Over the summer I reminded folks to get cash back rebates for their online travel purchases. I’ve used mostly FatWallet and eBates for this.

But I’ve long seen lots of references to Big Crumbs, which seems to offer cash back from stores the others don’t and frequently more cash back than the others as well.

But even I have a limit to the deals and strategies I pursue, I often just follow what I know and what I’m used to rather than expending the energy to pay attention to yet another site. And I never bothered to sign up, even though I was likely losing out on rebates as a result and even though the signup process takes no more than a couple of minutes.

Then this morning I read Frugal Travel Guy channeling Flyertalk’s Bikeguy, who happens to be a Greatguy (and who hosted me a couple of years back to speak to the annual “Ann Arbor Art Fair DO”). And it finally hit me, I was missing out.

1) Using their portal to get to the official website of hotel chains, and getting a percent back of what you book.

Marriot – 4%
InterContinental – 2.4%
Choice – 4%
Best Western – 4%

Hotel stay credit as well as money back is a good thing.

2) Now, for all airlines, book through the expedia link for 1.6% back on every booking.

Will work for car rentals, as well.

For flights under $200, use the Travelocity link, as it pays a flat $3.20.

I use ebates now for Expedia at 1%, I’ll certainly switch to BigCrumbs for a 60% better cash back rate. And might as well start there for my hotel bookings as well. Plus they even have eBay cash back.

BigCrumbs has become really popular in the Flyertalk MilesBuzz forum because folks have been using it to purchase Amex cards for use on the US Mint site as part of their coin churning regime. (Some have tried to use multiple, different cards for purchase as a way of circumventing purchase limits and also to minimize any risk of having the purchase treated as a cash advance. I’m not really doing the coins thing because it’s not as easy as it once was, and even then carting pallets of coins to the bank is above my personal pain threshold.)

In any case, BigCrumbs to get cash back for your online shopping is a great site to add to the repertoire. Especially because when I often search EV Reward for the best mileage and cash back earning options for the purchases I’m going to make anyway, I see BigCrumbs with the best earning ratio but ignored it because I wasn’t a member. But I should have been…

Now, I do have a Big Crumbs signup link that earns me some credit for folks who use it. I signed up using Frugal Travel Guy’s link. Signing up through a referral link costs you nothing, and of course you can sign up and then give your link to others as well. There’s a multi-level marketing element to their plan, for sure, but they pay out so that’s pretty attractive. If you’re going to sign up anyway because it’s useful, then using my link to do so is certainly appreciated although of course not required!