Move Over Other Cash Back Portals, There’s a New Top Dog in Town!
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When I make online purchases, I like to earn extra miles, points, or cash back by using shopping portals. They’re an excellent way to double dip your rewards earning, because you’ll still get credit card rewards at the same time!
Most shopping portals do NOT allow you to stack other discounts or promotions on top of the cash back or points they offer. However, RetailMeNot is NOT your average cash back portal!
Its cash back rates can be MUCH higher than other portals. And you can combine their deals with coupons and discounts.
It’s easy to miss out on RetailMeNot’s great deals, because they currently do not show up on portal search engines like Cashback Monitor, Cashbackholic, and Evreward! So you’ll have to go directly to the RetailMeNot site to make sure you don’t miss out on the best offers!
I’ll show you how to search the RetailMeNot cash back site and compare it with the other shopping portals to make sure you’re getting the best deal.
How to Find Deals With RetailMeNot
The RetailMeNot cash back offers are similar to AMEX Offers and Chase Offers. You’ll earn a specific amount back after meeting the purchase requirement. This can lead to savings rates which are MUCH higher than other portals!
For example, I found a RetailMeNot Staples offer for $15 cash back when you spend $75+. So you’d save 20% off a $75 purchase ($15 cash back / $75 purchase)! The next highest cash back rate I found on a Cashback Monitor search was only 5%!
Most shopping portals specifically exclude stacking promotions and discounts with their offers. So if you click through a portal to make a purchase for 5% cash back and apply a promotion code at checkout for free shipping, you could lose your 5% cash back! 🙁
This is where RetailMeNot really shines! They explicitly say you CAN stack their cash back deals with other discounts and promotions!
Is RetailMeNot Always the Best Deal?
Whether or not RetailMeNot is the best deal for you will depend on what the actual cash back offer is and how much you are purchasing.
I stacked a couple of Office Depot & OfficeMax deals through RetailMeNot and saved ~27% on a ~$200 purchase! This is much better than the highest rate on other shopping portals, which is 7% to 8%.
If you are making a large purchase, the percentage you’re saving will drop. So you’ll have to do the math for your situation to see which deal is best.
For example, I saved a total of $55 on an Office Depot & OfficeMax purchase by combining a “$15 off a $150 purchase” RetailMeNot offer with a “$40 off a $200 purchase” coupon code. When you are combining deals, the purchase amount must meet the RetailMeNot offer’s minimum requirement after applying any other discounts, but before taxes and shipping. So in this case I qualified for the cash back offer, because the ~$200 order was discounted to ~$160
But my savings wouldn’t have increased if I had spent more. And eventually, the percentage I was saving would drop below the 7% to 8% rate offered through other cash back portals.
For this specific offer, I’d be better off going through another shopping portal if my purchase was more than $786 ($55 savings / $786 purchase = ~7%). But what if you split up a large purchase into smaller amounts? Could you get the $15 cash back more than once for multiple $150 purchases?
The RetailMeNot cash back terms state:
“Number of Rewards Offers per Person” means a limit of 30 Rewards Offers in the aggregate under all RetailMeNot Promotions in any 30 day period and a limit of 5 Rewards per Merchant in any 30 day period, unless otherwise specified in the Promotion Landing Page.
You might be able to get a single offer up to 5 times per store. But I tried to get the $15 off a $150 purchase deal with Office Depot & OfficeMax again and I never got an email confirming they were tracking the offer. So it’s likely they are referring to using 5 different cash back offers with a single merchant in a 30 day period.
Step By Step: How to Use the RetailMeNot Cash Back Portal
To start saving with RetailMeNot, you’ll need to create an account.
Step 1. Create an Account & Start Searching
Go to the RetailMeNot site and click the “Log In / Sign up” button on the top right of your screen to log into or create an account.
You can search for coupon codes, promotions, and cash back directly with the “Search on RetailMeNot” bar or by selecting the “Cash Back” tab.
Step 2. Find the Best Deals for You
I used the “Search on RetailMeNot” bar to find deals for Office Depot & OfficeMax.
You can refine your search results using the tabs at the top or the options on the left side. The RetailMeNot cash back offers will be orange and labeled as “Cash Back Offer.” Those are the deals you can stack with the other coupon & promotion codes, which are green and labeled as “Code.”
When you’re deciding which deals to combine, always check the restrictions and expiration dates. You can find this information by clicking the “See Details” tab under the offer.
I checked the terms for the “$25 off $125+ Purchase” deal and found quite a few limitations.
Step 3. Click “Get Reward”
Click the “Get Reward” button to continue!
Don’t forget, to get the deal you’ll have to meet the spending requirement of the cash back offer before you include taxes, fees, and shipping AND after other discounts are applied!
Step 4. Click Through to the Store
Click the “Shop Now” button to continue to the store.
Once you get to the merchant’s site, you won’t have to add a code to get your RetailMeNot cash back. RetailMeNot will automatically track your purchase. But you’ll want to turn off any pop-up blockers and be sure to enable cookies in your browser BEFORE you click through to the store.
And you’ll still need to add the proper code for any promotions you want to stack with a RetailMeNot cash back offer. You can add those at checkout.
Once you’ve clicked through to the store you want to buy from, RetailMeNot will send you an email looking like this.
This email is NOT confirmation you qualified for the deal! You’ll still need to complete your purchase, if you haven’t. Once you do that, you can track your reward’s status through your RetailMeNot account.
When the cash back is confirmed and posted to your account, you will need to add your PayPal information in order to get paid. If you don’t have a PayPal account, you’ll have to create one, because that is the only method RetailMeNot uses to pay out their rewards.
Automate RetailMeNot Deal Stacking
In addition to having better cash back rates than other portals, one of the biggest advantages the RetailMeNot cash back portal has over the competition is the ability to stack promotions.
Most shopping portals explicitly forbid the combining of coupon codes with their deals. RetailMeNot not only allows the stacking of deals, but actively encourages it!
They even have an add-on for Google Chrome users (the RetailMeNot Genie) that will automatically find the best coupon codes for you!
I don’t have a lot of experience with the RetailMeNot Genie, so I can’t verify how well it works. It seems it only searches for promotion codes listed on RetailMeNot. So you might occasionally be able to find a better code somewhere else.
When you’re looking for deals to combine on RetailMeNot you’ll generally see 3 different color-coded types of offers:
- Orange – RetailMeNot cash back offers
- Green – Coupon or promotion codes
- Purple – Merchant sales or promotions
In general, you can combine one orange RetailMeNot offer with one green coupon code (or any valid coupon code you have). For the purple retailer promotions you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of them. Those are simply sales the store is currently having.
What Credit Card Will Get You the Most Rewards?
One of the best parts about using shopping portals is you’ll still be able to earn credit card rewards on top of the cash back you’re earning!
This can be especially lucrative for folks who love taking advantage of deals like AMEX Offers and Chase Offers. Because you’ll be able earn your credit card points and get an additional discount with your card’s offer!
To get the most out of your shopping portal purchases, you’ll want to use a card that earn bonus points for your spending whenever possible. In my case, paying with the Chase Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card or SimplyCash® Plus Business Credit Card from American Express will earn me an extra 5% back for my office supply store purchases!
Other cards, like the Chase Freedom® and Discover It® have rotating 5% cash back bonus categories. But you’ll have to remember to activate the bonus each quarter. And you’ll only get the 5% bonus on the first $1,500 of combined purchases each quarter.
If you don’t want to worry about rotating category bonuses, you could use a card that effectively earns 2x back on all purchases, like the Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card or Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®.
Note: Not all shopping portals will let you use any credit card to make your purchases. Bank shopping portals usually require you to use a card issued by that bank in order to earn rewards through their portal.
Bottom Line
RetailMeNot has an excellent cash back portal with deals that can have MUCH better savings rates than your average shopping portal!
Most shopping portals will NOT let you combine coupons or promotional codes with their cash back offers. But RetailMeNot has cash back offers you can stack with other discounts! This makes it a great deal for a wide variety of purchases.
But depending on the offer, it might not be the best deal for you. This is especially true for larger purchases, because RetailMeNot rebates are a set dollar amount, not a percentage of the transaction. So make sure you do the math before deciding which shopping portal to use.
Have you ever used RetailMeNot to earn cash back? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments!
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