If you shop online, you’ve likely been served — at one point or another — an ad for a shopping app like Rakuten, Capital One Shopping, or Honey. These apps purport to offer cash back on your shopping with an easy click (although some apps are less honest than others). Just like magic, right? Well, not quite — there are no surprises here, just affiliate programs.

Merchants set up affiliate programs to incentivize media businesses, tech platforms, and everybody in between to send shoppers their way. In exchange, they kick them back a commission from a buyer’s purchase — and many apps will kick back a large portion of that to you. There are even websites dedicated to finding the best cashback rates on sites, which can be combined with your credit card rewards for maximum savings.

Dining out deals: These offers don’t stop at www. though; deals are awaiting IRL, too — specifically when you go to dine out. It’s not as cheap as it used to be, but joining a dining rewards program — basically a restaurant affiliates program — is one way that you can earn cashback, miles, or points for dining out. In fact, many of the largest airlines, hotel chains, and creditors offer some sort of dining rewards — and getting started with many of them is easy and requires little effort after initial setup.

• Many vendors offer a “first dine” offer, where you can earn a bonus for signing up, linking a credit card, and then leaving a review on the reward platform within your first 30 days.
• After your first meal, you can leave your card linked to earn extra cashback or miles on top of your card’s cashback automatically — no intervention needed.

How To Get Started

If you’re dining out anyway, joining a dining rewards program just makes sense — there’s no added cost for joining, and you’ll earn money without even thinking about it. It’s some of the “freest money” that a consumer can earn. However, when getting started, you have to decide which program to join because you cannot enroll in multiple programs.

• If you’re an avid traveler, major airlines like United, American, Delta, Alaska, and JetBlue all offer dining rewards programs — as do major American hotel chains such as Marriott, Hilton, IHG, and Choice.
• Bilt users might have one of the easiest ways to enroll in dining rewards, just opting in with their card — when they swipe, they’ll earn extra points on top of their 2x on dining.
• However, there are other options too, like T-Mobile, Neighborhood Nosh, and Shell — Rewards Network is one resource that compiles some of these alternative options.

Where’s the best value? Since most dining rewards programs operate through the Rewards Network or a similar company, most of the restaurants will be the same regardless of where you sign up. However, since you can only link one credit card per program, it pays to register where you get the best value. Got a Bilt card and don’t want to think too hard? You might just stick with Bilt. If you’re a Delta flyer, you might sign up for Delta’s program. If you stay at Marriott a bunch, maybe Marriott is best. In any case, appraisals of what is most valuable will depend on brand allegiances — and you can always change your mind later by unlinking your card from one program and registering it with another.