The COVID-19 lockdown has been tough on a lot of consumers, forcing many to cut back on their spending habits and to find new ways of maximizing their rewards when it comes to what they do spend. To help with this, we put together a quick walkthrough on how you can maximize your return during this lockdown, by grabbing your favorite point-earning or cashback credit card and adding it to Groupon for additional cashback deals at your favorite restaurants! This way, you’ll be earning points/cash from your card as well as cashback from Groupon versus just your card.
Don’t know what Groupon is? Groupon is a coupon-like voucher service that allows you to search for local restaurants and retailers in your area that are offering deals you can buy into. Deals like “Meal for two for the price of one” or “Pay $10 for a voucher worth $30 toward your next visit” (etc). There are all sorts of deals you can find on Groupon to help you save a ton of cash at your favorite spots.
The trick we are focusing on involves taking advantage of Groupon’s “Groupon+” feature. This feature allows you to associate one of your credit cards to the Groupon+ program (or multiple cards). If you already use Groupon, your card is already on file anyway, so it’s not like you are giving them any additional information they don’t already have. Well, ok, besides the fact that they can see where you use it (with limited detail of course). You are just saying that when I use “THIS CARD” at qualifying merchants that I have applied Groupon+ rewards to, I will get whatever percentage of cashback that reward promises (until that reward expires). Thus you get your points from your credit card, and then a cashback applied to your statement, sent by Groupon (usually within so many days). There is nothing additional you need to buy, unlike normal Groupon voucher deals.
How to take advantage of this:
Step one: Sign up for Groupon if you haven’t already.
Step two: Sign up for Groupon’s Groupon+ program and assign a card (or cards) to it.
Step three: Find some “Groupon+” deals within Groupon’s search field. Search for “cash back” on Groupon, and then in the filters, dial it back by distance to 5-10 miles from you (or however you’d like the search radius to be). That’s the best way we’ve seen to zero in on as many of the Groupon+ deals we can find.
You can also try simply searching for some of your favorite restaurant names to see if they pop up with any Groupon+ deals (although this method could be hit and miss since there are only so many businesses that take advantage of Groupon’s Groupon+ service). You can browse around normally, looking for nearby restaurants and look for the ones with the light-blue “Groupon+” logo under their listing or the green text “Cash Back” (whichever catches your eyes the fastest as you scroll through everything).
Once you find a deal you want, click on in it to go to that page. There you’ll find a button to the right that says “Claim”. Click on this and it will be assigned to your account (like clipping digital coupons on your favorite grocery store website or app). No purchase made on Groupon to pull this off (again, you aren’t buying anything additional for these deals). Now, you visit that business, like normal, and make sure you pay with the card that is associated with your Groupon+ program. Within so many days, you’ll get a cashback deposit from Groupon for the percentage that you spent. Done.
You’ll find that some of these deals are quite impressive for not having to buy anything from Groupon to make it happen, and you can potentially save a lot of money. All while also earning any points or normal cashback that you get from your credit card for purchases like normal.
To make things sweeter, you can also use any available coupons you find for that business. So if you find a coupon for a buy one get one free sandwich at your favorite deli, and this deli has a Groupon+ deal on Groupon, then you can use that as well. You’ll get your free sandwich, plus cashback from Groupon (for the amount you paid), as well as any rewards from your credit card (like normal). Win+Win+Win!
So go save some extra money! You can share in the comments below any stories where you made out like a bandit! We’d love to hear them.
