Ebates is chaning the game for cashback portals. They have partnered with American Express to let you earn Membership Rewards points for your shopping, instead of the standard cashback. Many people value Membership Rewards much more than 1 cent each. With the new partnership you can get 500 Membership Rewards points instead of $5.

There’s one issue for now. The offer is available for new customers only that signup at this link. You can only see the offer if you’re not signed in, or just open in a new incognito window. They are also offering a 1,500 Membership Rewards points signup bonus when you spend $25 or more within 90 days.

Offer Terms

• Only new members can choose to receive Membership Rewards points at this time.
• Card Members will only accrue Membership Rewards® points in their Ebates account instead of Cash Back for qualifying shopping activities determined by Ebates.
• Ebates typically will transfer accumulated Membership Rewards points from the Ebates account to the Membership Rewards program account in accordance with Ebates’ current payment schedule.
• Ebates reserves the right to modify the payment schedule at any time.
• The minimum number of points that will be transferred is 500 Membership Rewards points.
• Read full terms

Guru’s Wrap-up

This is great news. You’re basically converting cashback to Membership Rewards points at a rate of 1:1. If properly used, Membership Rewards points are much more valuable than that. But if you already have tons of Membership Rewards points you might prefer cash. It’s still useful to have that as an option.

The issue is that it’s only available for new accounts only for now. You get a bonus of 1,500 Membership Rewards points when you sign up through the link, instead of the usual $10 bonus. You could close your account and open a new one that earns Membership Rewards points. Earning Membership Rewards points could be limited only to some activities or merchants, but we’ll have to wait see what that means. I would think that they will start offering it to existing accounts soon..

HT: DoC