I recently stumbled across a great scenario that I must share. I bought 2 $25 gift cards for a Hibachi Grill and a Family Sports Pub type restaurant for less than $2 each. I also bought a $10 one for a Cajun fast food restaurant for only 80 cents. It was perfectly legal and legit.

Here’s how I did it:

1. I am a member of Ebates. Ebates acts as a shopping portal where you are assigned a tracking number and then are sent directly to the merchant’s website to shop and complete your transaction. When the item ships, you will receive cash back to your account. I have received over $50 so far on purchases that I was making online anyway. I have shopped stores like Target, JCPenney, Sephora, and FTD and received as much as 15% on some of them. In the past, Ebates has sent a check once a quarter but now they have issued me a virtual credit card and add to the balance quarterly.  I have a small balance sitting on the card now which makes it perfect for online shopping. There is no “catch” that I have found with Ebates and I can be quite skeptical. You do have to click through their site first to get your tracking number for credit on your purchase, but the purchase is finished with the merchant and not Ebates. They have a special now that when you set up an account and earn $5.01 in cash back before August 14, they will give you an additional $5. They have a huge list of stores they have partnered with and you will probably recognize most of the names. You can click this link to sign up.
2. I went to Ebates and clicked through to Restaurants.com. They are having a nice sale on their gift cards, and when I entered code NAPKIN, I got them for 80% off. Shipping is free since it is a paper certificate that you print at home. The only “catch” I could find is many of the restaurants require these certificates to be used with a minimum $35 order. This might be a great chance to try an appetizer or dessert to make the minimum, but then the $25 would come off that. That’s still a cheap meal!
3. I used my Ebates cash back to pay for this $4.80 purchase and still got another .72  back since Restaurants.com earns 15%. I bought $60 in gift cards for roughly $4 and paid with the free money that I had earned online.

I hope this works for you! I’m looking forward to trying a couple of new restaurants thanks to this deal.