Best Cashback Sites – A Beginner’s Guide

A beginner’s guide to using the best cashback sites

There are a number of cashback websites on the internet, and two of the most common and well-known are Topcashback and Quidco. Both operate similarly and pay out cashback on purchases made through the cashback website, but Topcashback promises to pay the highest cashback amount. Previously I have written about how I made £200+ within a matter of weeks using Topcashback but thought I would write a brand new beginners guide to using the best cashback sites to help maybe just looking to start out in the cash back arena.

Topcashback and Quidco – in a nutshell

There are 4,200 online retailers that are part of Topcashback, and their top 20 offers claims to give you up to £178.50 in cashback. There are several categories of retailer on the website – high street stores, fashion, insurance, travel, food and drink, hotels and mobiles; and they offer cashback on things like Sky TV and even Groupon deals. Cashback ranges from a specific amount for joining a company or organisation – say £95 payout for taking out a TV or landline/internet subscription with Sky, or a percentage of sales, for example 12.12% on sales from the clothing store Topshop.

I personally have been a member of the Topcashback and QuidCo for several years and have racked up over £950 in cashback in that time, to include cashback from opening a bank account, obtaining a credit card, booking holidays and hotels, taking out subscriptions to magazines and signing up to Sky TV, through the website.

How Cashback Works

How Cashback works is that when you are interested in buying something from an online retailer – be it clothes, insurance or even takeaways, instead of going directly to whichever website you would usually, go to Topcashback’s website and log in, and search for the retailer you want to purchase from. You will see a link to the retailer and a box containing the amount of cashback you can expect to receive. Then, you order your items as usual, and the cashback tracks into your Topcashback account, usually within a few hours. Sometime later – it may be anything from a couple of weeks to several months – the retailer confirms your purchase to Topcashback or Quidco, and the cashback changes from being ‘tracked’ to being available for you to spend, in your personal Topcashback account.

Cashing out your Cashback

You can cash out your cashback at any time once it becomes payable, through BACS or PayPal. You can also cash out your payment through other sites, such as M&S, Amazon, Cineworld gift card, Love 2 Shop vouchers, or many more, and you will receive a bonus of 5% for cashing out in this way. In your account section you can also see when your tracked cashback is likely to become payable, as well as a thorough transaction history for your account.

Earn money via their Refer-a-friend schemes

There is a refer-a-friend scheme whereby if you refer a friend and they sign up using your email address credentials, and make a qualifying purchase through the Topcashback website, then you will earn £5 (sometimes £10!) for each one.

Fees

Both the main Topcashback and QuidCo accounts are free to use and have no fees, but there is a charge of £5 per year for the upper level accounts, which offers bigger cashback percentages and a faster payout. You’re under no obligation to opt in to this, and if you do, you can cancel it on a year-by-year basis.

Ultimately, you have nothing to lose by joining up to Topcashback or QuidCo. It only takes a few extra seconds to go to a website via them, and they have an app and a toolbar for you to install if these would make this easier.