15 Cashback Shopping Portals Compared: Payments, Bonuses, & How They Work
Cashback Monitor is far and away the best site to check the highest payouts (be it points, miles, or cashback) for online shopping. And there are a lot of shopping portals out there.
Each has its “quirks” – from slow payouts to minimum thresholds and different ways of paying. And most of them even give you a little reward just for signing up and shopping – some as much as $10 on top of your cashback bonus.
Always click through a shopping portal when you shop online – but which one should you use?
There are many to choose from – and of course you can earn points or miles from airline or bank portals. Here’s an overview of the 15 most popular cashback portals. And how to pick which one to click through!
15 Cash Back Shopping Portals Comparison
Say you want to shop online at GNC for some vitamins or protein (I picked this one at random). You navigate to Cashback Monitor and type in “GNC.” You see this:
*exploding head emoji*
So, it’s a lot to process. And some of those cashback portals, I’ve never heard of. But whatever. Start at the top – where the best payouts are.
You can get:
15% cashback from Ebates
12% cashback from BeFrugal
8% cashback from Top Cashback or Rebates Me… and down from there
Or, if you want points or miles:
5 British Airways points pet $1
4 points/miles from Ultimate Rewards, Amtrak, Choice, American, or United… and down from there
How do you pick?
First, consider your travel goals. I always love to earn more Ultimate Rewards points. I value them at 2 cents each, so 4 per $1 is like getting 8% back (4 points X 2 cents each).
Or, if you’re close to an award flight on American, that might trump all else.
What about Southwest points? They count toward the Companion Pass. If you’re close, or really want it, you might forego 15% cashback to earn points toward flying with a companion for only the cost of taxes.
So there’s mental gymnastics going with just a skim.
What if you just go for highest?
If you just want the best return, the 15% cashback from Ebates is by far the best payout for this store in this scenario. If you spent $100 at GNC (before taxes and shipping), you’d get $15 cashback. Compare that to 400 Ultimate Rewards points, or 500 British Airways Avios points. I’d rather have the $15. Again, unless I had a travel goal in mind. 
