Upromise.com Review: Free College Savings
Posted by Cap on June 19, 2008 |
- Account free to open. Set beneficiary as yourself or your child.
- Earn rebate/contribution from grocery, gasoline, and other purchases.
- Higher percentage in contribution when you shop online through Upromise’s portal or toolbar.
- Program works best for an online shopper. If you don’t shop online, you won’t accumulate much in contribution.
I opened my Upromise.com account almost eight years ago, and if it wasn’t for a recent email, I would have forgot that I had an account at the college rewards/savings site.
From their own words:
Upromise is a free service that helps families earn extra money for education. It’s that simple.
We do this by partnering with hundreds of like-minded companies who share our mission. Our partners agree to provide YOU, the Upromise member, with rewards for using their products and services… and these rewards go into your Upromise account, where they become actual savings for college, grad school or even paying down a loan.
In essence, you create a free account at Upromise, register your credit cards and grocery cards, and when you dine and shop for groceries, you receive a contribution to your Upromise account when you purchase products or services that partners with Upromise. You can then use the accumulated contribution on qualified college spending.
Free money for doing what you’re already doing? What’s the catch?
As long as you’re not swayed by the marketing, there really isn’t any real catch. Upromises’ aim for their partners is to create brand loyalty. For example, whenever you buy gasoline at an Exxon/Mobil gas station, you will get $0.01 credited to your Upromise account for each gallon of gas you buy. If all else is equal and you have a choice between a Mobil gas station or another branded gas station, you will have more incentive to pump gas at the Mobil station due to the Upromise program.
 Upromise Main Portal Page |
 Credit Card and Grocery Card Link Page |
From the screenshot on the top, you can see that I’ve accumulated $17.16 in my Upromise account (yeah, the $0.04 for orange juice is pretty sweet). Nothing exciting for an account I’ve had for over seven years — but then again, I’ve never consciously went and change my spending habit to buy specifically at any Upromise partnered companies.
 Savings by Company Page |
 Account Transaction Page |
It’s interesting to see that the majority of the contribution was from Exxon/Mobil purchased, amounting at $10.19. At $0.01 per gallon, that’s over 1,019 gallons of gasoline pumped in the past eight years at only one particular brand of gas station. A hefty amount of gasoline indeed!
You can easily earn significantly more contribution ($100+) if you shop online through the Upromise portal, download the Upromise toolbar, or use the Citi Upromise MasterCard — but if you don’t want to fuss with any of that, you can simply add your most frequently used credit cards (or just grocery cards if you’re not comfortable storing your CC info) and forget that you ever have an account and simply let the contributions accumulate through gas, grocery, and dining purchases.
$17.16 is not an insane amount, but that’s 1/8th of a college textbook! Woot?
- Upromise.com – Official Site
- Withdrawing Fund from Upromise – Fivecentnickel.com
- Should You “Upromise” for College Savings? – ClubMom.com
19 Comments to “Upromise.com Review: Free College Savings”
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June 19th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I just signed up for Upromise a few weeks ago, seems I’ve made .40 in the last two weeks. Yay saving
June 20th, 2008 at 7:01 am
You gotta be f’ing kidding me. $17.16 over 7 years? That’s 1716 pennies over 2555 days. Not even a penny a day. Could do better checking the parking lot every day.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Brandon: at that rate I’m sure you’ll surpass my 1716 pennies as Deke said.
Deke: That’s true, but I’m pretty sure the parking lot will take more time. As I’ve mentioned, I haven’t done anything since having the account opened and linked a few cards.
Quite a few people have significant amount of rebates/contribution earned. Ranging from $500 ~ $2,000+. Basically, if you shop online through their portal or use their MasterCard, you’ll earn a lot more rebate. I probably should have made that part a bit more clear.
June 21st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I do not believe Upromise is all it is cracked up to be. That doesn’t mean I don’t like idea they are promoting. For those who buy name brands it will work for you. I tend to find I can save much more by buying compareable name brands than those with the Upromise label. So I would say , if you are a frugal shopper and don’t go after name brands all the time, then Upromise is not for you. In 5 years as a member of Upromise, I have accumulated $40. At the same time, I have saved (guesstimate here) close to $1000 by not buying name brand.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I have a 7 month old and am looking into Upromise’s 529 plan… is that the same account as you have? Also, at what point can you withdraw the funds? I am finding very little information on A) user satisfaction and B) who/where your $$$ is and when you can withdraw it/use it.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I’ve had an account for about 6 years, but have been paying more attention to it for the past 2 or 3. I have saved almost 500.00. You can have them send you a check, (I think it’s quarterly…?) or now, I have it divided 50/50, Upromise is a subsidiary of Sallie Mae, so I have half going toward my own student loan, and half to me which I am saving for my own child. YOu don’t have to have it go to any account at all, they can send you a check. You can do whatever you want with it. I look for affiliate merchants when looking for something online, have the Upromise toolbar installed, registered my grocery and drugstore cards, have my dad contributing as well (not much there, but a few cents here and there) and the person I do bookkeeping for, I have the company AMEX registered, when he goes out for business meals, if it’s a participating restaurant, I get a couple bucks.
August 28th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I just figured out how U promise gives you money. I wanted to book a hotel room thru hotels.com. It was $143. I was going to save 4% on that. However when I went thru upromise to book it the price jumped to $147. In essence they are charging me for the contribution that they would make back to me. SO I’m paying for the upromise contribution.
I have had the account for 6 months and have saved $0. Very good. Paying for your own contribution…priceless
September 1st, 2009 at 1:52 am
Ike ~
Upromise is not marking up prices so they can make enough money to pay you your earnings. Quite the opposite. Hotels.com plays the same role as Upromise in the transaction you described. But from there is where we disagree. They both contract with the hotel you had checked rates for. It just so happens that hotels.com gets a better rate from that hotel probably because they deliver more volume to that hotel chain than UPromise does. To illustrate, take the same hotel room on the same date and check rates at the top three travel consolidators (travelocity, expedia, orbitz, etc.) and compare it to hotels.com rate. I guarantee you that you’ll find a few dollar variation within all of those. If UPromise made their money on marking up retailer prices they wouldn’t stay in business! Upromise earns money by sending their members to a participating retailers website to make a purchase. Rather than that retailer going out and advertising with the hope of sales, they instead pay UPromise for promoting (advertising) them and the retailer does not pay for that advertising until the sale is complete. UPromise then shares a portion of that retailer payment with you and they pocket the other portion. If you really want to compare apples to apples, get a rental car rate with Avis. I guarantee you that the rate booking direct with Avis is the same as the UPromise rate. If anything, the UPromise rate might be lower because they often have a discount code.
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Cap ~
I have been a member of UPromise for seven years now. I’ve earned over $300 by doing nothing more than opening my account and registering my credit cards and grocery cards. I might have shopped online through UPromise 2 or 3 times in those seven years. Honestly, I can’t be bothered with having to remember to use their links. I earn all of my money based on the products I was already going to buy at the grocery store, and eating out at restaurants that by chance happened to be participating contributors in UPromise. It’s very possible that some of the credit cards and grocery cards that you registered when you opened the account expired years ago. Once the card expires then you get a replacement which means you have to update your UPromise account too. That may be why you’re balance is lower than mine. Cool website by the way. It’s nice to find sites with owners who don’t take life so seriously.
February 4th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
I just signed up for Upromise today and thought I’d book a hotel room. I compared what was available on Kayak with what I could get through Upromise, and found that I could get back 1% if I booked through Orbitz or Cheap Tickets, and they both had $72 rates compared to $85 rates for the other travel sites. But as soon as I tried to book the tickets through Orbitz or Cheaptickets via the Upromise portal, their rates went up to $85. So I would have paid an extra $13 to get my $.85 toward my student loan. :-(
February 5th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Have to apologize to Upromise and correct my post from yesterday. After uninstalling their Turbo app and rebooting, I had the same experience with both Orbitz and Cheap Tickets. And today on Kayak, the rates are all $85 — I think Orbitz and Cheap Tickets are just slower to update the rates than the other travel sites. I’m going to reinstall the Upromise Turbo app and continue with Upromise.
June 18th, 2010 at 5:51 am
I agree with a lot of the comments left. Buying store brand can save you a ton of money. Don’t change your spending habits to save a few pennies. However, if you already shop at places like Jo-Ann Fabrics or go to a restaurant that is part of the their program, why not save a few pennies for your child’s future? Otherwise stick to stores brands if you like them. They are always cheaper in the long run, unless you are some kind of coupon queen.
November 12th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
I have been using UPromise for over a year and have made $330. Which has gone straight to helping to pay down my $80,000 loan with Sallie Mae. Obviously, I am not the typical Upromise user. Most of my friends have saved about $10 in a year. The real secret is to have the UPromise credit card. I always pay my credit card balance immediately, so I never accumulate interest. 1% of all purchases then go to UPromise (for me, about $10 per month).
The rest of my savings have come from occasionally shopping online. That trip to Hawaii booked through Orbitz earned me $30. The Victorias Secret purchase netted $7. The trick is to be VERY careful about changing your spending habits. I’m conscientious to only buy through Upromise when it will: (1) be something I would have bought anyway, and (2) save money. That means watching out for shipping costs as well.
Oh, and their restaurant program is great too. I eat out about five times a week. If a restaurant I went to happens to be on the list, I get about $1 back. It’s decent.
December 27th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I had a very negative experience with U promise. After finding out that the existing 529 plan I have my children in (TRowe Price) was not on their list of compatible funds. I requested (in August ’10) to have my account funds sent to me in check form, as it states on their website that you can do. it took 2 months for them to let me know that they had mailed a check to me, which I never received. Since they only cut checks once per quarter, it took another 4 weeks to get me one reissued. The check that I finally received, Drawn on the Mellon Trust of New England in November was returned to me unpaid. I contacted my bank and they let me know that I would need to resolve this with U Promise, since they are the issuers of the bounced check. It is now Dec and there has been no way to resolve this, I have contacted them several times, at least 5 times by phone and 10 by email. However all calls go into a call center in India, no one there actually works for the company, or really understands what is going on. There is no physical way to call anyone that can deal with any issues here in the states. There is also no direct email contact, all emails are sent to a general inbox and answered in 4 days at best, and thats clearly posted on their email reply. Then the reply is generic, and never clearly allows you to make contact with anyone that works with the company, or would be in any position whatsoever to make a decision right then. I have literally let them know that I have a bounced check, and letter from my Bank as proof that it is bad, and will post them online, and locally in the paper and no one returns calls with any concern. I don’t know if no one request the check reimbursement, or if I am really the only one who this has happened to, but my advice to you is to stay away. This seems like another bankrupt govt agency trying to fund a program that doesn’t really have any financial backing. I thought this was a private organization, I didn’t know that this was part of Sallymae until I started going down this road, It makes a lot more sense now.
January 19th, 2011 at 9:11 am
I opened a Upromise account and credit card 4 weeks ago. I have $69 dollars in Savings so far! Not bad. Restaurant.com is a favorite of mine and I get 7% back from each certificate I purchase!
March 29th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
I have just signed up to help pay off my loans and all I have to say is, I hope this is all legit or my fiance is going to kill me! ….
March 29th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Amazon and other major credit card companies have similar programs. I’ve received hundreds of $$ from them by participating in their reward programs. Choose cash when you claim. Cha ching! Use it as you wish. What’s the fuzz about upromise anyways? Sallie Mae should’ve done a better job on reward programs for college students and former students who continue to pay them millions of dollars of interests on Federal student loans.
May 6th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
I forgot I even had an Upromise account. I think I opened in 2002. I can’t remember. I was surprised to find I had $50. in there. I did not have any credit cards registered but I have decided to go ahead and add them. I have signed up for the credit card as well. I didn’t realize that you need to sign up for the coupons online if you want to save in grocery stores and then it will go into your account automatically. I am curious to see how much I can make if I actually pay attention to it.
August 22nd, 2011 at 10:28 am
Upromise and sallie mae are a rip off 300 in a year big deal college is runing at 35000 to 50000
A book cost 200 How is that going to help your child Well of course a loan from sallie mae at 9,10 or 11 % interest will do the trick What do you think they started this site for They are a loan company
July 25th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
While we generally have been happy with Upromise as some note above their customer service is terrible. We’ve used their portal to rent cars from Avis, have never been credited a penny even after faxing receipt after receipt to Upromise; the same is currently happening with Fannie May Chocolates. Upromise’s attitude is “we’re just the middle man, you need to contact Avis/Fannie May and tell them to fund your account”.