(EXPIRED) Upromise Shopping Portal: Spend $199+ & Get $10 Bonus

The Upromise shopping portal has launched a new promotion that offers a $10 bonus when spending $199 in the next week.

The Deal

• Earn a $10 bonus when spending $199+ at retailers after clicking through from the Upromise shopping portal.
• Direct link to offer.

Key Terms

• During the “College Savings Bonus” offer, which runs from 03/23/20 through 03/29/20 at 11:59:59 pm ET (the “Bonus Period”), Member will earn a one-time bonus of $10 bonus cash back on qualifying purchases, in addition to the standard cash back earned from shopping online through Upromise Shopping.
• This one-time bonus award will be determined based on Member’s cumulative qualifying purchases made during the Bonus Period: Earn $10 cash back for qualifying purchases of at least $199 or more.
• “Qualifying purchases” do not include returns, cancellations, shipping and handling, taxes, gift card or other cash equivalent purchases, and certain products that are not eligible for bonus cash back.
• Please see the Upromise Shopping site for details on product eligibility and other restrictions.
• Please allow up to 10 weeks after the Bonus Period for bonus cash back to post to your Upromise account.

Quick Thoughts

Towards the end of last year, Upromise offered an excellent bonus of $100 when spending $1,250 or more. This offer is clearly not as generous, but the spend requirement is much lower too.

With many people self-isolating right now, I imagine many are ordering food and household items online, especially seeing as a lot of grocery stores have empty shelves. Stores like Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club are both available through the Upromise portal and I’m sure spending $199+ with them won’t be too much of a struggle for those with large families.

A couple of alternatives are GiftCards.com and Raise. Although gift card purchases are listed as being excluded in the terms above, that seems to be because gift card purchases are usually excluded from earning cashback with most retailers. GiftCards.com and Raise are exceptions to that rule seeing as Upromise (and most other portals) offer cashback on gift card purchases from them. With that $100 bonus offer last November, I bought $1,500 worth of Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com and that triggered the $100 bonus.

This could be particularly helpful if you’re having a hard time meeting the minimum spend requirement on a new credit card at the moment. I’ve seen a number of people expressing concern recently about trying to meet minimum spend because they’d assumed upcoming flights, hotels, etc. would easily cover a new card’s spend requirement, only for that travel to be cancelled. Buying Visa gift cards from GiftCards.com can help you spend what’s required without having to leave the house, something particularly helpful in the current circumstances.

You’ll also earn 1% cashback on both the Visa gift card amount and its activation fee. That means for every $500 card you buy, you’ll earn $5.07 from the standard cashback rate. That won’t quite offset its activation fee and the shipping cost, but the $10 bonus will.

One thing to bear in mind is that you shouldn’t make purchases from GiftCards.com if you’re working on the minimum spend requirement for an American Express card as they’re known to claw back welcome offers for actions such as these.

As always when shopping online, check the rates for the retailer you’ll be purchasing from using Cashback Monitor as you might earn more elsewhere. For example, let’s say Upromise is offering 2% cashback and a different portal is offering 10%. If you spent $200 at the retailer having clicked through from Upromise, you’d earn $14 – $4 from the standard cashback rate and $10 from this bonus. Earning 10% through the other portal would earn you $20 cashback, outweighing Upromise despite its $10 bonus.

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