Cash back portals allow you to earn additional cash back on top of the rewards you already earn using rewards cards and loyalty programs. This is done by starting your shopping session with the cash back portal of your choice and clicking through to the site in which you're going to make a purchase.
This can be used for hotels, car rentals, airlines, and general shopping to maximize your return and put a great deal of cash back into your pocket.
How Does Cash Back Portals Work?
Cash back portals are websites that lists affliate links to thousands of stores worldwide. When you click on these affliate links and make a purchase, that cash back portal receives a commission. The cash back portal then shares a part (or all in some cases) of the commission with you, the member. That's pretty much the gist of how all the top cash back portals work.
All cash back portals are not created equal. In terms of deals and offers all of the popular cash back portals have their own pros and cons. Portal A might provide a better deal than Portal B at a certain store today whereas tomorrow Portal B might provide a better deal than Portal A.
You could always still with a favorite portal, but you'll need to use at least a few of them to maximize your earnings.
Booking Travel
Lets dive into some examples on how you can save money booking travel through cash back portals. I will be using Rakuten for these examples. Remember that all portals pretty much work the same way, so you can apply this knowledge to any of the cash back portal.
Booking Hotels
Most of the top hotel brands as well as many region-specific and local hotel brands are covered when booking through cash back portals. This includes hotels such as:
- Best Western
- Caesars Entertainment
- Choice Hotels
- Hilton Hotels
- Hyatt Hotels
- IHG Hotels
- Loews Hotels
- Marriott Hotels
- MGM Resorts
- Millenium Hotels and Resorts
- Motel 6
- Red Roof Inn
- Wyndham Hotels
When it comes to hotels, you'll get some of the highest cash back amounts offered through cash back portals. If it's one thing you use these portals for, it should be booking hotels.
Booking The Hotel
First you will want to find the hote you plan on booking travel with on the cash back portal. For Rakuten and most other cash back portals, there will be a search bar at the top of the page that you can use. A few cash back portals even tell you how much cash back you'll be earning before you select the store.
Once you click on a selection, you'll be taken to the cash back portal page for that hotel. This page will list a lot of important information, but what you'll want to pay close attention to is the cash back terms. The terms lets you know what you might not earn cash back on. For example, look at the cash back terms for Marriott:
As you can see, you will not earn cash back with Rakuten on certain Marriott brand hotels and when booking other form of travel such as airfare, car rentals, vacation packages, and more. So you'll really want to check the cash back terms no matter which portal you're on.
Getting back to the booking, you can click any of the 'Shop Now' buttons located on the Rakuten page to get started. This will begin a new 'shopping session' and send you to the hotel home page.
From there, you can book your hotel as normal. Just be sure to finish your booking in the same internet window (tabs in the same window are fine).
Be sure not to close the window you started the session in or open up new windows as you may miss out on cash back by booking your hotel outside of the designated 'session' window.
Luckily, this can be prevented by using a cash back toolbar. All of the popular cash back portals offer a browser extension that notifies you when you're on a website that is eligible to earn cash back and lets you know that your session is active.
The toolbar also cuts out the need to visit the cash back portal's website first. You can active a new session directly on a websites home page.
Once you finalize and confirm your booking, you will be able to check your account to see the status of your cash back. For Rakuten, you will see 'pending' next to your hotel reservations. Once you complete your reservation, your cash back will usually post to your account within a few days. Do note that Rakuten says it can take up six weeks, so don't be alarmed if it takes a little while for it to post.
Looking at the picture above, I reserved a Marriott hotel on 2/11 for a stay happening Valentine's day weekend. Rakuten had a promotion of 10% cash back with Marriott the day that I booked my reservation.
After I completed that reservation, the $16.60 cash back I earned on my $166.00 hotel stay was updated in my Rakuten account balance a few days later.
On top of earning my cash back with Rakuten, I also earned 1,660 Marriott Bonvoy Points as a Marriott member, a bonus 830 points (50%) for having Marriott Platinum Elite Status, and 996 points for using my Marriott credit card.
That's a total of 3,486 Marriott Points which is worth about $24.40 since I value Marriott Bonvoy Points at about 0.7 cents each. So altogether, I earned about $41 in rewards between both Rakuten and Marriott which is a 24% return on the $166 I paid for the hotel.
You'll also see in the picture that I had a pending booking at the Yokohama Grand InterContinental in Tokyo that was made on 2/18 and cost $1,294. Once I completed that stay in October, it posted to my account.
On top of the $51.77 in cash back (4%) I received on the booking, I also earned 24,922 IHG Points from a combination of IHG elite status and IHG promotions along with an additional 12,940 IHG Points for using the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card to pay for my stay.
That's a total of 37,862 IHG Points which is worth around $265 since I value IHG Points at 0.7 cents each.
This means altogether I got around a value of $316.80 in rewards back on my $1,294 booking. That's 24% of my money back into my pocket that I can use for future trips.
If you're staying at a hotel, I recommend signing up for their loyalty program. Hotel loyalty programs offers lots of benefits such as early check-in, complimentary room upgrades, member only discounts, and much more.
Even if you're only staying at the hotel for one night, it can easily be worth it. You can check out our section on Hotel Loyalty Programs to learn about earning, redeeming, and transferring rewards with hotels.
Booking Airfare
You will not generally earn as much cash back booking with airlines as you will hotels, but you can still earn cash back which is still better than nothing. Typically with airlines you'll see:
- Air France
- Air Italy
- Avianca
- British Airways
- Emirates
- Etihad Airways
- FlyDubai
- Hawaiian Airlines
- KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
- Korean Air
- Lufthansa
- Qatar
- Swiss International Air Lines
As you can see, you will not have a large selection to choose from.
Booking airfare travel through a cash back portal works the same as booking hotels. You'll start at the cash back portal, see if the airline you plan on flying is eligible and launch a new session if it is. If your airline isn't featured on a cash back portal, you can always book through an online travel agency (OTA) like Expedia, Orbitz, or Priceline. At most, you'll earn cash back on the booking through the cash back portal, your frequent flyer miles (with most airlines), the reward points from the rewards credit card you used to pay, and possibilty even points with the OTA's rewards program.
When booking airfare, be sure to join the airline's frequent flyer program. Taking the time to sign up can save you a great deal of money and can be worthwhile.
Sure, it's possible that you may never fly that airline again, but that doesn't mean you can't use the miles you've earned. One flight will more than likely not earn you enough miles for a free flight, but the miles you earn can still be used for gift cards, magazines, other forms of travel, and even be transferred to other rewards programs.
You can check out our page on airline credit card rewards to get the details on earning and redeeming airline miles with various U.S.-based and international airlines.
Booking Car Rentals & Transit
The cash back you can earn booking car rentals and transit through cash back portals usually fall somewhere in-between airlines and hotels. This includes agencies such as:
- Alamo
- CarRentals.com
- Car Rental 8
- Enterprise
- Dollar
- Europcar
- Fox
- GroundLink
- Hertz
- Lyft
- National
- Rentalcars.com
- Sixt
- Thrifty
You can generally get a solid 2%-4% cash back booking car rentals which is pretty good. Car rentals don't typically cost a lot so you will not be earning an extreme amount of cash back, but it will add up fast if you frequently rent cars.
Booking car rentals through cash back portals are no different than hotels and airlines. Once you find the rental agency you want to rent with, fire up a new session and book your rental as normal.
Once your rental is completed, cash back will post to your account after a few days!
Car rental rewards programs don't offer as many perks as hotel loyalty programs and airline frequent flyer programs, but they still do offer the ability to earn great rewards. Rental agencies like Enterprise and Hertz both offer the ability to earn points that you can use towards free rentals.
Other companies like Dollar and Thrifty don't have reward point programs, but they allow you to earn hotel points or airline miles on every booking.
You can learn more by checking out our list of Rental Car and Transit Rewards Programs and learn about what each program offers.
Booking Cruises
There's not many opportunities to book direct when it comes to cruise lines. Your general options across most of the portals are:
- Princess Cruises
- MSC Cruises
- CruiseDirect
- Let's Cruise
If you're planning on cruising through any of the cruise lines or cruise booking portals listed, I highly recommend going through a cash back portal as you can earn a good amount back.
Booking OTAs
If you're booking through a third party, all of the cash back portals offer great returns with all of the top online travel agencies (OTAs). This includes:
- Agoda
- Booking.com
- CheapOair
- Expedia
- Hotels.com
- Hotwire
- Orbitz
- Priceline
- Travelocity
When using cash back portals to book with online travel agencies, you'll really want to read the cash back terms. Since you can book so much with these portals, there's lots of stuff that either may not qualify or you may get a different amount of cash back.
When you see a site is offer 'Up To n% Cash Back', that's an indicator that you will earn different amounts of cash back based on what you're buying.
Just like everything else, you should always sign up for an online travel agency's rewards program if they have one. For example, booking Expedia can earn you at most:
- Cash back with a cash back portal
- Expedia Rewards Points from their rewards program
- Rewards from using your rewards credit card to pay
You should be able to triple dip with most programs when booking with cash back portals and online travel agencies are usually no different.
You can read up on Online Travel Agencies and learn the pros and cons to booking with them.
Shopping For Everything Else
Travel is only a small portion of what's available on cash back portals. You can earn cash back on clothing, jewelry, electronics, outdoor, and just about everything else under the sun. In fact, while I do earn a lot of cash back booking travel with cash back portals, I earn just as much making general purchases online.
Even if you don't spend a lot on travel yearly, you can still rake up hundreds to thousands of cash back buying stuff online from Amazon, Target, Apple, Best Buy, Sephora, Neiman Marcus... the list goes on.
Again, I recommend downloading the browser extension of whichever portal you choose to be your favorite. This will remind you when you're on a website that's eligible to earn cash back with that portal. The reminder alone has helped me earn hundreds in cash back when I was unaware that I was on an eligble site.
Booking Travel With Rakuten
Rakuten features a great deal of airline, hotel, car rental, and online travel agency programs. They have far too many to list, but popular sites include:
- Agoda
- Air France
- Alamo Rent A Car
- Avis
- Best Western
- Booking.com
- British Airways
- Budget Rent-A-Car
- Caesars Entertainment
- CarRentals.com
- CheapOair
- Choice Hotels
- Dollar Rent-A-Car
- Emirates
- Enterprise
- Etihad Airways
- Europcar
- Expedia
- Fox Rent-A-Car
- GroundLink
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Hertz
- Hilton
- Hotels.com
- Hotwire
- IHG
- Korean Air
- Loews Hotels
- Marriott
- MGM Resorts
- Millenium Hotels and Resorts
- Motel 6
- National Car Rental
- Orbitz
- Park N Fly
- Priceline
- Qatar Airways
- Radisson Hotels & Resorts
- Red Roof Inn
- RentalCars.com
- Sandals All Inclusive Resorts
- Sixt Rent-A-Car
- Swissotel Hotels & Resorts
- Thrifty Car Rental
- Travelocity
- United Vacations
- Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
And that's just a fraction of everything available under Rakuten's travel category.
Booking through Rakuten is the same as all portals. You can start at Rakuten's website and find the store you want or you can use the handy-dandy Rakuten Toolbar which launches a session in the same window.
Rakuten also has it's own Rakuten Hotels Portal which allows you to book your hotels entirely through Rakuten and earn cash back. If you go this route, be sure to compare it against booking direct as you can probably score a better deal and earn points with hotel loyalty programs.
A benefit that Rakuten has over the other cash back portals is that you can opt in to earn Membership Rewards Points. For every 1% cash back you will instead earn 1 Membership Rewards Point. This allows you to earn as many as 10x Membership Rewards Points per $1 spent or more during their many special promotions.
This is a great benefit for those who transfer AMEX Points to airline and hotel partners.
The only drawback to Rakuten is that you get paid every three months. You'll earn cash back or points during a three month period, and then be paid those rewards about 1.5 months later as shown below.
| Rakuten Pay Schedule | |
|---|---|
| Earning Period | Month Paid Out |
| January 1 - March 31 | May 15 |
| April 1 - June 30 | August 15 |
| July 1 - September 30 | November 15 |
| October 1 - December 31 | February 15 |
The other cash back portals listed below allows you to cash out as soon as your cash back is available, so this is another thing that sets Rakuten apart from the others. If you're not super eager to receive your cash back or points, then this will not bother you (it doesn't bother me).
You can check out our Rakuten Rewards Review to get a complete rundown of the program. If you don't have an account, consider signing up through The Point Calculator to help us out. You'll also earn an additional $10 cash back on your first purchase.
Booking Travel With TopCashback
TopCashback is another one of the leading cash back portals on the web. They also have a great deal of airlines, hotels, car rental, and third party booking sites. Popular sites include:
- Agoda
- Air France
- Air Italy
- Alamo
- Accor Hotels
- Avianca
- Avis Rent A Car
- Best Western
- Booking.com
- British Airways
- Budget Rent A Car
- Caesars Entertainment
- Car Rental 8
- CarRentals.com
- CheapOair
- Choice Hotels
- CLEAR
- Dollar Rent-a-Car
- Dusit International
- Emirates
- Enterprise
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Etihad Airways
- Europcar
- Excellence Collection
- Expedia
- Fox Rent A Car
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Hertz
- Hilton Hotels
- Hotels.com
- Hotwire
- Hyatt Hotels & Resorts
- IHG
- Jet Airways
- KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
- Korean Air
- Loews Hotels
- Lufthansa
- Lyft
- Malaysia Airlines
- Marriott Bonvoy
- Millennium Hotels
- Motel 6
- MSC Cruises
- National Car Rental
- NH Hotels
- Orbitz
- Points.com
- Priceline
- Princess Cruises
- Qatar Airways
- Radisson
- Red Roof Inn
- RentalCars.com
- Sixt
- Super 8
- Swiss International Air Lines
- TAP Air Portugal
- Thrifty Rent-A-Car
- Travelocity
- Wyndham
Booking with TopCashback works the same as other portals. Find the store you're looking to shop with and click the Cashback button to start a new session.
TopCashback offers a fair amount of deals, but not as much as Rakuten and BeFrugal in terms of promotional codes.
TopCashback also has it's own browser extension/toolbar that's compatible with Chrome and Firefox. This is a great way to be notified if you're on a site that is eligible to earn cash back with TopCashback.
Once you earn cash back with TopCashback, you'll be able to request a pay out. You don't have to wait until a specific day to be paid like Rakuten. That's one of the pros to TopCashback and all the other programs listed below. Earn it and redeem it on your time.
You can check out our TopCashback Review for a full run down of their program. Consider signing up for a free TopCashback account through The Point Calculator to help us out.
Booking Travel With BeFrugal
BeFrugal is another great cash back portal. As with the other portals, they have a large selection of travel sites that you can earn cash back spending with. This includes top names such as:
- Accor Hotels
- Air France
- Alamo Car Rental
- Avis
- Best Western
- Booking.com
- Caesars Entertainment
- CarRentals.com
- CheapOair
- Choice Hotels
- Dollar Rent A Car
- Emirates
- Enterprise Car Rental
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Etihad Airways
- Europcar
- Expedia
- FlyDubai
- Fox Rent A Car
- GroundLink
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Hertz
- Hilton Hotels
- Hotels.com
- Hotwire
- IHG (InterContinental)
- Korean Air
- Lufthansa
- Lyft
- Marriott
- MSC Cruises
- National Car Rental
- Orbitz
- Park 'N Fly
- Planet Hollywood
- Priceline
- Princess Cruise Lines
- Priority Pass
- Radisson Hotels
- Red Roof Inn
- RentalCars.com
- Sandals
- Southwest Vacations
- Super 8
- Swiss International Air Lines
- Swissotel Hotels & Resorts
- Thrifty Rent-A-Car
- Travelocity
- United Vacations
- Wyndham
When it comes to booking your travel through BeFrugal, you'll find that they offer both coupons and cash back similar to Rakuten. This allows you to easily earn cash back and stack on the coupon offers that apply to your purchase. If you have the BeFrugal toolbar, it will attempt to apply all the coupons it can at checkout just like other cash back toolbars.
When it comes to being paid with BeFrugal, you'll have the option to cash out as soon as your cash back posts to your account. Payment options include direct deposit it into your bank account, PayPal account, or you can receive a paper check. As with other portals, you'll also be able to receive gift cards as payment which will give you a boost to your cash back.
You can check out our BeFrugal Review for a full run down of their program. Consider signing up for a free BeFrugal account through The Point Calculator to help out the site.
Booking Travel With RebatesMe
RebatesMe is another leading cash back portal that's been around for quite some time. They offer a great handful of affliate links that contains lots of travel sites. Those sites include, but are not limited to:
- Hilton
- Booking.com
- Agoda.com
- Expedia
- Thrifty
- Hotels.com
- Priceline.com
- Orbitz
- Hertz
- Europcar
- Choice Hotels
- Marriott Bonvoy
- Airbnb
- Avis
- Best Western
- Emirates
- Accor Hotels
- CheapOair
- Hotwire
- RentalCars.com
- IHG (InterContinental)
- Iberia
- National Car Rental
- FlyDubai
- Red Roof
- Wyndham
- Motel 6 / Studio 6
- Princess Cruise Lines
- Etihad Airways
- Radisson
- CarmelCar
- Car Rental 8
- Tap Air Portugal
- Millennium & Copthorne Hotels
- Park 'N Fly
- Kayak
- Jet Airways
- Singapore Airlines
- Dusit International
- CarRentals.com
- Fox Rent A Car
RebatesMe is another site that offers a combination of cash back and coupons. They list active promotions and coupons that can help you save money when shopping. Coupons can even be added at checkout automatically if you have the RebatesMe browser extension/toolbar.
In terms of getting paid, you'll have the usual options of paper check, PayPal, and gift cards, but you'll also have a unique way of getting paid by credit card. RebatesMe allows you to basically pay off a credit card (must be Visa or Mastercard) with the cash back that you've earned. It's quite an interesting method that could be useful for those who want to put the money earned right back onto their card.
You can check out the full RebatesMe Review to learn a little more about the program. Consider signing up for a RebatesMe account through The Point Calculator.
Booking Travel With Mr. Rebates
Mr. Rebates is last of the big well known cash back portals. They offer a great selection of travel affliate links that can earn you a solid return on your money spent. Those sites include, but are not limited to:
- Alamo Rent A Car
- Accor Hotels
- Avianca
- Avis Rent A Car
- Best Western
- Booking.com
- Caesars Entertaiment
- CarRentals.com
- CheapOair.com
- Choice Hotels
- CLEAR
- Dollar Rent-a-Car
- Emirates
- Enterprise
- Europcar
- Expedia
- Fox Rent a Car
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Hertz
- Hilton
- Hotels.com
- Hotwire
- Iberia
- IHG
- Marriott
- Motel 6 / Studio 6
- National
- Orbitz
- Park N Fly
- Priceline.com
- Princess Cruise Lines
- Qatar Airways
- Radisson Hotels
- Red Roof Inn
- RentalCars.com
- Sandals Resorts
- Sixt Rent a Car
- Thrifty Rent-A-Car
- Travelocity
- Wyndham
Earning cash back with Mr. Rebates is just as easy as the others. In fact, Mr. Rebates has the cleanest website design of any of the websites. Everything is displayed in a neat and organized manner. It's a simple site for anyone that doesn't like all the flashing banners and extra information that other cash back portals provide (even if it is useful information).
Mr. Rebates is another site that offers a fair amount of coupons that you can view before you start your shopping. Once you click on any of the 'Shop Now' buttons, a new session will fire up in a new tab/window and you'll continue to shop as normal.
When it comes to getting paid, Mr. Rebates keeps it simple with all the basic options you've come to love with cash back portals. This includes receiving a paper check, getting paid through PayPal, or receive your cash back in the form of a gift card.
You will need build up at least $10 in Available Rebate Dollars before Mr. Rebates will let you cash out.
You can check out the Mr. Rebates Review if you want a few extra tid-bits of information about the program. If you don't have an account, consider signing up for a free account through The Point Calculator.
Using CashBackMonitor
It can be time consuming to check each individual cash back portal to find out which offers the best cash back for any given store. Thankfully, a site called CashBackMonitor.com exists to help out.
It's a free and easy site to use so I recommend bookmarking it if you plan on using multiple cash back portals to maximize the cash back you can earn shopping online.
Summary
Booking travel through cash back portals can earn you a lot of cash back. Airfare, car rentals, hotels, and vacation packages can all be booked through cash back portals to help you earn additional rewards on top of the rewards you would normally earn booking travel. And remember, cash back portals are not just for travel. You can use them for electronics, clothing, jewlery, and so much more.
If you found this guide to be helpful and you're thinking about signing up for a portal, consider using our links listed below to help the site out.
FAQs
What is the best cash back site?
There is no cash back site that is better than another. All cash back sites offer various promotions and you'll want to check around before shopping online (Hint: Use CashBackMonitor.com).
How do cashback sites earn money?
Cash back sites earn money when you click on affliate links to various stores and make a purchase through that link. Some portals also make money from sending traffic to store websites as well.
How do you maximize cash back?
In order to maximize cash back, you'll want to use more than one cash back portal. You can use CashBackMonitor.com to find out the site offering the most cash back before you make your purchase.
Does it cost to use cash back portals?
No. All of the top cash back portals are free and does not require you to pay any kind of cash.
Can you really earn hundreds of dollars using cash back portals?
Yes. Within my first three years of using Rakuten, I earned almost $2,000 making purchases online.
We've run the calculations and checked them twice — here are the credit cards that consistently provide outstanding value to our users:
- Best flexible travel card: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card
- Best overall value year after year: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
- Best for high cash back: Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express
- Best for lounge access & luxury travel: The Platinum Card® from American Express
- Best for business travel rewards: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card
- Best for heavy business spend: Capital One Spark Cash Plus
