TopCashback: Ultimate guide to making the most of it

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It’s also possible to boost your reward income by combining it with a cashback credit or debit card.

But while TopCashback can be extremely lucrative, there’s a trick to getting it right.

With that in mind, here’s how to make the most of TopCashback and maximise your rewards.

What is TopCashback?

TopCashback* was founded in the UK back in 2005 and now operates in several other countries around the world, including the USA, China, Germany, France, Australia, Italy, and Spain.

It started as a cashback website, offering rewards to users who shopped through its portal.

Since then, it’s expanded to offer cashback via its app and even through offline partners.

The cashback you earn can be exchanged for cash or vouchers, with bonuses applied to some reward options.

How does TopCashback work?

At its core, TopCashback is in the business of referrals.

By sending you to its partners, it earns an affiliate income (in other words, a commission) every time you buy something or take up an offer.

To reward you for using its service, it’ll split some of that commission money with you as the cashback.

For this referral model to work, you need to click through to the affiliate partner from TopCashback’s website or app every single time you carry out a transaction.

You also need to allow cookies (the digital tracking kind) on your browser so the affiliate partner knows you came from TopCashback.

Pros and cons of TopCashback

TopCashback’s Classic account is completely free, and you can get a £10 bonus to start your cashback journey if you’re referred by an existing user.

Here’s my referral link* if you need it; you’ll need to allow cookies for the tracking to work properly.

Obviously if you don’t like your online activities to be tracked then TopCashback isn’t for you but otherwise there are very few reasons not to go through a cashback website and get rewarded for your purchase.

That said, there are some things to bear in mind.

Pros of TopCashback

TopCashback offers some of the highest reward rates in the cashback space so it’s generally where I go first.

Upgrading to a Plus account at a cost of £5 a year means you’ll have access to even higher reward rates (more below on whether it’s worth it).

It also offers the widest range of retailers, which means plenty of opportunities to earn cashback.

Plus, there are promotions throughout the year where you can earn bonus cashback, sometimes without needing to spend a penny.

In terms of payout, you can choose between cash (via bank transfer or PayPal) or vouchers for various retailers.

I usually go for the voucher option as you get a bonus on the payout.

Cons of TopCashback

Regardless of the website or app you use, cashback is never guaranteed until it becomes payable.

Your purchase might not have tracked correctly because you used a browser ad blocker, for example, or you may have used an “unauthorised” voucher code that means TopCashback hasn’t been credited with the referral (more below).

These factors can affect how much, if any, cashback you get.

TopCashback will let you appeal transactions that are not tracked or not tracked correctly, but the outcome might still not be in your favour.

It can also take weeks or even months for the cashback to be credited to your account, and even longer for it to become payable.

And then there’s the fact that you have to remember to go through TopCashback every time you want to make a purchase.

How to make the most of TopCashback

The best way to take advantage of TopCashback is to use it consistently.

It means you’ll need to click through to the referral partner from TopCashback’s website or app every time you want to buy something.

That said, even though TopCashback is my main cashback site, I’d still check the rates offered by its competitor QuidCo*, as sometimes it has more competitive cashback rates for specific retailers.

There are a few other things you could do to maximise your reward income.

Look out for cashback bonuses

Cashback rates change all the time so if there’s something you want to buy and it’s not urgent, it’s worth holding back until the rates are in your favour.

Of course that does mean tracking both the cost of the item and the cashback rate.

Fortunately cashback uplifts generally happen around the sale season, especially around the Black Friday and Christmas sales, which can make it easier to take advantage of these.

Take part in promotions

Alongside cashback bonuses, TopCashback regularly runs special promotions like its Sweet Treats event* or Christmas advent calendars.

Usually this is in the format of a game where you have to follow the clues to find the various treats hidden around the site.

Collecting one or a set of treats will give you a small reward, with values ranging from 10p to £100.

You’ll need to remember to log on every day, which can be time consuming, but at least you don’t need to spend a penny to get the rewards.

Use payout boosts

TopCashback lets you cash out your reward in one of two ways: cash or vouchers.

While some cashback offers can only be withdrawn as cash, most can be exchanged for vouchers, which come with payout bonuses.

Depending on which vouchers you use, the payout bonus can be 10% or more – that’s extra money for free.

But of course you should only cash out via vouchers if you plan to use them as they do expire.

Buy TopGiftCards

You can also buy gift cards from TopCashback*.

They work just like normal gift cards but because they’re linked to your account, you’ll get cashback when you spend the money.

You can get online and offline versions for retailers like M&S and Boots, or for travel companies like Hotels.com and Uber.

You can also give them to other people and get cashback when they spend the money.

It’s worth bearing in mind that just like regular gift cards, they come with expiration dates.

There might also be extra terms and conditions to consider, such as where you can use the gift card and minimum spend requirements.

Should you upgrade to TopCashback Plus?

You can boost the amount of cashback and the payout bonus you get by upgrading a free Classic account to a Plus account.

It costs £5 a year to upgrade and the money is deducted from the cashback you earn.

That means if you don’t earn any cashback, you won’t have to pay anything.

I’ve had both types of accounts on and off over the years and for me it wasn’t worth upgrading.

Although you do get higher cashback and more promotional offers, I don’t spend enough money to make it worthwhile.

To put it into context, if a retailer offered 5% cashback, I’d have to spend at least £100 a year to break even.

However, most partners will only pay a high commission for new customers.

Cashback for existing customers can be a fraction of the headline rate, if you get anything at all.

For the places I shopped at, I was seeing cashback rates of 1 or 2% and often quite a lot less.

That means I needed to spend at least £250 to break even, and much more to make a profit.

If you’re a big spender, it can be worth upgrading but you’d have to run your own numbers on that.

Common TopCashback pitfalls

One of the most common complaints about TopCashback is that purchases are not recorded or the wrong amount is recorded.

That means you’ll either get no cashback or receive the wrong amount.

There are a myriad of reasons for this and most of it is to do with tracking.

As I mentioned earlier, TopCashback is in the business of referrals.

If the partner doesn’t know you came from TopCashback, it won’t pay out their commission and therefore you won’t receive your cashback.

Partners track referrals using codes inserted into the link you click on, and anything that interferes with the tracking will interfere with the amount of cashback you get.

To make sure the tracking works correctly, you’ll need to disable any ad blockers and privacy extensions, accept all the cookies, make sure TopCashback is the last website you click through to the partner and complete the transaction in one session.

You’ll need to make sure you read the terms and conditions as well.

Often purchases are not tracked if you shop from a retailer’s app instead of their website, and some items may be excluded from the cashback offer.

You should also avoid using discount codes that haven’t been provided by TopCashback as it means another business might be credited with your referral.

And of course if you return or cancel part of the transaction, the amount of cashback you receive will end up being less than you expect.

Is TopCashback worth it?

If you don’t mind your shopping activities being tracked, and you’re happy to go through TopCashback before every transaction, then the cashback you earn from TopCashback is absolutely worth it.

Taking out a new mobile phone contract or switching your broadband provider can easily earn you £50 to £200 in cashback and it’s a purchase you would have made anyway.

I would caveat that for anything where you’re comparing prices, for example broadband/TV/mobile phone contracts or insurance products, it’s worth doing the same comparison in incognito mode and going to the retailer directly just to double check prices.

In the case of insurance, I’ve found that going through TopCashback sometimes gives me a different set of providers or a different set of products compared to when I’m going to the provider directly.

Sometimes there’s a price difference and sometimes there isn’t. 

Depending on the coverage I need, sometimes it works out cheaper not to use the options suggested by TopCashback.

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