I'm looking for takes on upromise - not the citi card, but the site in general.
I signed up a couple months ago and registered a couple cards and grocery cards and i havent earned a cent apparently.
But it seems like it could rack up free money if you really knew what you were doing.

Anyone have anything interesting to say about it?

I opened one 3 years ago and added the cards. I have 400.00 so far. It is great!

I was just reading about Upromise today and found this post when searching. Any other comments? The idea of registering credit cards bothers me. However, any extra payments to loans is great.

I found that they only way for me to make a decent amount of money was to get their credit card. I've had over $200 now and it's been about 2 years.

I've earned $10 in 3 years.

Signed up in 2002 accrued 275 bucks by 2003. Started to save again after getting the Sallie Mae email about it in August, saved 150 since August. Rebates auto transfer on a quarterly basis - 400 just transfered to Sallie Mae on the 16th of March.

Keys:

Go to the grocery section, search for participating stores. Sign up all participating grocery store savings cards or CVS card - remember though to look for the Upromise savings sticker on your store shelves, only certain items qualify - i used to buy onsale, in bulk to maximize savings - add the grocery cards of friends and family to your account (my younger sister has my mom's, hers, and her inlaws store savings cards on her account).

If you can do without instant gratification, shop online through Upromise links - rebates range from 1 to 25% - lots of major online merchants. Since DH and I moved to AK, literally all our shopping is online - so its maximized our savings. Unfortunately Amazon.com isn't a contributing merchant. Using the Upromise toolbar will remind you to login for savings and auto authenticate you without having to actually "go" to Upromise first. We shop at Starbucksstore, Sephora, B&N, sierra trading post, chefs, giftcertificates dot com, ebay, florists, eddie bauer, target, walmart, priceline, etc. Eddie Bauer and Sharper Image gives rebates online and in retail stores.

If you have netflix or gamefly, or you are soon thinking about joining. Join (or rejoin with another CC) through Upromise and get 12 bucks (netflix) or 6 bucks (gamefly) in a one time rebate.

Sign up for erewards through Upromise. Only one erewards membership is valid per Upromise account. You will be sent surveys to complete. They'll reward you .50 to 20 survey points that you can turn into rebate dollars 20 points = 5 dollars, 50pts=20, 100pts=50 dollars. You can turn in once per quarter. I have made 88 points this quarter - hoping to hit 100 so that I can get 50 bucks this quarter instead of next. DH signed up for Upromise so that he could do the erewards and save for his own SLs.

If you subscribe to magazines - go to magazines.com using the toolbar or through Upromise's account and you get a 25% rebate on what you spend.

Every few months they run bonuses - right now select merchants are adding a few more % to the rebates they pay.

Upromise Mastercard - 1% rebate on all purchases; an additional 10% on participating grocery items (usually 1-3%), and 10% at on dining purchases at participating restaurants. I don't have one of these yet - hopefully I will get one to maximize savings.

When we sell our home and buy a new one, we'll use the Upromise service if its still avail. You'll get up to 3k rebate on one. My sister just got 3k for buying her house through a participating realtor.

Get insurance quotes for $2 rebate every quarter when going to insurance dot com via the Upromise website (or using the toolbar). No purchase necessary.

All of our CCs & debit cards are signed up so that regardless of which card we use to rent a car, we'll get a rebate. We'll purchase giftcertificates from giftcertificate dot com for stores we know we'll buy from get the rebate for that purchase, then use the certificate at the online merchant to get 'double' savings right now. Purchasing gift certificates directly from online retailers usually doesn't qualify.

Rebates post on average 40 days for online purchases, within a week for grocery store purchases.

If you have Exxon or Mobil where you live - they pay 1cent per gallon you purchase (minimum gallon purchase required every month - 30 gal i think). This one may or may not be worth it depending on how the prices here compare with other gas stations in your area.

If you have AMEX rewards, you can turn points in for Upromise rewards.

Just a few ways to earn $$$ to pay for SLs. I don't know (will probably ask the next time I'm on the phone with Upromise), but expect that you'll get a 1099 for the income at the end of the year. If this doesn't happen, I may consider trying to open up a few more Upromise IDs to save for me so I can sign up for more erewards accounts - i like doing surveys .

glad to see this topic got bumped.

My dad is laid up for a few months, I was thinking about having him do the erewards surveys for me and me paying him for them - he lives in vegas and i live in california. does anyone see anything wrong with that?

ive only saved 6.49 since i set up my account several months ago (whenever i made that first post), but i had only registered a couple cards and hadnt gotten into that much. im learning more about it now and just registered the rest of my cards.

Having your dad do them and then 'saving' the rebates for you is precisely what Upromise is about. HOWEVER, running multiple accounts to get multiple e-rewards, thats a personal judgement call. Further I don't know IF the rebates you use for student loan repayment will trigger a 1099 coming from Upromise as income. If so - then going too outrageous on having multiple "Friends and family" may not be a good idea. Anyone who knows this, please post .

e-rewards pays a maximum of 200 dollars in rebates per account per year. I have thought about it - right now it would take 500 'friends' making the maximum e-rewards rebate to pay off my SLs in one year. I don't personally have the gumption to make up 100 friends, let alone 500 . If the money isn't considered income, however, I might consider making it DHs job to do surveys everyday, should he not find a job when he graduates Be warned, however, 80% of the surveys you'll get you won't "qualify" for and you'll get .5 points for every one of that you don't qualify for.

Again, if you can do without instant gratification from shopping in retail stores, download the Upromise Toolbar, and start shopping online. I just had 26.85 in rebates post this morning from shopping I did online for the month of Feb, and not for the whole month, at least 5 transactions still out there waiting for the rebate to post.

I buy gift cards or e-giftcertificates from giftcertificates dot com. You don't need to register the gift cards with Upromise before using (with the exception of the arch card). Since most other other online mechants don't require a registered CC (some do - go to Upromise to find out) to get the rebate, we get 'double' savings - the rebate from buying gift certificates from giftcertificates dot com, and the rebate from the purchase at the online retailer using the gift certs to pay. We've done this at PETCO, starbucks, chefs, sephora, target, and Macy's. I prefer purchasing e-gift cards, as they are usable as soon as you get the email. I'll do this even after getting the Upromise MC, because the savings overall are greater this way.

EXAMPLE:
In Jan, I bought 500 dollars in Starbucks Gift (just searched they don't offer these anymore) cards from from giftcertificates dot com & got a 15 dollar rebate - then used the gift cards to pay for my new espresso machine last month at the starbucks store (starbucksstore dot com) and got a 25 dollar rebate. Thats 15 extra dollars by including an extra step and waiting 14 extra days to buy the espresso machine.

I am looking at upgrading my stand mixer in a few months to a more powerful model. I will first see what merchants sell the model I want, then look to see if any of them offer gift cards (electronic or not) on the giftcertificates dot com web. If they offer them in large enough denominations I will go with whoever combos the largest savings (that hopefully offer free shipping to boot). Most merchants offer the ability to pay with multiple giftcards, but its good to check before pulling the trigger.

ALSO, if you don't have a Upromise MC and your CC of choice is AMEX and you are in the rewards program, you may qualify for more Upromise $$ buy using your AMEX to buy the gift cards to accure in their points program.

In the end its about being a savvy ACTIVE consumer. The less active you are, the longer it will take for savings to accrue, the more active your are the faster savings will accrue. It doesn't take a lot of time to start saving more.