Talk:Cashback

This article was nominated for deletion on December 20, 2005. The result of the discussion was Keep.

British use of the term

Could someone from the UK please write an informed section on the British use of the term "cashback"? Zunaid 08:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, "cashback" is most commonly used in three contexts: 1. Credit cards, whereby one receives a percentage (usually at least 0.5%) annual rebate of all expenditure on a credit card; 2. Cash added to a debit card transaction, whereby the merchant (typically supermarket, pub, post office) gives cash to the customer, which is added to the transaction amount charged to the debit card (made possible by a fixed fee paid by the merchant for UK debit card transactions) - merchants encourage this cashback because it is free way to offload surplus cash compared to the costs of taking cash to their bank (including insurance costs etc); 3. Mortgages, whereby one receives a lump sum from a mortgage lender (to put towards buying furniture etc) at the start of the mortgage, which marketed as free cash but is in fact paid for through the mortgage interest rate. NFH 12:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These three meanings are all valid in the UK, but overwhemingly the meaning is number 2. If someone says cash back, then it is immediately recognised as number 2, and the other two meanings would normally require further explanation and/or context. DMB 13:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that number 2 is the most common meaning in the UK. However, number 1 may be the most common meaning internationally. However, I'm also beginning to read that debit card cashback also exists in the United States, where it is a common way to avoid ATM charges. See a recently added section in Automated teller machine#Usage_fees (last paragraph of section) for further details. I've also thought of a fourth meaning - cashback that you get back on a purchase. For example, when you buy a product, the manufacturer has an offer where they give you cashback when you mail in the receipt. The manufacturer hopes that many people will forget to do it, so that is why they do it as cashback rather than simply reducing the product's price at the outset. Dell (UK) do this sometimes. NFH 13:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cashback that you get on a purchase - this is normally known as, and covered in Rebate (marketing) - perhaps it would be appropriate for a small section on this meaning, linking to the full article?--Blork 19:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

Some (if not all) of this content should be merged into loyalty program. Opinions? Zunaid 08:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Split

The different meanings of this term are not really very closely related. This seems to me like a candidate for splitting into separate articles with a disambiguation page at plain "Cashback". This would also allow things like the merging of the loyalty programme bits as suggested - this can't really be accomplished now because debit card cashback has nothing to do with loyalty programmes. Let me know if you have any objections to this, otherwise I'll be bold after a couple of days. PeteVerdon 16:25, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another idea would be to leave the UK meaning of cashback here, and merge the other meaning straight into loyalty program. A disambig notice at the top of this page can direct people to loyalty program. IMHO loyalty program is a bit of a mess at the moment as it simply lists the details of loyalty programs of various supermarket chains in different countries. It doesn't actually anywhere DESCRIBE loyalty programs, which this article does (somewhat). Also in the mix somewhere perhaps frequent flyer could be pulled into loyalty program as well, since that is probably the most widely known example of a loyalty program. Zunaid 17:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. This was a straightforward split of the various sections, so the opening paragraphs (in particular) could probably do with a little editing and the question of any merging (of loyalty/discount stuff in particular) is still open. I'm also not completely happy with the second half of the first sentence on the disambiguation page, so feel free to improve it if you can. PeteVerdon 17:03, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cashback Blogs

Cashback Blogs are blogs which and usually created and maintained by owners of Cashback websites to lure shoppers to the current best offers and discount voucher codes so the Cashback website earns a commission from sales referred by the blog the offer's listed on.

Cashback Blog

Cashbacking (talk) 21:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]