There are more and more cashback portals these days, and many of us are probably feeling a little numb to them. But one thing has not changed: the best cashback portals are usually either run by a major company or are brand new. Portals run by big companies are usually full-featured and reliable when it comes to payouts. Newly launched portals often come with lots of extra promotions that are worth taking advantage of. Today, I want to introduce a cashback portal that is both backed by a major company and newly launched—Splender. During the 2015 year-end holiday shopping season, I earned more than $130 in cashback from it.
【Update 3/30】Splender has finally reached the end of the road, and you can no longer earn cashback through it. If you have more than $9.99 in cashback in your account, it will still be paid out via your selected check or PayPal method. If your balance is under $9.99, please change your payment method to PayPal before 6/20 in order to receive the money.
Looking back at the history of Splender, the best part was probably the old 2% cashback at eBay, which was double what other cashback portals offered. Combined with eBay Bucks and the gift-card-to-buy-gift-card angle, it was a lot of fun to play with! Of course, that was eventually shut down. After that, I did not use Splender very much. What memories do you all have of Splender? In any case, hopefully new cashback portals keep popping up so we can keep earning a little extra.
【Update 3/6】I received an email saying that the Splender cashback portal has been acquired by Ebates. It will stop offering cashback on 3/30 and will officially shut down on 6/30. If you register before 3/30 and use the portal once, you can get an extra $5 bonus, so do not miss it!
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About Splender
Splender may be unfamiliar to many readers, but some of you may recognize Cartera Commerce. And if I mention airline shopping portals that award miles for online purchases, I am sure everyone knows what those are. At the moment, most airline shopping portals are operated by Cartera Commerce, such as the portals for AA, UA, and AS. In other words, those airline mileage shopping portals are essentially outsourced to Cartera Commerce. These sites have already been operating for years, and they are some of my favorite mileage portals to use. I have also earned tens of thousands of miles through them. They all share a few common strengths:
- Good tracking accuracy, and miles post fairly quickly (usually available in 5-7 days)
- Not overly sensitive to promo codes that are not listed on the portal
- Customer service is reasonably effective
- Some sites even award miles on gift card purchases
- They frequently run promotions
- For a detailed analysis, see: Guide to Using Online Shopping Portals for Miles
The newly launched Splender is Cartera Commerce’s own in-house portal. Unlike the mileage portals mentioned above, this one is purely a cashback portal. I bring up the relationship between Splender and those mileage portals because they likely work in basically the same way. In other words, if a purchase would earn miles through a mileage portal, it should earn cashback through Splender. And all of the strengths mentioned above have carried over to Splender as well. For people who prefer cashback, Splender is naturally the better choice.
Registration and Signup Bonus
There is no bonus for registering for a Splender account directly on the official website. However, if you sign up through the referral link below and then make a purchase of at least $50 at any merchant through the portal, you can receive a $5 bonus.
After registering, once a single purchase reaches $50, you will receive the following email:
- You are now eligible for a Splender referral bonus
After 45 days, this extra bonus will appear in your cashback history (at first, you only get the email; the $5 will not appear in your account history right away, and I have already confirmed this with customer service).
【Update 2016.1.31】It did in fact show up after 45 days. I completed the $50+ purchase around November 20, and on January 31 the $5 referral bonus appeared as pending.
Payment Method and Timing
Most cashback portals pay out once every three months, but Splender sends payments once at the end of each month (as long as your balance exceeds $10). The money can be sent directly to PayPal or mailed to you as a check. I usually prefer getting a check in the mail, since PayPal can be so temperamental that I would rather avoid it when possible.
【Update 2016.1.31】So after cashback tracks, it first stays in pending status, becomes available after 45 days, and is then paid out at the end of that month.
Advantages of Splender
Double Cashback Promotion
As mentioned above, a new cashback portal will often launch special promotions to attract new users. Those promotions are exactly the kind of opportunity we like to maximize. Since Splender had just launched, its promotional offers were much more generous than what you would usually see from other cashback portals. During the holiday period earlier, cashback rates at each merchant were often 1.5x to 2x higher than at typical portals. The current promotion is double cashback, running through January 31.
After the double cashback boost, rates at most merchants were higher than those at typical cashback portals (this comparison was accurate at the time the article was published; things may have changed since then). For example:
- Sears 6% (most other sites were 5% or less)
- Neiman Marcus 12% (the best elsewhere was 8%)
- Raise 3% (the best elsewhere was 2%)
Reliable Cashback Tracking
This point hardly needs explanation. If your purchases frequently fail to track, then even a very high cashback rate is useless. For example, Discover Deal is well known for tracking issues. After clicking through and making a purchase, sometimes you cannot even see a click history entry, so I rarely use it now. Splender not only records your click time, merchant, and cashback rate at the time, but also the browser you used. Below is an example of my click history:
Flexible About Promo Codes
This is something many people may not pay much attention to. Cashback portals usually clearly state that you are only supposed to use promo codes provided on their own site. If you use a code from elsewhere, your cashback may be clawed back. TopCashback and Discover Deal are especially strict about this. Very often, even if the purchase initially tracks after you use a code, they may later reverse the cashback. So when I am making a purchase with a promo code, I tend to choose Splender.
Cashback on Gift Card Purchases at Some Stores
This is arguably a loophole in cashback portals. Most cashback portals state that buying gift cards does not earn cashback. The reason is to prevent people from double dipping—earning cashback once when buying the gift card and again when using the gift card for a purchase. In practice, however, enforcement is another matter. On Cartera-operated sites, quite a few merchants have allowed this kind of double dip, such as Sears and Neiman Marcus (that 12% cashback doubled becomes 24%!). So this is actually a very important point.
Disadvantages of Splender
After using it for more than a month, I have not found any major drawbacks yet. The one feature it may be lacking compared with the competition is a Best Rate Guarantee that would match the highest cashback rate from other portals. That said, during the double cashback promotion, Splender’s rates at most merchants were already among the highest or at least above average, so I was not too concerned about that.
Cashback Portal Series
- Overview of Cashback and Rebate Portals——An introduction to the basics and a step-by-step guide to using them
- How Cashback Portals Work and Make Money——Where the money really comes from
- Guide to Using Discover Deals——Great for resellers, with unusually high cashback rates