Upromise = FREE money. What's NOT to like!
Written: Jul 14 '05 (Updated Dec 29 '05)
| Effort vs. Reward: |
 |
|
|
| Full Review |
Upromise is a FREE way to earn money for a child’s education!
I know what you’re thinking… FREE? How can it be free? What’s the catch? It must be a scam, right?
Well – I’m here to tell you that it IS free, it is NOT a scam, and, there is NO catch! It’s exactly what it claims to be… “a free service designed to help families save for college”
How does it work?
You sign up for an account at www.upromise.com and designate one or more children to be beneficiaries of your earnings.
Once the account is activated, you can start earning right away. Every time you purchase an eligible good or service with a Upromise contributing company, a portion of your purchase price will be rebated to your Upromise account. You can also link your Upromise account to one or more qualified 529 Accounts, enabling these funds to grow.
There are LOTS of ways to earn rebates:
Credit Card Savings
Register your credit, debit, or check cards. When you make purchases on those cards, rebates form thousands of participating vendors will automatically accumulate.
Citi Upromise Card
Sign up for this free credit card, and earn 10% rebates on groceries, 2% on Exxon and Mobil gas, 1% on other items
Grocery Savings
Register your grocery or drugstore cards. When you use these cards at checkout time from your favorite stores, there are thousands of opportunities for product-specific rebates
Online Shopping
Some very popular online shopping sites have agreements with Upromise. If you access their sites directly from Upromise’s website (click on ‘shop online’), you can earn rebates for your purchases. Some examples of participating sites: overstock.com, target.com, travelocity.com, walmart.com.
I've been taking lots of advantage of upromise lately - whenever I shop online for something - I always look there first, to see if the merchant is listed. Usually it is. Not only do you get the rebates, but sometimes they have free or reduced shipping rates, or other specials that you don't get if you shop with that same merchant directly rather than going through upromise. It's a win-win situation!
Restaurants
Dine at one of over 8000 participating restaurants, use a registered card to pay, and you can earn up to an 8% rebate.
Family & Friends
With Upromise, you can send a personalized email to your family and friends, inviting them to sign up for their own account, and start accumulating savings in your child’s name. This is a great way to get “sponsorship” from grandparents, friends, etc.
You can view your account status online and watch the savings accumulate. How much you save is really up to you… The more you shop with Upromise partners, and the more you take advantage of the hundreds of rebate opportunities, the more your savings will grow. Will it cover the entire tuition cost?? Probably not. But you might accumulate a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars over the course of several years. And since it’s all free… you really can’t complain, right?
Check out www.upromise.com – they have very extensive on-line help that can answer any additional questions you may have.
Update 12/29/05
I had to come here to update this review as I just had a great experience with upromise's customer service...
I just had my first case of a "missing" rebate. I had been anxiously waiting to see this one - because I knew it would be a (relative) biggie (nearly $10 rebate). When the rebates come from online shopping, you must wait 45 days, then you can submit an inquiry directly from the upromise website. The inquiry form is real basic - which merchant, order date, order or confirmation number (not required) and dollar amount of purchase. I submitted it yesterday, and the funds "magically" appeared today. With a nice email back saying "thanks for letting us know these funds were missing, we've found them, and posted them to your account". Short & very sweet! It is so refreshing when customer service is THAT good.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
About the Author
Member: Mona
Location: Sunny South Florida
Reviews written: 1034
Trusted by: 240 members
About Me: Time for something new.
|
