I looked into this for helping pay off my (now, not originally) Sallie Mae-owned student loan. The list of participating merchants was pretty uninspiring.

I never got this to work right to pay my loans. Perhaps I should try again.

@Red_Flag: I was the same exact way. The choices are extremely limited, and naturally they're trying to push that Citi Mastercard. I decided to skip.

I did see in American Express's membership rewards Web site gift card area that you can have a Upromise contribution as a reward purchase. That might be worth looking into.

I joined around 3 years ago with the idea, "I'll just use it for normal stuff and see my pennies grow".

Pennies, indeed. I've collected about $15 since opening the account.

Examples of rewards:
$.03/gallon of has pumped
$.10 for buying a bag of chocolate chips (once when we were baking cookies)

Eh what the hell I'll give it a go.

The stories so far sound less then inspiring but even $15 from nothing is $15 right.

unless amazon, staples, frys and newegg are on that list, I don't think upromise can help me. The chase rewards card on the other hand gives me lotsa cashback (esp. on gas/grocery/drug store purchases where the remainder of my money is spent)

@discounteggroll: You can earn when you purchase UPromise food stuffs from the grocery store with a club card.

Been a member for 5 years. I have earned $1.68.

@discounteggroll:

# Amazon.com 0% (why list it if it's zero?)
# Staples.com 1%
# newegg.com 1%

Fry's isn't listed.

[shop.upromise.com]

@hellinmyeyes: Speaking of:

Full list of participating merchants here:
[shop.upromise.com]

Meh, might give it a shot, since my student loans are monumental. maybe i'll get addicted to chocolate chips...

@joos: I joined last year. So far, I've put $4.42 toward my outstanding debt.

I'm sure signing up for this opens the floodgates for all sorts of junk mail...that's what has kept me away.

@ScubaSteveKzoo: They're supposed to be an excellent source of Monounsaturated fat so you've got that going for you too.

I signed up but never ended up giving them my information. It seemed like an awful lot of information (I'm recalling they wanted my debit card number to track all my purchases?) for not a lot of payback. And what would they (are they) doing with all of that information? I"m not sure this is even something Consumerist should recommend.

I use the Citi/Upromise MC and I've earned a few hundred dollars in the past two years. It's not even my main CC. I rarely shop through their site, but I did get a few bonuses, like one when I signed up with Sprint.

I also have my account set up to auto-deduct a certain amount each month from my checking account. My kids won't have their college educations all paid in full or anything with this method, but this will certainly be better than nothing.

Member since 2004...$44.82

@womynist: Eh, signing up for the LSAC has gotten me more junk mail then I would of ever thought. Whats a little more?

I joined in 2002, got back about $1,500. About $1,000 was for using a Upromise supplied real estate agent when I bought a house. Seller paid the commission.

I use a similar site (ebates) although it doesn't go towards my loans or anything. As long as you are vigilant about making sure to click through to stores from the home site, it can be very useful especially if you shop online a lot. I have been using ebates since 2005, mostly for Christmas shopping, and have earned over $300.

Just go with Live Search Cashback (formerly Jellyfish.com). I've made a couple hundred buying IT related equipment.

Joined in '06 - $0. :(

I guess buying things on sale or in bulk is more important to me than getting $0.02 on buying a 4-pack of TP at Safeway. Oh well...

Member since '05, and I even have several family members contributing to my account. I'm up to $43.99. I guess it's better than nothing? I don't even know how to get the money out of it.

My dad was pretty thrifty with the straight talking unsolicited life advice but the best I ever got was when I was leaving my hometown for my first job, he grabbed my arm and told me to rent the cheapest place I could find, forego luxuries, and funnel as much as possible to my student loans. 2 years of renting a room, using a shared bathroom, wearing out my library card and fantasizing about the local Thai food restaurants, my loans magically disappeared.

@testsicles:

Good man that dad of yours. I came to the same conclusion. I recently got a job (finally) and will be renting an apartment not much larger than my dorm room in college.

@testsicles: Unfortunately, I was living in a rented room in a dodgy neighborhood and living on peanut butter and STILL have exorbitant loans.

It's really no fun when you don't get it either way.

@iamlost26: I had mine open for over a year during college and had like 15 cents in my account when I closed it.

I use Upromise for college funds for 4 kiddos in my life (my brother's kids and my god-daughter and her sister). I've been a member since 2002 and while I can't figure out how much I've saved for the kids in total its substantial. Right now I've got $150 waiting to be transferred to their 529 plans. Most of the money comes from my brother (you can invite family and friends, only $13 of the $150 was generated by my purchases in the last month) and I think he has his business credit cards linked so he generates a fair amount of rebate money. I don't change my behavior in any way except that when I shop on-line (which I do a lot of) I start at the Upromise page to get the rebates from the on-line merchants.

Been a member for five or six years and have $400 so far. I do the majority of my shopping online and after I've finished researching prices, etc., I then go to Upromise and see if the company is a participant. I also get money back when dining out, which isn't very often. $400 isn't much but it might cover a text book or two.

Joined 5/06, just checked my account...
I've earned .08.
Great way to pay off those student loans!

@stinerman: Yeah, my first dorm room was about the same size as my current apartment if you count the bathroom area. :-/

@SaradaSydor: I, on the other hand, also joined Upromise in 2002, and have... $9.91 in the account. The last 10 transactions are from ExxonMobil, which I believe pitches in a penny/gallon.

I don't actually have any student loans, though. I just joined because I figured my brother won't save for his kids' college fund. By the time my oldest nephew is starts college, I should have a whole 25 dollars saved for him!

I have earned $0.08 cents in a year since I joined. This is despite linking my debt card, credit card, multiple grocery and drug store cards.

I don't know what it takes to save up a lot of money with them, but apparently what I did wasn't enough. They suck.

Member since 2005
Your Upromise Savings: $487.38
Applied to my loans: $401.83

It's been helping me.

I joined February of '03 and have earned $761.36, all of which I've applied to my student loan.

My wife and I used the Upromise Mastercard as our main credit card for the first couple of years, haven't used it much in awhile. Switched to cashback from Amex now that my student loan is paid off.

I kind of joined late in the game, since I'm already in college but it's worth a shot. I only registered my grocery cards with it and since becoming a member in August of this year (2008) I've acquired .36 cents. If you read the fine print they only start paying your Sallie Mae if you reach a specific amount like, 50 bucks in savings.

Member since 2001, total earnings $670. Using the Upromise master card helps but you also need to register your other credit cards, so that any eligible purchase made on any card gets you credit.

@EtoilePB: At the very least you weren't adding to your debt.

I wonder if anyone ever got a job in purchasing with a company credit card and signed it up for their U-Promise account. Would that be illegal?

Quite frankly, keeping my student loans has been a boon to my credit score. It's revolving, always paid on time, has a long payment history, and thanks to consolidation, I have a 0.8% interest rate. Paying it off would kinda eff up my credit.

Similar service that I've had experience with - Grad Gold. [www.gradgold.com]

I heard about it through my state subsidized student loan, and so far things have been ok. Pros: no junk mail (not 1 piece), no spam, nice amount of merchants (but no Amazon), and a useful shopping widget if you'd like to install, to see if a merchant you're considering is on the list.

Cons: In a year, I've saved about $6. I don't do a lot of online shopping, and neither do my parents (who are linked in). Every bit helps, but it would be nice if it were faster!

Overall, I'd give it a one thumb up & say it's worth checking out. But I'll try UPromise also, now.

I signed up about 2 years ago and so far have just over $200 that have gone towards my student loans. It's not huge, but I didn't change my buying behavior at all and it's better than nothing. I was able to link my work credit cards to it - that's where most of the money has come from. Travolicty is a member and so are tons of restaurants in my area - I've actually found one or two great ones through their dining site. My mom signed up to help with my loans and her account is always screwed up - nothing from her yet. So it's not perfect. But $200 is $200...

@testsicles: as long as your company doesn't care, I think it's okay. Nothing on their site says you can't. One of the guys in my office is an event planner and he's got his registered. We had this countest where people won Netflix for a year, he had to order it, and he got $5 per subscription in his account. I told him about Upromise, so I wish I got a cut. No such luck...

@newgirloldtown: I joined last year, too. I've got $8.43. Woohoo. When I remember to do it (instead of going through bonuspointmall on AMEX), I make a few bucks.

@womynist: It hasn't resulted in any junk mail for me. I signed up three years ago when my son was born.

Like so many others, the money accumulated slowly at first. It wasn't until I really started being careful to go through the Upromise site when I shopped online. If you are shopping alot online, it will begin to add up.

Also, without signing up in any way, my mom and sister can online shop through the site and accumlate money into our account. My mom just bought ink cartridges from Dell and we got $4.00 into our account.

The way I figure it is: someone wants to give me $4.00 for something I'm buy anyway - why not?

@Red_Flag: Ah, but it doesn't cost anything to join and you can register your grocery and/or drugstore cards. Completely passive saving.

I also want to point out a great way to get the Upromise savings while shopping on-line. Many stores do "ship to store" for no shipping charge. I have bought several things thru Walmart.com this way.

We've joined Upromise about 7 years ago and I guess we're freaks because we've got about $500. We've earned from buying gas, Barnes and Noble and of course when you've got kids stuff like diapers, Target, Overstock....if you're going to join keep an eye out for a time that they throw in a cash bonus for when you sign up.

@lawnmowerdeth: I checked out Live Search after reading your post. It is interesting that some of the same merchants offer larger rebates thru Live Search than thru Upromise.

Are there any restrictions/exclusions/ with Live Search? I didn't find their web site too informative.

I'd appreciate any info you can share.