Upside Rebate App Review – Gas, Restaurants and More

You’ve probably heard hundreds of commercials for the Upside app – formerly called Get Upside. (As best as I can tell LOL.) It is a gas rebate app that promises to save you several cents on every gallon of gas that you buy. With the amount that my husband and I drive, and the price of gas, I finally gave in and tried it. So here’s my review!

Getting Set Up With Upside

The first step is to download the app and create an account. I made a mistake by not tracking down a referral code when I registered with the app. You get a new customer bonus if you use a referral code. (Mine is C4ACX – you get an extra 15 cents per gallon if you use my code.)

I downloaded the app after a particularly expensive gas purchase, and then I didn’t need gas for almost 10 days. (This rarely happens!) During those 10 days, the price of the rebate on my first purchase kept going up. I think they were eventually offering me an extra 40 cents per gallon for the first fill up.

When you go to use the app, you have to turn on your location feature. I don’t love this, because I don’t like sharing my location. So I turn it on right before I go to make a purchase, then turn it back off when I’m done.

When you let the app access your location, it gives you a map that shows you nearby cash-back offers. It shows you the net price, after the rebate, which took a minute to figure out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always seem to have the most up-to-date prices. As a result, I also use the Gas Buddy app. I use Gas Buddy to find the best price around, then check to see if I can get a rebate on Upside. I don’t make my decision based on net price for several reasons that I’ll discuss in a minute.

Making Your Purchase

When you choose your gas station, and pull up, then you “claim” the offer. For example, my neaby Shell gas station is currently offering a rebate of 12 cents per gallon. Then pump your gas and get a receipt.

There are two ways to verify the purchase, and I can’t figure out a way that I get to choose. I think it might be based on the merchant or something in the app. You either enter the information about the credit card that you use for the purchase, or you take a picture of the receipt. So far, I have always forgotten to get a receipt, so I haven’t earned the rebate on those purchases. But the credit card method works well.

Uncertainty about actually getting the rebate is one of the reasons that I don’t make my buying decision based on the net price after the rebate. The other reason is because they decrease the rebate if you’re using any other discount. I almost always use some sort of gas station loyalty card, plus I get a bonus from T-Mobile Tuesdays, and sometimes I have shopped enough at the local grocery store to get an additional discount. The only time I get the full advertised rebate is when I don’t have any of those things.

One thing that doesn’t impact the rebate is using a points credit card. My PenFed Credit Union Visa offers 5 points per dollar of gasoline purchases, so I use that card for all gas. (It also helps to track spending because I don’t use it for anything else.)

Restaurants and Groceries

The Upside app also offers rebates on restaurants and, inexplicably, groceries. In my area, restaurant rebates range from 5% to 25% on some of the restaurants that I like. There’s only one grocery chain included, but it offers 10-20% back on groceries, based on which specific store you go to. This isn’t a chain I would usually shop, but I might give it a try to just to see what happens. I’m fascinated.

Is The Upside App Worth It?

Well, I registered in April and so far I’ve earned $28.06 for simply claiming offers when I’m already buying gasoline. If I keep going at the same rate, I’m looking at around $100 for the year. I’m not going on vacation with that money, but I might go out to dinner (especially if I go to a place with a rebate!)

I haven’t seen any downside to using the Upside app. (Yes, that’s a bad pun.) If you use my code, C4ACX, you get an extra 15 cents off your first purchase, and I think I get an extra 15 cents off my next purchase, too.

My final opinion: As much as I hate having to jump through 16 hoops to get the price on something, that’s the way things go right now. Life is too expensive to pass up the opportunity to save a few dollars here and there. So I’m jumping through all the hoops I can find. It might work for you, too.