Airtime Rewards Review: Find Out If These Rewards Are Truly “Simple, Powerful”

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On one of the pages for Airtime Rewards, the company claims these are “simple, powerful rewards.” That claim is pretty bold. Many rewards sites claim to be easy to use and offer fantastic rewards for doing ordinary things like shopping. However, their programmes are often cumbersome and don’t pay enough to be worth it. Fortunately, as we’ll see in this Airtime Rewards review, this rewards programme is different. When they say the rewards are both simple and powerful – they mean it! Part of that is their business model, and the other part is their clear focus on the customer.

Without further introduction, let’s explore what Airtime Rewards is and how it can help you save!

Airtime Rewards Review: What Is It?

Airtime Rewards aims to give you money off your mobile phone bill every month by shopping at places you would shop at all the time anyway (like Greggs, New Look, Papa Johns, Halfords, and more). When you shop at these places, you’ll get a certain percentage of your transaction back as rewards, which then go to reducing your mobile bill.

Let’s use a quick example to show how this can add up. Suppose you want to get some tasty treats at Greggs. Perhaps you get a doughnut and a cappuccino for £5. Since Greggs is a member of Airtime Rewards, they offer 10% “cashback” for any purchase. That 10% back is £0.50 and will go into your rewards balance on Airtime Rewards. Once that balance exceeds £10, you can redeem it for credit on your next phone bill!

It’s not hard to see how, even if you eat out a few times a month, you could potentially be saving tens or even hundreds of pounds off your phone bills each year!

How Does Airtime Rewards Work?

Most of these plans sound great in theory, but their execution makes these programmes difficult to use in reality. That’s because most of these sites require you to click on a link before purchasing for it to count.

So, going back to the example with Greggs, with most rewards sites, you’d have to go to the app, click on a link, make a purchase with Greggs online, and then go to the store to pick up your order.

It’s not super complicated, but, let’s be honest, for £0.50 in the example above, few people will consistently go to a separate app, sign in, click links, and go through a different flow. They may do it once or twice as a novelty, but over time, they’ll go to the store and make the purchase, forgetting to load the rewards app first.

Airtime Rewards doesn’t work like that – and that’s the genius of this system!

Instead of going to an app and clicking on some link, you register your credit or debit card with Airtime Rewards. Once you do that, any time you use that card at any of the Airtime Rewards partners, you’ll get a credit to your Airtime Rewards account!

It’s that easy! No links to click! No apps to open!

This system means that, as long as you use the same credit or debit card, every purchase you make at Greggs or other partner retailers will give you credit to your rewards balance.

What Shops and Mobile Providers Do Airtime Rewards Support?

Airtime Rewards can help you reduce bills from giffgaff, Vodafone, O2, EE, and Three. If you have another provider, like Virgin Mobile, you won’t be able to receive rewards from this programme.

While the list of shops that Airtime Rewards supports is ever-changing (especially as they continue to expand and add new partners), there are a few big-name companies that you’re likely to earn credits from at some point if you sign up:

  • Greggs
  • Waterstones
  • Groupon
  • Boots
  • Wilko
  • Papa Johns
  • Argos
  • Currys

Of course, there are many more retailers in the app itself. Indeed, at the time of this writing, there are over 150 retailers you can get rewards from if you sign up with Airtime Rewards – and that list continues to grow!

Additional Pros of Airtime Rewards

The fact that you register your card once and automatically earn rewards for all your spending at participating partners is a significant pro. Without a complicated process to get credit for your purchases, Airtime Rewards becomes a compelling sign-up!

There are three other benefits of Airtime Rewards, though.

Monthly Challenges

One of the most remarkable features of Airtime Rewards is the concept of monthly challenges. These challenges are effectively spending goals to hit with a reward if you do so. For example, a monthly challenge might be to spend at least £5 at a food place for ten days out of the month. The reward might be an additional £5 off your monthly bill.

With these challenges, not only are you earning rewards on your regular spending, but if you spend in a way that satisfies these challenges, you’ll be getting even more rewards!

Register Multiple Cards

Let’s say you have a Visa, MasterCard, and another debit card, and you use all three to shop at various times. The good news is that Airtime Rewards lets you register all of them! You don’t have to worry about always carrying the card you registered with this site – you can register them all and feel free to use whichever you want!

There is a limit of 10 cards you can register at any given time with Airtime Rewards. That should be fine for the vast majority of the population, but if you have more that you use somewhat frequently, that limitation is something to keep in mind.

These Rewards Stack with Your Credit Card

This point is not a feature of Airtime Rewards per se, but it is something worth pointing out. Suppose you have a credit card already giving you cashback at stores. Then, Airtime Rewards stacks on top of that. So, let’s say you have a card that gives you 1% back, and Airtime Rewards gives you 5% off. In reality, you’re receiving a 6% total discount by shopping with that retailer!

As you can see from this Airtime Rewards review, using the highest cashback credit cards and Airtime Rewards can be a fantastic combo to save as much as possible on goods and services you buy every single day!

It’s Not All Perfect: There Is One Con to Airtime Rewards

While Airtime Rewards has a lot to offer people, there are two downsides to using this platform.

First, you can only add Visa and MasterCard cards to Airtime Rewards.

Therefore, if you have American Express, Diners Club, JCB, or UnionPay cards, none of them will work with the Airtime Rewards app.

While these cards are less common than Visa and MasterCard, some (like American Express) have fantastic cashback programmes. It’s a little unfortunate that these cards are not allowable to use with Airtime Rewards.

Secondly, if you have store credit cards that are not Visa or MasterCard that give you favourable terms (either low interest rates or payment plans), you’ll lose those if you use Airtime Rewards. For example, the Argos Card gives up to 12 months of interest-free financing for all new purchases. It isn’t a Visa or MasterCard, so you cannot use it with Airtime Rewards. Shopping at Argos may mean choosing between promotional financing or getting cashback!

A Quick Note on the App

Airtime Rewards has a gorgeous, well-designed app to make it easy to see which retailers participate and your latest transactions (and how much you have earned). Airtime Rewards does not have a web-based interface, so the only way you can monitor and interact with your account is through the app.

You can also track redemptions and redeem your balance to your mobile phone bill – all from the app itself! The Airtime Rewards app is available for both iOS and Android.

As noted above, Airtime Rewards has monthly challenges. The app is the perfect way to explore these challenges and keep up to date on their progress. For example, while using the app, you might discover that you’re close to completing the monthly challenge to have ten food transactions of at least £5 each.

Finally, the app makes it incredibly easy to add your card. Simply hold it up to your phone’s camera, and the app takes care of the rest.

Airtime Rewards Review: This Platform Is Amazing

As you can see from this Airtime Rewards review, there’s no reason why anyone should bypass registering for Airtime Rewards. With no annual fee and the potential for some significant savings off your mobile bill, joining Airtime Rewards almost always makes sense. Even if you don’t think you’ll use it a lot, the fact that it accumulates automatically when you swipe your credit card means that you can always open an account, add your cards, and collect rewards if you happen to be at a place that partners with them.

There’s no excuse not to at least see which companies they work with, and that requires registering. You might find there’s a company you already use on that list. After signing up with Airtime Rewards, using that same company will also lower your mobile bill!

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