Update: It looks as if the shopping portals aren’t honoring the purchases of Visa Gift Cards through Staples.com for cash back. Some have reported that they received cash back for some but not all of their purchases. I recommend getting in touch with Upromise or your respective shopping portal to retrieve the cash back from these orders. Good luck!
I recently wrote about the Visa Gift Cards that went on sale through the Staples.com website and I noted that Upromise had the best cash back offer of 5% when shopping at Staples. Upromise is a website designed to help students earn cash back and rewards that can be used towards their student loans. They have a credit card that offers excellent cash back options that include:
You don’t need to have the credit card to start earning valuable cash back opportunities through their shopping portal, nor do you have to be a student for that matter. I spoke with a representative and I was told that anyone is eligible to sign up and start earning cash back for online purchases. I’ve written about credit card and airline shopping portals that tend to have great offers of up to 30 miles/points per dollar spent at a given store. They have major store and brand names that can help you earn more miles and reach that next free trip of yours faster. However, since the Visa Gift Cards each come with a $6.95 fee, instead of incurring $69.50 of fees for every 10 gift cards I buy, I’d rather earn cash back to offset the fees. My first 10 gift card order finally posted on my Upromise account and is shown below for reference:
My Upromise cash back earnings
I should be receiving more cash back as my other Staples orders post and you should note that it could take 10-45 days for your Upromise cash back to post. Don’t forget to also sign up for an extra 1% cash back when you use your Chase Ink card with Visa Savings Edge. They offer a 1% cash back statement credit when you make a purchases at Staples, including many other stores that offer even more cash back with a list that can be found on their website.
How to find the best cash back rate:
There is a website called Cash Back Monitor that allows you to search a store that you’re looking to make a purchase at and find the best cash back or points rate through using a shopping portal. For example, I searched Staples on Cash Back Monitor and found this:
The “Best Rate” happens to be Upromise’s shopping portal and compares the other top cash back earning websites. You can also select “Airline Mileage/Points” to find the best miles and points earning websites for any store you like. There are the websites that compare the best deals, but according The Frequent Miler’s research found here, Cash Back Monitor seems to be the most accurate of all the comparison websites.
Other great cash back websites include:
Airline Mileage/Points websites:
- Aadvantage eShopping
- United MileagePlus Shopping
- Chase’s Ultimate Rewards Mall
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping
If you know of any other great cash back portals that I can add to the list, then please comment below!