Coupon Cabin is a shopping portal and coupon site which helps people save on their online shopping by earning cash back on each purchase and offering current available coupons, similar to Retailermenot.
If you’re reading this post, you’re probably familiar with shopping portals – we like to compare the best portal rates on Cashbackmonitor.com. Looking through a few rates, I didn’t find Coupon Cabin necessarily any better than other portal rates, but over time it’s possible they’ll sometimes have the best rate.
Their cash out options are interesting: they offer the regular Paypal and check options, and they also have an option to cash out via gift card with a bonus. The most interesting one is a 10% bonus when cashing out for Amazon gift card. Coupon Cabin has a $7 minimum payout.
The most interesting thing about Coupon Cabin is their daily Member Only deals. Each member can claim one Member Only deal per 30 days (max of one per store/brand per 90 days, meaning you can’t get the same store deal every 30 days, have to wait 90 days until you do the same store again). Member Only deals are typically something like ‘spend $75 at Merchant X and get $75 back’ or ‘spend $100 at Merchant Y and get $100 back’. Each offer will have a limit of only a dozen or two dozen which can be claimed by members – first to claim gets it.
Sample deals include $100 back when you spend $100 on Amazon – yup, this came out yesterday, but got grabbed up in seconds. Other offers you may find are $75 back with $75 Sephora or Birchbox or Shutterfly purchase. Another one that’s come up is to get $50 back with $50 spent at 1800flowers.
You’ll find these offers on the home page of the site. You can ‘Claim Offer’ to lock it in and give you some time to go shopping. Any offer that you claim but do not redeem will still count towards your limits. To see offers you have successfully claimed visit your Saved Offers page. Those who’ve been a member for longer might be able to do more than one Member Only deal per month.
Truth is that these Member Only deals are even better than free shopping spend, it’s actually a bit of a moneymaker if you choose to redeem for Amazon gift cards at a 10% bonus, e.g. spend $75 at Sephora and get $75 back in Coupon Cabin dollars, then redeem that cash back for $82.50 in Amazon gift card.
There is no signup bonus or referral bonus for Coupon Cabin, though you can install their Chrome extension (which they call Sidekick) to get a $2 bonus. You can also get a $1 bonus for reading their tips in the activity page.
Coupon Cabin is quick to do IP address blocks (which need a request to unblock) so try not poking around the site too much in quick succession. Writing a post for DoC, for example, is a good way of getting your IP blocked.
(Updated 12/27/19): They’ve added a limit of $300 per rolling 52-weeks on how much you can earn from member-only deals.
Hat tip to r/churning members
View Comments (24)
I had posted a previous comment, but I'd like to add to it now that I've been spending the past few months trying to collect money that they owe me.
CouponCabin terminated my account on Jan. 16th after I expressed a legal concern regarding their lack of transparency. I had $76.86 pending in my account at that time. $75 of which came from a member only deal, such as the one described in this article, though it was for Walmart.com. Sydney K., the customer service rep who terminated my account, told me that a final check would be processed within 10 days and mailed out to me. It never was.
Upon account termination, no one at CouponCabin would talk with me. I was told to mail a letter to their legal department. So at the beginning of March, I sent a formal demand letter to CouponCabin's legal department. After 30 days, I still had not heard back, so I sent an email to their legal department as well as to their customer service department. I received no reply, but two days later, CouponCabin's lawyer, Douglas Cordiano, overnighted me a response letter.
The response letter essentially stated that they would not communicate with me except through a lawyer and/or through the Small Claims Court and/or binding arbitration due to my repeated threats of legal action. Of course, this is a gross mischaracterization of statements made by me regarding legal action. There was, in fact, only a potential threat of legal action in the event that CouponCabin did not pay me the money owed. I mean, if someone owes you money, and they won't pay you, what exactly are you supposed to do besides threaten to sue them? If they paid that money, I'd have no reason to seek legal action.
This letter, and in particular one that Mr. Cordiano sent to the Illinois Attorney General's office in response to a complaint I made, contained what I will diplomatically refer to as factual errors. In neither case did Mr. Cordiano make any mention whatsoever of the money owed to me or my attempts to collect it. In fact, he seemed to feign ignorance of my objective.
Regardless, I did attempt to reach out to Mr. Cordiano in order to settle the matter amicably outside of court. He provided an email address to which I could direct communication from my attorney (as though anyone is going to hire an attorney to collect $76.86). I made clear that what I wanted was the money owed to me, at which point I would let the matter rest.
I pointed out to him (again) that CouponCabin informed me on Jan. 15th that I was owed money, and their own customer service representative, Sydney K., also informed me that I was owed this money. Further, Sydney K. also stated that my account was in good standing despite whatever security issue caused my account to no longer be able to be paid out via Paypal. (Yeah, you might be chugging along getting small payouts via Paypal and then one day, with no warning and no real explanation, your account is no longer eligible for Paypal and can only receive paper checks.)
This is particularly important when you examine their Terms and Conditions. Section 3 of the Terms and Conditions, specifically paragraph III, "Termination of Your Membership," states: "If your membership is terminated by CouponCabin, CouponCabin may refuse to pay some or all of the amounts credited to your account if such amounts appear or are suspected (as determined in the sole and exclusive discretion of CouponCabin) to have been earned in violation, or after violation, of these Terms or to have been otherwise unlawfully obtained." Based on Sydney K.'s statement, they did not believe that I had violated their T&C in earning this money. Sydney K. even informed me that a check would be forthcoming. Therefore, CouponCabin is in violation of their own T&C.
CouponCabin seems to have no problem using their T&C as a weapon against consumers, but when it applies to them, they have little regard for it. It is my opinion that they are betting that most people will not put in the time and effort to go to court or arbitration in order to recoup small sums of money. I wonder how many accounts they've terminated without paying out what those account holders were owed. I would not be surprised to find this to be a significant source of income for them.
So, what options are available now? Clearly they have no interest in acting in good faith. They won't communicate with me, and they've avoided any mention of money as though they were allergic to it. There are two primary courses of action. First, I can sue in Small Claims Court. It would cost about $90 plus some additional expenses related to serving CouponCabin. However, if I were to win, I could recover these expenses from CouponCabin. Other people in my situation may not want to choose Small Claims Court, though, because of location. I think you'd have to either live in Illinois or Indiana or go to one of those states to file.
The other option is arbitration. CouponCabin's T&C make this option seem equally unappealing because they state that you'd have to do this in Lake County, IN. However, JAMS, the arbitration company, specifically states that the consumer must be allowed to take part in choosing the arbiter, and they must also be allowed to have the venue take place in their hometown. So, despite what CouponCabin's T&C state, if you want to file an arbitration claim, it should not matter where you live. The filing fee is $250, however if you win CouponCabin will have to pay it. Additionally, CouponCabin has to pay several thousand dollars in fees to the arbitration company to have JAMS process the claim and arbitrate it. I don't know CouponCabin's record when it comes to these sorts of cases, but it is entirely possible that if you were to file and arbitration claim, CouponCabin may opt to settle with you rather than pay all of these fees to JAMS. So, if you've got a good case, you may wish to go this route. Perhaps if enough people did, CouponCabin might choose to change their practices.
Additionally, if anyone else has experienced similar issues, I highly recommend you file a complaint with the Attorney General's Office in Illinois. They will probably tell you that they aren't going to do anything, but perhaps if enough people complain, they will have no choice but to take the issue seriously and investigate this company.
Good luck to anyone would would still try and use couponcabin.com. The dishonest folks at couponcabin.com tried to extort my social security and passport info to "verify" my account. I declined the offer so they froze/closed my account and stole my cashback balance that was accumulated but not yet paid out.
I never had any issue with one of the reputable cashback sites (befrugal, mrrebates, top cashback, etc).
Hi Chuck,
They've cut their limit on the dollar amount you can earn in special member-exclusive offers (i.e. the $75 off $75+ bonus, etc.) from $600 to $300 in any rolling 52-week period. Found out while I was waiting for an offer that appealed to me only to click to claim it and receive an error message referencing the new lower limit.
Also, the number of special member-exclusive offers has been reduced by 70-80%. There are some new half-off offers but the full ones ($75 off $75+ etc.) are only about 2-4 each day where last year there were about 8-13 each day.
Major cutbacks.
Added a note, thanks
Chuck: You might note that the special member offers are now limited to only $300 a year/ per household IP address. They originally had no limit, then set it at $600 for a few months and now $300. They also seem to be curtailing the number and amount of the special member offers recently.
I'd steer clear of this company due to transparency issues. They flagged my account for what they deemed "unnatural activity," but they could not explain to me what this activity was or why their security flagged it. Additionally, due to this flagging, they would no longer allow me to receive my cashback electronically (through Paypal, for example) and would only send me paper checks. When I inquired about these problems, all they would tell me was that this problem happened and there was no way to ever resolve it. I had to either accept paper checks from them henceforth or no longer be a member. They stated that their terms and conditions covered this, but when I asked where the relevant passage in the T&C was, they ignored me. I couldn't find it. I complained about their lack of transparency and stated that I might have to look into whether or not this was a legal issue, and they promptly closed my account and will not respond other than to tell me that I have to write a letter to their legal department, at which point they'd get back to me within 30 days. So, I am left not knowing what this unnatural activity was or whether or not it poses a threat to my network. This company just isn't worth the headaches, especially when there are other companies out there doing the same thing. It might not be a coincidence that I had over $75 pending payment, and I don't know if they are trying to steal my money.
Further, CouponCabin replied to a review that I posted. They stated "While we recognize that threats, intimidation and insults may be effective with other companies, they are not at all tolerated at CouponCabin and your account has been permanently closed." So, not only is this company deceptive, they out and out lie. At no point prior to my account being closed did I threaten, intimidate, or insult anyone or anything. Did I tell them that their lack of transparency was problematic enough that I was considering whether or not there should be a legal response, yes. Did I say that I would take legal action unless they did something, no I did not. This is a company that can not be trusted. Therefore, I have submitted complaints to the BBB in Indiana and Illinois, and I submitted complaints to the Attorney General's offices in Indiana and Illinois. I will also be submitting a complaint to the FTC whenever the government shutdown ends. Further, I will be contacting various representatives in the Indiana government (I am a resident of Indiana). Based on not only my experiences but those of others that I've read about, CouponCabin has a pattern of immediately closing the accounts of anyone who has a problem with them or their customer service. Clearly they are trying to silence people and hide their own deceptive practices. I will most certainly be filing a civil claim against them if I do not receive my pending money that I legitimately earned. From reading other reviews, I've noticed that not only do they have a pattern of closing accounts when people complain or closing accounts when people have a large payment pending, they will also make false claims against those who complain.
Sounds interesting, but first 8 for their exclusive offers? What do you have to do, camp the site all day pounding refresh hoping you don’t get banned? I’m sure that’s why they have such a sensitive detector tripping Chuck up. People trying to script automatic alerts or sign ups galore I’m sure. So ultimately you’d need to keep page open all day everyday and check it like a bad FOMO dream. Pass. But thanks for sharing and congrats to folks on here that found it/took advantage of it before it got more widespread exposure. This lottery is essentially simple gamification for being active on their site. Brilliant as it’ll help them secure unique visitors and therefore funding from VCs.
You don't need to refresh the store page: the offer pops up in a window, counts down until it's active, and then refreshes for you. But yeah, being one of those few 8 or 10 who can get in on it first is even harder than getting struck by lightning--I've never done it despite trying off and on for more than a year. (Maybe if I were a mashochist I'd try every day, finally get one ... probably not.) But occasionally they do offer other special deals or bonuses that make their rate better than another portal's, and so they are one of a suite of cash back shopping sites I use for buying things online.
okay. i will try this, but any IP scanning bullshit AKA GCMall and im done.
"so try not poking around the site too much in quick succession"? thats totally BS if true.
they think they are so smart by "preventing" fraud, but all they are doing is making customers drop them like the drop app.
Meh, seems very scammy. Waste too much time searching for coupons. "Exclusive offer" for WM today $75 off $75 - limited to first 8 bots, er people. What a joke.
I've had good luck with CC. Over $600 back in the last year or so. Getting to be one of the first 8 or 10 is like trying to win on a lottery ticket. But I've gotten several. I'm limited to 2 exclusive offers every 30 days. The only downside I've found is that they take forever to pay, like 90 days. But they do pay out 10% more if you go with an Amazon gift card.
Had a terrible experience. Won a $50 off over $50 purchase to Kohl’s. Submitted a ticket after a couple days and a month later was told I couldn’t get my cash back because Kohl’s claims that I clicked another merchant link or something but they wouldn’t tell me more info because apparently Kohl’s wouldn’t tell them more. Why would I click another link if ya’ll are giving me a free $50?! Never again.
We joined Coupon Cabin back last year and during the holidays they ramped up the daily offers to 3 times a month. You could still only claim a merchant once every 90 days, but lots of different offers every single day from a wide variety of merchants. Basically paid for Christmas for extended family from November to December. We cash out with Amazon since Amazon money is basically as good as cash for us.
"We joined Coupon Cabin back last year and during the holidays they ramped up the daily offers to 3 times a month"
Are you still getting 3x a month, or was that just during the holidays? Also do you use CouponCabin as your main cash back site?
You don't have a limit of 1 per 30 days? Mine says I can only get 1 per 30 days.
I think he mentions that it was a limit of 3 times a month only DURING the HOLIDAY season that he joined.
I see a 1 per 30 day as well.
I have 2 per 30 days (one store/brand every 90 days) in my account so it may be the length of membership as well.
How long have you been a member for / how ofter do you use coupon cabin for normal online purchases?
Good post, Chuck! I signed up. Here's hoping they'll offer a referral program soon!
This "exclusive offers" gimmick will be interesting to follow...
Oh, also you might want to add that there's an additional $1 bonus for reading their tips in the activity page.
What's the minimum payout?
$7
Let me add that. Is that $7 minimum the same for all payout methods?
Yeah, looks like it. I tried to switch to gift cards and it was still the same.
From their website:
"Cash back payments are processed each business day for members who have a "payable" cash back balance of at least $7."
I'll add, thanks