all listed on TopCashBack, which gives you the entire commission they earn!  So you might as well earn 2% cash back or higher, simply by starting your search from this website.  If not, you're giving the money away.  Some payouts are as high as 15%!  We've personally earned about $150 from this site over about 6 months.  

Payments take about 6 weeks or so.  That is how long they must wait to get their commission, to pass on to you.  They send you an email, telling you to withdraw your commission, by bank deposit or Paypal.
TopCashBack

Get 2% Cash Back or More with Popular Portals Like This One

Big Crumbs is also very competitive, though I find their commissions just a tad lower than TopCashBack.  But sometimes they are actually higher.  So it you have an extra 2 minutes you can compare both to see which is offering the highest payout.

BigCrumbs

BigCrumbs Also Pays for Starting Your Search at Their Website

If you don't want to shop around, and just quickly want to know where the best payback is then you could start your search at Evreward.com.  This aggregate site will show you which portal is paying out the highest returns.  They also offer coupons and other adverts.  It's a no-frills website and worth the extra few minutes to start an overall search for a product you need.

*READER HINT - Do you book trips or buy things for other folks?  Hotels?  Flights?  Business trips?  If so you could be pocketing a small commission via cash back portals, even though you're paying with a business card or someone else's card.  Book as you have already been doing, but NOW start searching from your TopCashBack or BigCrumbs account! Get a commission just from an extra 1 minute search and click.

CONCLUSION
If you can spare just a couple minutes by starting your search at a cashback portal, you can save a tidy sum.  Don't let the 'crumbs' get away!