I NEVER pay full price and you don’t have to either! When shopping in-store or online I’ve got a ton of tricks and tips to help you save money and I’m going to share one of those with you today.
If you can make a little money back each time you buy a product or service, it soon adds up. These little bits of money add up to hundreds or even thousands every year that you can spend on the things you love.
In this guide I will be teaching you everything you need to know about JamDoughnut, including how to use their free app, what exactly JamDoughnut IS and I’ve also got some great tips to help you maximise the cashback that you earn on your purchases.
What is JamDoughnut?
JamDoughnut is a cashback app that is completely free to use. This app is designed to help you make money back on your everyday shopping by letting you purchase gift cards with cashback.
Users of JamDoughnut can earn instant cashback on purchases at a wide range of popular retailers, both in-store and online. The app is simple to use and it adds around 1-2 minutes onto your purchasing habits – while helping you make lots of lovely free money in the process.
Within the app you’ll see 100+ retailers, all offering different amounts of cashback, typically ranging from 2% – 10%, but higher rates are available with selected retailers on occasion. Once you make a purchase the cashback is instantly credited to your JamDoughnut account.
There are a diverse array of different retailers within the app, including clothing stores, restaurants, holiday companies and supermarkets too – which means you can earn cashback on your everyday spending or some of those special infrequent purchases.
JamDoughnut has special offers and promotions that they run regularly – including live events where you can win up to £100 to redeem against gift cards of your choice.
You can use Apple Pay to purchase gift cards, which is really convenient, though you can earn different cashback rates depending on the payment method that you use, with payment by bank being the most lucrative option.
How does JamDoughnut work?
The quick explanation is that you use the free JamDoughnut app to purchase gift cards and then redeem those gift cards when purchasing products in-store or online instead of using money from your bank card or bank account. You’ll earn cashback (“points”) each time you purchase a gift card and you can then redeem those points towards more gift cards or even withdraw to your bank account.
How to actually use JamDoughnut:
- Download the JamDoughnut app from your phone’s app store. You can find it in both the Google Play store and Apple App store.
- Sign up for a free account and use code RADC to earn yourself a £3 bonus when you use the app for the first time to purchase a gift card.
- Browse the app for your favourite retailers either using the search function, or by browsing through the different categories, to see which retailers you can earn cashback with. Make sure to pay attention to whether the gift card can be used in-store or online, and then purchase your gift card of choice.
- Receive cashback in the form of points that will be credited to your account instantly. These points can be redeemed against future gift card purchases or even withdrawn to your bank account as cash. 1 point = 1 pence.
- Use your gift card when you shop in-store or online.
You’re adding one small step to your purchasing habits, which typically takes around an extra minute. Then you can shop as you usually would, in-store or online, and receive your cashback instantly. Best of all the cashback is then available to redeem instantly too. No need to wait around for pending transactions like you’ll do with Airtime Rewards, TopCashback, Quidco or similar sites.
Which retailers are on JamDoughnut?
The retailers on JamDoughnut will be subject to change, sometimes disappearing from the app entirely for brief windows of time, and the cashback rates on offer change frequently too – sometimes by the hour!
There are typically around 150+ retailers on JamDoughnut, so I will save you the chore of reading about them all, but some of my favourite ones are Boots, Just Eat, M&S, Aldi, B&Q, IKEA, Matalan, Currys, Waitrose, Airbnb, John Lewis, JD Sports, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, Argos and Virgin Experience.
You can find retailers from a broad range of categories including eating out, events & entertainment, groceries, home & garden, shopping & fashion, takeaways and my favourite – travel & holidays. You’ll also find a trending section where you can see the most popular retailers – which are often popular because they have great cashback rates.
My top tips for using JamDoughnut:
- Look out for ‘pumped up’ offers. Offers that have had their cashback boosted will have a red logo which shows PUMPED UP. This typically only lasts for a small amount of time, sometimes only a few hours, and you can see how long by clicking on the specific retailer and looking for the countdown timer. When rates are boosted this can be a great time to purchase a grocery gift card for your weekly food shop or a gift card for a retailer you’re planning to shop with shortly.
- Use gift cards to pay for your grocery shop. Most of us are grocery shopping at least once per week, if not more, which presents lots of opportunities to earn some cashback. Many of the biggest supermarkets can be found on JamDoughnut, with some only offering the chance to WinBack your spend in the live draws. Be sure to combine your gift card use with Clubcard Prices and similar supermarket deals to maximise your savings.
- Use to purchase Birthday and Christmas presents. If you like to gift friends and family gift cards for their Birthday, Christmas, or other special occasions, then you can purchase these via the JamDoughnut app, and make yourself a little bit of money back in the process.
- Stock up when cashback rates are increased. While I don’t advise holding onto gift cards for long periods of time, just in case retailers go out of business and you lose out, it can be great to purchase a supermarket gift card for a few weeks shopping when you get paid or when the cashback rates are boosted to maximise the cashback you earn.
- Pay by bank to earn the maximum cashback. The rates of cashback that you earn will vary depending on the payment method that you use. For example, you may earn 1% cashback when you pay with Apple Pay, but 2.5% cashback when you pay by bank instead. This is a considerable difference, even if you’re purchasing a smaller gift card, and it takes just a few extra seconds to process your payment by bank.
- Consider if you’ll be returning items. Be aware that if you’re going to be purchasing lots of items, perhaps to try on for a special event, or in different sizes to find the right fit for you, that any returns will likely be refunded back onto a gift card. Some retailers will refund to the gift card you used, while others may issue a voucher code or credit on your account. Be cautious of this and avoid having large balances sitting on gift cards for long periods of time.
- Check the ‘offers near me’ category. If you’re out shopping you’ll find this feature really helpful as it allows you to see all of the retailers that are located nearby and the cashback rates that are currently available. This is great if you’re having a day out at a shopping centre or just fancy a bit of an impulse shop.
- Buy gift cards when you’re in-store. If you find yourself in-store, perhaps unexpectedly or for a last minute purchase, you can still buy gift cards. These will typically show up within a minute or so – and disconnecting from in-store wi-fi can help with this.
- Tune in for the live shows. If you have some free time the live shows can be fun to watch and you should be able to login and leave the JamDoughnut app open, and then be automatically entered into the “Jammy Dough” lives, subject to terms and conditions of course. Sometimes there are competitions hosted within these lives, where you need to comment as quickly as possible to guess a retailer’s logo as pieces are uncovered on screen, so look out for those too if you have the time to spare.
- Read terms carefully before purchasing a gift card. Many retailers have terms and conditions for items that you can’t purchase with gift cards. Also, some retailers will only allow you to redeem gift cards in-store, or online, so be sure to read the terms before you purchase. Often the terms will have a section for tips on gift card redemption also, which will hopefully stop you experiencing any common issues that other people have had when trying to redeem gift cards.
- Refer friends to earn extra money. Share your unique refer-a-friend code with your loved ones to earn a cash bonus. Typically your friend or family member will receive £3 cashback when they make their first purchase, and you’ll receive £4 when they cash out for the first time. This incentive is sometimes boosted – so look out for notifications. You can find your unique referral code by clicking on the Present Icon within the app, located in the middle of the bottom bar. You’ll then see the code, number of registrations you’ve had, those that have made their first purchase and the total revenue that you’ve received for referrals.
- Turn on notifications. JamDoughnut frequently boost cashback rates, for short periods of time, as well as occasionally increasing the refer-a-friend bonus rate you can earn for referring a friend, so you’ll want notifications on to be alerted. Also, if you do refer friends then you’ll receive a notification when they cashout for the first time and you receive your referral credit for recommending them to JamDoughnut.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is JamDoughnut safe?
JamDoughnut don’t store your card or bank details when you make a purchase and they use 3rd party card and bank processing services to ensure your personal data is encrypted and safely processed.
When you login to JamDoughnut they’ll then send you a magic link, to your registered email address, which allows you to login to the app without the need for a password to be used. This means only people with access to your email account has the ability to login to your JamDoughnut account and helps to add another layer of security to use of the app.
There are over 2000 positive Trustpilot reviews for JamDoughnut.
How much cashback can you earn with JamDoughnut?
The amount of cashback is only limited by the amount of purchases you need to make in your day-to-day life. I personally never advise buying items you don’t need just for cashback, but there are a whole host of opportunities to make some money back.
For example, even if you only shop for groceries once a week, this is 52 opportunities per year where you could be earning cashback, just for making a purchase that you was already going to be making.
With average cashback rates for grocery retailers being around 2-3% you could earn yourself a full weeks shopping back in cashback every year – just for using gift cards instead of your usual payment method. This is a considerable saving for just one household category and it shows how the small amounts really do add up.
How do I cash out my JamDoughnut?
When you have £10 of points in your JamDoughnut account you can withdraw this to your bank account. Alternatively you can use your points towards a gift card, subject to the minimum purchase levels.
Most often £10 is the minimum amount of points you’ll need to put towards a gift card, as many of the gift cards on the JamDoughnut app are set for a minimum redemption / spend of £10 – even ones where you could purchase in smaller denominations direct from the retailers.
You’ll need to be able to pay for a gift card in full using points to redeem your points, much the same as with the Boots Advantage Card scheme when you want to spend them on items in-store.
Which banks can you use with JamDoughnut?
You’ll find almost all UK banks are suitable for use with JamDoughnut including Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide, Santander, NatWest, Halifax, Virgin, TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland, Monzo, Revolut, Chase and many more.
What are JamDoughnut lives?
On weekdays, from Monday to Friday, there are frequent lives hosted within the JamDoughnut app. These lives are at 1pm and 4pm and you can see a countdown to these in the JD LIVE TV section.
The 1pm live is dedicated to “Jammy Dough” which is a giant wheel that they spin, covered in different cash amounts, and there are cash prizes and vouchers awarded from £1 all the way through to £100 for the luckiest winners.
You have to be watching live for your name to be entered into the live prize draws. It’s quite fun as you can see the names flashing across the screen as the wheel spins, possibly even seeing your own name, and there is a chat function too – though the speed of the chat is very fast as the lives typically have hundreds or even thousands of people in at any one time. For this reason I’ve found the app crashes sometimes and needs reloading.
The 4pm live is dedicated to “Win It Back” which is where you can tune in for a chance to win up to 100% back on your gift card purchase from selected brands. There is a section on the homepage of the app dedicated to “WinBack” and there are only a handful of retailers this offer is running for at any one time.
Can you use JamDoughnut and TopCashback together?
It’s possible to earn money for purchasing a gift card via JamDoughnut, and then cashback from TopCashback but this is subject to the terms and conditions of the individual cashback offerings on TopCashback, as cashback on gift card redemptions is not always possible.
Click through from the TopCashback website as you usually would, then complete your purchase using your gift card you’ve purchased via JamDoughnut as the payment method.
You’ll want to check that the gift card you’re purchasing is suitable for online purchases as some retailers such as Pizza Hut, will only allow you to use gift cards in-store.
Other retailers, such as Boots, only allow you to use gift cards online, which is a shame as I’d love to combine with the Recycle at Boots points offering!
Cashback stacking, such as this particular method, is never guaranteed to work, but often does! Never make purchases on the basis of cashback that you expect to receive and always look at cashback as a bonus for purchases you would already be making.
JamDoughnut referral code
New members to the JamDoughnut app can use code RADC to receive a cashback bonus on their first purchase. This is typically £3, but subject to change.