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Hey guys
Just wondering if I could pick your brain. I’ve always used the BA Exec Club shopping portal but have come across TopCashBack. I’m sure alot of you will have experience with the latter. Is it better using the topcashback website for cashback rather than avios on the exec club portal? Recently got burned with the virgin points saga and concerned BA may follow suit in future.
I know cashback credit cards are terrible compared to rewards points earning cards, this is just for online shopping portals.
Thanks
I value avios at 1p so I use whichever one has a higher equivalent cashback rate. I think lots of people complain about ba payout often gets taken back without good reasons.
I actually use complete savings a lot more – but that has a bigger learning curve and cost outlay.
Yes, TCB is orders of magnitude better. Cash devalues far less than Avios, the rebates are higher in absolute value, and TCB pays out way more reliably than estore.
There’s a very long thread on here about how apalling the estore is.
You’ll never find TCB reclaiming your cash a year or more after the transaction posts to your account.
From what I can see alot of the time the percentage cashback is equivalent to more than the BA Estore version. Good to know TCB is reliable at paying out. Are there any better websites like TCB?
I’ve become so accustomed to using virgin shops away and BA exec club store that I haven’t tried these cashback ones
I used to just go for the one that offered a higher rate, and for Avios, I considered 1 Avios to be 1%. I also found BA’s portal to be quicker in getting things sent to you compared to TCB.
I’ve moved over to Complete Savings since they’re 10% minimum. £18 monthly fee but it’s given back if you make a purchase through their link, so you just gotta use the website as normal each month.
From what I can see alot of the time the percentage cashback is equivalent to more than the BA Estore version. Good to know TCB is reliable at paying out. Are there any better websites like TCB?
I’ve become so accustomed to using virgin shops away and BA exec club store that I haven’t tried these cashback ones
Quidco are the original and are TCB’s main competition but their standard percentages are consistently lower than TCB these days and they aren’t as reliable. However they do have some incredible daily promotions, I recently got a £100+6% cashback on a £220 vrbo booking so it’s worth using both.
I used to just go for the one that offered a higher rate, and for Avios, I considered 1 Avios to be 1%. I also found BA’s portal to be quicker in getting things sent to you compared to TCB.
I’ve moved over to Complete Savings since they’re 10% minimum. £18 monthly fee but it’s given back if you make a purchase through their link, so you just gotta use the website as normal each month.
Can you give some examples of retailers as you can’t see any sort of list without creating an account.
Any airlines included? Hotel chains?
Yes, TCB is orders of magnitude better. Cash devalues far less than Avios, the rebates are higher in absolute value, and TCB pays out way more reliably than estore.
There’s a very long thread on here about how apalling the estore is.
You’ll never find TCB reclaiming your cash a year or more after the transaction posts to your account.
If you’d like to sign up before the end of tomorrow there’s a referral promotion running https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/davefl
The estore also employs another trick. While TopCashback and Quidco are transparent that they’ll pay out after receiving money from merchant, estore will send an email immediately after the purchase and award you the avios. Gullible people think it’s all done and are happy. Later quietly the avios will be taken back, sometimes even after a year. At that point you might not even remember making the purchase, let alone have the cookies or browser history to prove it.
Yes, TCB is orders of magnitude better. Cash devalues far less than Avios, the rebates are higher in absolute value, and TCB pays out way more reliably than estore.
There’s a very long thread on here about how apalling the estore is.
You’ll never find TCB reclaiming your cash a year or more after the transaction posts to your account.
If you’d like to sign up before the end of tomorrow there’s a referral promotion running https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/davefl
The estore also employs another trick. While TopCashback and Quidco are transparent that they’ll pay out after receiving money from merchant, estore will send an email immediately after the purchase and award you the avios. Gullible people think it’s all done and are happy. Later quietly the avios will be taken back, sometimes even after a year. At that point you might not even remember making the purchase, let alone have the cookies or browser history to prove it.
You know what, now that you have said this I have definitely noticed avios being removed from my account! Cheeky!
TCB consistently works for me – £3k in cash in the last 10 years.
Can you give some examples of retailers
https://www.completesavings.co.uk/home/allretailers/862800
I don’t know if this is fully accurate because I swear this page (or an older version) had Uniqlo on there but wasn’t there when I signed up. You also have gift cards available, and One4All can be had for 20% off for £100 gift cards a month.
When logged in, for airlines, there’s Emirates, Etihad, Iberia, Qatar, Swiss, and Virgin. 10% cashback only on flights, and I think VAT is excluded as usual. Expedia and Hotels.com are also there, as well has IHG. No idea how these will work because I’ve not bought flights through them – only have with TCB and Qatar.
Qatar’s T&Cs, for example:
Customer will not earn rewards on the following destinations: Qatar, Lebanon, Kuwait and India.
All Cashback payments will exclude taxes, delivery, credit card fees, purchase and/or redemption of gift cards, returns, exchanges and gift wrapping.
Cashback for travel reservations will not be fulfilled until the booking is complete.
Please note that the indicated date for receiving Cashback is an estimated date.
Cashback may not be earned on any voucher or discount code used that is not displayed on this site.There are so many different options.
First point of call is to check your employer’s staff portal for negotiated offers, they are often considerably better than the offers on TCB or Quidco. I flip between EdenRed, Perks At Work, and Viv-up.
PAW for example has different “modules”, the travel module on my old employer’s version (that I still have access to 15 years on) is far superior to the version on my current employers.
Always pays to check other options. I found out Natwest rewards has cheaper cinema tickets than even employer’s staff portal.
I mostly use TopCashBack/ Quidco, but there are sometimes very attractive Avios collection offers on the BA store, so it’s worth spending a couple of minutes comparing the options. Booking.com, for example, is no longer on TopCashBack, but offers six Avios for every £ spent through the estore. I got about 4,000 Avios this way over the summer, safely posted to my account (and hopefully not about to be “removed”)
@TH If all you’re bothered about is collecting Avios on hotels then look at Rocketmiles and Kaligo.
100% payout and they are generally much higher than estore. Just checked one and it’s 5000 avios on Finair/Qatar on RM for a £80 stay in Tirana. You can credit to Qatar on Kaligo.
@TH If all you’re bothered about is collecting Avios on hotels then look at Rocketmiles and Kaligo.
100% payout and they are generally much higher than estore. Just checked one and it’s 5000 avios on Finair/Qatar on RM for a £80 stay in Tirana. You can credit to Qatar on Kaligo.
Rocketmiles and Kaligo were typically more expensive than other options, so you were effectively buying the points.
It’s getting so complex that some OTAs charge higher if you go through cashback sites. Check all options before spending.@THit’s 5000 avios on Finair/Qatar on RM for a £80 stay in Tirana.
Is there a special offer going on? Just checked and didn’t see anything remotely close to those numbers.
@Kai no that was just the 1st hotel I picked fromt the list, just depends on where and when. So always worth checking. It’s always a min of 500 per booking but there are always properties that trade off cost for extra miles/points
As per above – I use TCB exclusively. I’m time-poor but still don’t want to leave money on the table. TCB has good offerings, and almost always pays out. I might make an extra 1% somewhere else, but I’m just as likely to fall foul of the small print for any offer.
Realistically a decent idea could be to use TCB which pays out well and reliably and then just boost your avios with cash if required.
I don’t have the time to keep chasing up BA Exec Club transactions not processing/tracking
+ 1 for TCB even if the rate is lower. I only use BA eStore when no other option is available.
Currently BA is often better than TCB. TCB a has long lead times to get credit too and BA has 50% bonus for Black Friday week on top of advanced rebates. However they both track with the incorrect amounts and customer service is meh.
Currently BA is often better than TCB. TCB a has long lead times to get credit too and BA has 50% bonus for Black Friday week on top of advanced rebates. However they both track with the incorrect amounts and customer service is meh.
You might have to read the thread again. TCB only pays out after they get the money which can be 2 to 3 months. BA will give you avios immediately and claw it back for any reason when you aren’t noticing.
The amounts will be different as they exclude taxes.To generalise and say the BA estore claws back Avios ‘for no reason’ is a very sweeping statement. I track them carefully and have only had Avios clawed back when I’ve cancelled something. Estore has been very reliable for me.
I’ve been using TCB for about 2 years now and clocked up about £1800. I find I just know all the hotels I want to book and I just wait until I see either expedia or hotels.com do a great offer. I managed to snag a number of hotels when hotels.com were doing a 20% cashback offer but I’ve been watching for the last few months and haven’t seen Hotels.com go above 13%. Expedia normally stays at 10% and occasionally goes up to 11-12%.
Its also great for booking breakdown cover, I just switch between the AA and the RAC and get about £60 cashback a year. Car insurance normally gets you £25.
However as other people have said not every company is on there. If you need to book a hotel through booking.com or airbnb they aren’t on there but are on the shopping portal so I always book them through there if I need to. I have definitely found myself using airbnb and booking.com less though because of this, I will try and use vrbo and then because expedia normally list vrbo places see if I can book the same place through expedia to get the 10%.
I normally find the payout arrives within a couple of months.
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