Cashback portal prices

[longtimelurker]

(Not quite sure where this belongs!)

I am a regular user of shopping portals such as Rakuten, TopCashBack etc.   Sometimes I forget to use them, go directly to a vendor and buy and then remember "Oh, should have used a portal")  but often I remember in time and go back through the portal.

As far as I remember, the prices are what is on the vendor site, but today:

I did a google search for a product and found it for $7.08 with 99c shipping for orders over $30.   Great, did a portal search and found that Rakuten had an 8% cashback (+ 3% for using their card).   But when I used that, the product was $9.44 with free shipping over $50.   Not so good.   I tried another portal with a 3% cashback, same thing.

Have others experienced this?

[Kforce]

Never used either of those portals.

Never found one store, portal, or place that is consistently the lowest price.

Sure know I have saved money a few times by shopping around.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a shady merchant looking at the referrer and hiking the price. 

[longtimelurker]

Interesting!   So once I saw the higher prices, I backed out, when straight to the site and made a purchase.   But I just got a notification from one of the portals that made purchase had been tracked and I have a pending payout.   See if that lasts but if so, got the cheaper price and the portal cashback.

[kremonis]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

(Not quite sure where this belongs!)

I am a regular user of shopping portals such as Rakuten, TopCashBack etc.   Sometimes I forget to use them, go directly to a vendor and buy and then remember "Oh, should have used a portal")  but often I remember in time and go back through the portal.

As far as I remember, the prices are what is on the vendor site, but today:

I did a google search for a product and found it for $7.08 with 99c shipping for orders over $30.   Great, did a portal search and found that Rakuten had an 8% cashback (+ 3% for using their card).   But when I used that, the product was $9.44 with free shipping over $50.   Not so good.   I tried another portal with a 3% cashback, same thing.

Have others experienced this?

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 @longtimelurker 

I am lucky if I can get the portal to track any purchase I make (kremonis turns and gives nasty look at NFCU shopping portal).