One of the defining economic trends of the past year has been the unprecedented rise in household savings, with people now stashing away more cash than at any other point in history. However, it is worth pointing out that this savings bonanza is not distributed evenly, with a relatively small proportion of households in rich countries accounting for a majority of total savings.
If you feel like you have been left out of the Great Savings Boom, it’s not too late to start saving for a rainy day.
One important way to go about this is by getting back a portion of what you spend via cashback deals. These are offers from a variety of companies and institutions that offer regular money back as a marketing incentive, which you can take advantage of to boost your savings. Read on to find out everything you need to know about cashback deals.
What Is Cashback and How Does It Work?
First off, let’s break down exactly what we mean by cashback. In a nutshell, cashback offers are a form of belated discount that seeks to reward loyal customers and keep them on board. When you spend money with a company or institution that offers cashback, you will usually get a percentage of your expenditures refunded to you on a one-off or a regular basis, depending on the deal.
The goal of this on the company’s side is to encourage you to keep spending with them since you know that you will get some of your money back if you stick with them as opposed to a competitor. Let’s say you are signing up for a new credit card, with the bank offering cashback to all first-time customers (a very common practice in banking).
The deal would typically stipulate that, if you spend something like £100 or more a month on that credit card, the bank will give you a cashback of, say, 5% of your total purchases. This way, you are saving money and being rewarded for your custom.
What Kinds of Companies Offer Cashback?
Lots of different types of companies regularly offer cashback deals to loyal customers, you just need to know where to look. Here are some prominent examples of where you can save money via cashback offers.
Banks
The above example about credit card cashback is the most common way that banks utilise this incentive. Virtually all major banks offer cashback credit cards, often to different categories of consumers such as students, high earners, or business spenders.
Travel Providers
Cashback incentives are enormously popular within the travel industry, with airlines, hotels, agencies, and attractions all offering cashback to discount-savvy tourists. For example, Expedia offers 10% cashback on specific, time-limited purchases such as car rentals, hotel upgrades, or food packages. Meanwhile, the hotel chains Travelodge, Marriot, and Hilton all offer monthly cashback to repeat customers.
Online Games
Many different types of online games offer cashback discounts. In PC gaming, platforms such as Steam regularly offer cashback deals, while game retailers also offer cashback and discount codes for future purchases. This happens throughout online gaming, with a major cashback discounter being the online casino sector, due to the high competition. To get more value, players take advantage of cashback offers from the world’s top-rated casino platforms, where some casinos, like Punt, offer up to 15% cashback on losses. This is because, much like travel providers, online gaming wants to appeal to economizing customers.
Electronics
A different kind of cashback offer to the ones laid out above, many electronics providers offer cashback to anyone who trades in old devices and wants to buy a new one. For example, the mobile phone purveyor O2 offers up to £180 cashback on a brand new phone whenever you trade in your old device. This could save you some serious cash over the years.
Utilities
We all know how expensive utility bills are, which is why it is important to look for savings in this area wherever possible. A growing number of electric, gas, and water providers now offer cashback to new customers as a standard part of their business model. Typically, once you have been with the provider for a year or more, you can claim cashback on the total amount of your bills, which could amount to as much as 10% in annual savings.
These are some of the ways that you can take advantage of cashback offers today to see huge savings in just about every area of your life.