Savvy online shoppers would have heard of CashRewards by now. It’s a shopping portal website, where you earn cash back on your purchases from brands like David Jones, Appliances Online, Priceline, and even Woolworths. Each store has a different cashback percentage, ranging from 1% to 7% and more.

CashRewards is a similar concept to the Qantas Online Mall and the Velocity eStore – except you’re earning actual cash back, as opposed to frequent flyer points.

So if you’re interested in both, which is better for you?

I’ve done the sums, comparing the actual amounts you would get cashback from CashRewards, vs the value of the frequent flyer points if you were to shop through the Qantas Online Mall or the Velocity eStore.

David Jones

Here’s what you could earn when you shop at David Jones through the 3 options – and what you would receive from spending $500

• CashRewards: 5% x $500 = $25
• Qantas Online Mall: 5 points per dollar = 2,500 Qantas points
• Velocity eStore: 2 points per dollar = 1,000 Velocity points

And how do we put a dollar value on points? I calculate the value of a frequent flyer point, by comparing them to the cash price that I would need to pay for a flight. Then my goal is using points at the highest value. Eg. If a reward flight from Sydney to Melbourne was 10,000 points plus $100 taxes, and it would cost me $200, I would calculate the value of those 10,000 points at $200-$100/10000 = $0.01.

Since the cash cost of different flights will never be the same compared to using points, you need to work the value out depending on what you’re planning on using the points for. This is how to decide if it’s better to use CashRewards or shop through one of the frequent flyer sites.

Some Conclusions

If your goal is to save your points for a business class flight – it is much better to shop through the Qantas Online Mall. If you are saving your points for 1 or more economy flights, the comparisons are much similar.

Spending $2,000 at Woolworths online:

• CashRewards: 1.4% cash back = $28
• Qantas Online Mall: ~$68.57 towards business, $19.10 towards economy
• Better off spending at Woolworths through Qantas Online Mall

Spending $2,000 at David Jones online:

• CashRewards: 5% cash back = $100
• Qantas Online Mall: ~$342.87 towards business, $95.52 towards economy
• Better off spending at David Jones through Qantas Online Mall

These are just a couple of examples that I did the sums for, but in general I found that if you’re saving for a business class flight, you’re better of spending through the Qantas Online Mall. The points returns are much stronger when compared to the Velocity eStore.