Great Canadian Rebates Review (Is Great Canadian Rebates Legit?)

This is kind of embarrassing to admit, as a Canadian personal finance enthusiast, but I only recently signed up for Great Canadian Rebates to take advantage of a cash back offer when I signed up for the Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite credit card. Scratch that, I MIGHT have signed up for Great Canadian Rebates a long time ago (like 10 years?) but forgot what my login or gcr Canada account was. Here’s my Great Canadian Rebates review.

GCR Canada Review

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In this Great Canadian Rebates review, I’ll go over:

• How this cash back website works
• Is Great Canadian Rebates legit?
• How you can get your cash back
• What the refer a friend bonus is
• The basic differences between GCR Canada and their biggest competitor, Rakuten Canada
• A look at the pros and cons of GCR Canada, so you can decide whether it is worth signing up for

How Does Great Canadian Rebates Work?

Great Canadian Rebates was probably THE original cash back website in Canada.

They were founded in 2005 in Ontario.

This Great Canadian Rebates review is generally positive and I’m a fan!

• To sign up for Great Canadian Rebates, you first head on to this sign up page:
• You can get a $3 bonus for signing up (this isn’t paid out until later though).
• Signing up with Great Canadian Rebates is free and it doesn’t cost anything to be a member.
• Then you click on a link to an online merchant where you are planning to buy stuff from, and when you buy your item through the online cart (like you would usually do with another cash back portal for example), and your visit is tracked. You earn the stated cash back.

Great Canadian Rebates receives a commission from the merchant when you buy something through the GCR portal, and then Great Canadian Rebates passes on these savings on to you.

GCR is not an app where you scan receipts to get cash back in Canada.

In fact, Great Canadian Rebates doesn’t even have an app.

Is Great Canadian Rebates legit?

I’ll admit the website doesn’t give me the warmest of feelings, because it frankly looks a quite dated, like inputting your data might cause your computer to get infected with malware or something.

However, rest assured even though the website is dated, there are no issues and the cash back is great and is paid out at regular intervals, for me via direct deposit.

Related: The Best Personal Finance Apps in Canada

Great Canadian Rebates Payout

When will you receive your cash from GCR?

The only downside with Great Canadian Rebates is the long duration it takes to get paid.

It can be easy to forget that you have cash back ready to be paid out (it would be helpful in this case to put a reminder in your calendar or something to check, if you don’t shop online with GCR often).

In order to receive cash back, your cash back has to be sitting there over 58 days before it is paid out. Then, once you meet the minimum account balance to cash out (depending on your payout method), you will be paid out on the 28th of the month.

The payout methods for GCR as as follows:

• eGIFT CARD- The minimum balance is $10.00 and you will be paid out by email. They also give a bonus of up to 4% if you cash out by eGIFT CARD. Some of the eGIFT Cards available are:
  • Air Canada
  • Amazon.ca
  • Best Buy
  • Home Depot
  • Home Hardware
  • Earls Restaurant
  • Rexall
  • Uber and Uber Eats

There is a higher minimum balance required to get the gift card bonus. It’s a great way to get free gift cards in Canada.

• Direct Deposit- The minimum balance in your account is $12.00 if you want to be paid out by this option.
  
• Paypal– Your Paypal address should be the same address you use to login to the Great Canadian Rebates website. The minimum balance in your account is $12.00 over the 58 days.
  

Great Canadian Rebates Referral (GCR REferral)

When you sign up for Great Canadian Rebates you get a $3 bonus.

After you sign up, you can refer your friends, families, and colleagues if you wish.

You can get 15% of whatever cash back THEY receive for 3 years. So if they signed up for a credit card and got $100 cash back, you would get $15 back.

You can refer a friend using a special link that you will receive after you create an account, or you can send them an email (a template email is provided) from Great Canadian Rebates with your special link.

Another way you could get referral bonuses is if your friend or family can input your email address when they are prompted who referred them, when signing up. If you use the Great Canadian Rebates referral link you don’t need to remember the email address.

GCR Rebates CUstomer Service

Great Canadian Rebates does not have a live chat function or anything, but you can email them with issues at:

membercare@greatcanadianrebates.ca

They state they will contact you within 1 business day.

Also, you can follow a link to Report a Problem on their Contact Us Page.

GReat Canadian Rebates vs Rakuten Canada

In this Great Canadian rebates review I’ll compare it to their biggest competitor, Rakuten.

Great Canadian Rebates is very similar to Rakuten, but I find that there is most value taking advantage of the cash back with credit card offers, since Rakuten doesn’t offer these.

Here’s my Rakuten review if you want to check it out.

Here are a few of the differences between GCR Rebates vs Rakuten.

• GCR has more of a focus on Great Canadian Rebates credit cards sign up offers
• Both Rakuten and Great Canadian Rebates allows you to purchase gift cards for cash back
• Great Canadian Rebates has travel deals whereas Rakuten does not
• Rakuten pays you out via Paypal, cheque, or an Amazon.ca e-gift card quarterly
• GCR pays you out via Direct Deposit, Paypal, or even payment in the form of an e-Gift card with a bonus

GCR also highlights a “Sale of the Week” compared to Rakuten (who just offers promotions like increased cash back percentages).

Here’s an example of the Sale of the Week, featuring Michael Kors wallets. However, I personally don’t find any of these Michael Kors wallets or wristlets appealing, maybe the pink one looks okay but it’s not my style.

GCR Canada Pros

Here are some of the great features of Great Canadian Rebates.

First of all, having cash back when signing up for a credit card is just great. Not only do you get to take advantage of the credit card cash back or points bonus (like a 10% cash back credit card), you can get cash back just for signing up through their portal. This is like ‘stacking’ your credit card bonuses, lol.

They don’t have a HUGE selection of Great Canadian Rebates credit cards, but they have some attractive ones that give good cash back, like the Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite and the Tangerine Money-Back credit card.

A $50 to $120 cash back when you sign up for a credit card is excellent.

They also have Great Canadian Rebates Amazon, whereas Rakuten ended their partnership with Amazon recently.

GCR Canada Cons

Here are some negative aspects of Great Canadian Rebates that I have identified.

GCR is not aesthetically pleasing to look at, the website is dated and looks like it’s from the early 2000’s. It could use a refresh to be honest. Some of the links are dead too, for example if you click on the “All Inclusive Vacations” tab.

The other downside is that the cash back takes a while to ‘cash out’ (58 days). You’ll be able to see when it the cash out date is, and you’ll just have to wait patiently for that $100 cash back when signing up for your credit card.

Also, although there are e-gift cards you buy to get cash back through GCR, the selection isn’t very good compared to Rakuten’s e-gift card selection.

Another downside is that it doesn’t have a Chrome extension option like Rakuten has, so there isn’t an ‘automatic reminder’ to click for cashback rewards.

Other Cashback Sites and Apps

Here are some other cashback sites and apps if you’re on a roll signing up for free to save money:

• Paymi (similar to Drop app where the cash back is automatic after you link a card)
• Caddle (a cash back coupon and survey site, the $0.05 to $0.25 surveys are addictive)
• Checkout 51 (a cash back coupon site, I haven’t been using this as much these days)
• Ampli (similar to Paymi, they even sound the same, the cash back is automatic, it’s backed by RBC)

Great Canadian Rebates

In summary, I’m happy I signed up for Great Canadian Rebates. I’ll have to remember to check GCR when I’m buying something online if Rakuten doesn’t have that ecommerce retailer.

Rakuten often has more promotional cash back offers, sometimes they have up to 10% cash back or even 12% cash back for certain retailers that I’ve seen.

I think having both of these cash back websites up your sleeve will be a useful tool to have in your personal finance saving money toolkit.

They are both free to sign up for and offer different cash back options for you. Signing up for both means you’ll get the best of both worlds so you can save money fast.

The user interface is more friendly for Rakuten, but Great Canadian Rebates seems to be more in-depth, they have travel deals and you can sort by categories (e.g. Sporting Goods) for cash back. GCR also has lucrative credit card bonuses that Rakuten doesn’t have.

For example, you can get cash back for buying Uber Eats gift cards from Rakuten or GCR, and then you can get $50 cash back for signing up for a Tangerine Money Back credit card from Great Canadian Rebates.

I’ll continue to check GCR for credit card sign up bonuses and use Rakuten first for cash back bonuses.

You can sign up here and get $3 added to your GCR account.

What is your Great Canadian Rebates review?