Dozens of Stores and Restaurants Offer Up to 25 Percent Cash Back

Earning cash back on everything you buy online is easy these days. You can rack up cash rebates on online purchases by paying with a rewards credit card or going through one of various cash-back websites or apps, for example.

In restaurants, however, cash back tends to be harder to come by. For years, paying with a rewards credit card was your only option. Nowadays, though, some cash-back portals and similar tools offer cash rebates on in-store and restaurant purchases as well as online purchases.

The cash-back portal Ebates, one of the oldest and largest such portals, started offering cash back in stores and a couple of restaurants a few years ago. We detailed Ebates’ in-store cash-back program this time last year in “Cha-Ching: Ebates Now Offers Cash Back in Stores.”

At that time, some 30 major retail and restaurant chains had partnered with Ebates to offer cash back on in-person purchases. Now, some 50 retailers and restaurants offer cash back on such purchases. You can see them all by visiting Ebates’ website and clicking on “In-Store Cash Back” near the top.

And on Tuesday and Wednesday, Ebates is offering its biggest cash-back promotion yet on brick-and-mortar spending: triple cash back.

A couple of restaurants are participating, both offering 25 percent cash back when you pay with a card linked at the Ebates site:

• Claim Jumper
• Salt Grass Steakhouse

Several dozen retail chains are participating, offering as much as 15 percent cash back on in-store purchases. For example, they include:

• Aeropostale: 12 percent cash back
• Barnes & Noble: 3 percent
• Bed, Bath & Beyond: 6 percent
• Clarks Shoes: 12 percent
• Crocs: 15 percent
• GNC: 15 percent
• Johnston & Murphy: 15 percent
• La-Z-Boy: 6 percent
• Lindt: 12 percent
• Macy’s: 7.5 percent
• Oakley: 9 percent
• Petco: 12 percent
• Sunglass Hut: 12 percent
• The Body Shop: 12 percent
• Under Armour: 9 percent

Using cash-back portals

Like other cash-back portals, Ebates receives a commission from retailers and restaurants for referring consumers to those businesses’ websites. Then, Ebates shares that commission with consumers. So your cash back is your share of that commission.

I pocketed $101.56 in cash back by using Ebates last year.

To get started with Ebates or any other cash-back portal, just sign up for an account. Signing up for Ebates is free, as is using the portal.

You can learn more about Ebates and other cash-back portals, including how they work and how they differ from one another, in “3 Websites That Pay You to Go Shopping.”

Looking for more ways to save in store? The app Ibotta offers rebates on purchases from brick-and-mortar merchants — including grocery stores and a few restaurants.

How do you earn cash back on in-store and restaurant purchases? Let us know below or on our Facebook page.