How to become a CASHBACK COMBINER and earn £100s or £1,000s a year

Earn more every time you spend or pay bills, by combining the right account, card, app and site to max rewards

Many know you can earn cashback on some credit cards, debit cards, apps, and via cashback websites - but to max it, you can combine all four routes to become a cashback champion.

Firms like to influence your behaviour with little financial nudges, but this is all about taking their incentives, then perverting what they want you to do, so you do what's right for you.

Of course this isn't an excuse to spend more, just do what you'd do anyway, but get paid as you do it. Some can make over £1,000 a year doing this.

The easiest way to gain cashback is simply to change the card you put in your (digital) wallet and use it for all your normal spending. Most cards give you diddly-squat, so simply grab one that pays you...

• Top pick: Chase DEBIT card 1% near-instant cashback, no credit check, no need to swap bank account. With the Chase* app-based bank, you needn't switch to it to get the perks, so just add money from your normal account that you want to spend. It only does a 'soft' ID check on application, so won't affect your ability to get credit later if you're rejected.
  
  You get 1% up to a max £15/mth on normal spending (it excludes buying cars, art & gambling and more, see the full list). The cashback is paid speedily once payments are processed. It's also a top card for spending abroad, as there's no foreign exchange fee and you get the cashback when away too. See our full Chase review for more details.
  
  As NeillyBoy tweeted: "@MartinSLewis £205 earned via Chase since May 2022. Nothing more than everyday spending, subscriptions etc. Great service and so simple to manage."
  
  
• Big transaction due? Big spender? Get 5% cashback for up to 3mths + a free £10, then up to 1% after with Amex's Everyday CREDIT card. Those accepted for American Express Platinum Everyday get 5% cashback for 3mths, up to a maximum of £100 paid after a year. So if you've a big one-off purchase due, it's perfect.
  
  After that, it's 0.5% up to £10,000/yr and 1% above. You must spend £3,000+/yr to get any cashback, so ensure you fulfil that (though to get the free £10 you just need to spend £1+ in the first 3mths). Of course it's a credit card, so only do it if you'll repay IN FULL each month or the 31% rep APR dwarfs the cashback gain.
  
  For big spenders, it's good to use alongside Chase: Use this card for the first 3mths, then once you've spent £1,500 in a month on Chase, maxing its cashback, use this for anything on top.
  
  Though really big spenders can also look at the Amex Platinum Cashback credit card - it also pays 5% cashback for 3mths but with a higher max cashback limit of £125, plus you get a free £25 cashback just for spending £1+ in the first 3mths.
  
  
• Frequent flyer? Airline rewards cards can outperform. If you fly a lot, especially long-haul, then see our frequent flyer cards rundown, which in that case are more lucrative than some cashback cards.
  
  
• Bank with Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds, Monzo, Santander or Virgin? We're not the biggest fan of 'personalised cashback offers' as they tend to be very hit and miss, and change regularly (eg, MSE Gareth was offered 15% cashback on an £80/yr Disney+ subscription), but if you bank with any of these, check them out, you'll usually have to activate them via their app or online banking.
  
  

While cashback is usually on spending, some of our biggest expenditure is regular money that drips out of our accounts each month to pay for the bills. Well, there's a way to get some cashback on that too. There's less choice than there used to be, but one standout.

This is especially good for couples who have a joint account for bills (you can then use the free cash accounts below to grab money for yourself).

• Santander Edge 1% bills cashback up to £20/mth. Again you can get this without needing to switch bank. You pay £3/mth for a Santander Edge* account to get the cashback in two categories, with a combined £20 maximum paid out each month.
  
  - 1% on bills: water, council tax, energy, broadband, phones, paid-for TV paid from the account, up to a max £10/mth.
  - 1% on some spending: supermarket, fuel, and train and bus travel spending, up to a max £10/mth.
  
  For someone with average bills, we'd expect the gain to be around £80/yr to £100/yr. If you've bigger bills, the Edge Up is worth a look - it costs £5/mth, but the cashback is capped at £15/mth on both. To qualify, you need to have £500/mth paid into the Edge account or £1,500/mth into the Edge Up, and a minimum of two direct debits.
  
  Obviously the spending is the same as Chase, but it's worth putting your supermarket, fuel or travel spending on Santander, so you can leave room on Chase to get cashback on other things.

We've talked about getting cashback by how you pay, now on to how to get cashback by how you buy, which you can get on top. Cashback sites get paid by retailers and providers when you spend through them, and to get you to do that, they share some of that money with you as cashback.

Once we knew we were writing this note, we asked the two big sites if we could blag extra cashback for newbies signing up to them, both agreed. Full info in cashback site pros & cons.

• Topcashback* £30 extra cashback if you spend £5+
• Quidco* £26 extra cashback if you spend £5+

Many MoneySavers report doing well on this, as Jonathan tweeted: "@MartinSLewis Around £200 on Topcashback this year. £135 of that for my Sky package, which I would have bought anyway. Another trick is to convert to Avios as you get one point per 1p!" Some say they've earned £1,000s over the years with cashback sites.

Do bear in mind that cashback from these sites is NOT guaranteed till it's in your account, so see it as a bonus rather than a certainty - don't change what you'd buy based on it. And be aware it can take three to six months to get your mitts on the money.

This last one is the icing on the cake, as you can get it on top of cashback from plastic and from cashback sites.

• Airtime Rewards. Link all your bank accounts to cashback app Airtime Rewards via Open Banking, and it automatically tracks spending at 150 retailers and gives you cashback.
  
  These include big retailers such as Greggs (1%), Argos (2%), Waitrose/John Lewis (3%) and Boots (4%). You can also get decent cashback on train operator LNER (8%) and online groceries with Amazon Fresh (10%).
  
  The cashback is redeemable as credit against your mobile bill for the major networks: EE, Giffgaff, O2, Three and Vodafone. Sadly, it doesn't work with piggybackers (the providers that use the major networks' signals, eg, iD Mobile uses Three, Voxi uses Vodafone). Alternatively, you can gift it to another Airtime Rewards user.
  
  As Debbie emailed: "Martin very briefly mentioned this on one of his programmes. I downloaded the app and have already earned £9 and have £60 pending. I haven't bought anything I didn't need, just smarter shopping. Thank you."