Kudos Review: Double Your Credit Card Rewards At Thousands Of Online Retailers (Plus $20 Referral Bonus)

Update 10/31/24: Get 5x Rewards, Up to 25% Back At Select Retailers (Giftcards.com, Expedia, Stubhub, Petco, etc)

Kudos Cashback App

The Kudos smart wallet is a rewards Chrome extension and Safari Extension which helps track which card is best for earning at any particular retailer when shopping in the Chrome or Safari browsers. They also offers ‘boosts’ to double the cashback earned at thousands of retailers, more on that below. The app offers various other services such as showing your card numbers at retailer checkout so you can use the information at checkout with the retailer.

Once your cards are added to your Kudos wallet, the app will popup at checkout on retailer websites to guide you on which card to use at the given retailer. The app will also track how much rewards were earned from your shopping and the extra rewards Kudos adds on top (see below).

Double Cashback Boosts

Kudos offers to double your credit card rewards at select merchants. Once signed up you’ll be able to see the full list of merchants which are eligible for the doubling at this link. Here is a sample of some popular online retailers where Kudos will double your credit card rewards: Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Sam’s Club, Gamestop, Petco, Saks, Dell, HP.

Most online retailers are found there, similar to what you’d see on a shopping portal like Rakuten. Kudos also has the same types of exclusions that other affiliates have, and certain categories are not eligible for boosts. For example, for Walmart.com purchases, Food, Personal Care, Gift cards, and a number of other categories are excluded from earnings Boosts.

To illustrate how Kudos works, I’ll give an example with my own recent online purchase: I was checking out a small $6.35 purchase on Walmart.com in the Chrome browser. I had previously signed up for Kudos, added their Chrome extension, and saved my Blue Cash Everyday card to my Kudos account. When I got to the checkout screen on Walmart.com, the Kudos app popped up and suggested that I use the Blue Cash Everyday card to earn 3% back on Walmart.com (that card earns 3% back on online retailer purchases). I clicked the ‘Boost Purchase & Link Card’ button in the pop-out and the extension added a tracker to my purchase.

After completing my purchase, I’m immediately able to see the purchase showing up in my Kudos app. This lets me track all credit card rewards I’ve earned from online shopping, and it also shows the pending Kudos rewards. Since my credit card earn was $.19 (3% of $6.35), Kudos doubled that and put a pending deposit of $.19 to my Kudos wallet. After the purchase has been confirmed as eligible (60-90 days) those rewards will be available for redemption in my Kudos wallet. Once I have $30 or more accumulated in my Kudos wallet, I’ll be able to redeem that for a $30 Amazon gift card.

In my experience, you don’t have to pay with the Kudos-recommended card to get the boost; you’ll get the Kudos credit even if you click ‘Boost Purchase & Link Card’ and then proceed to pay with a different credit card or with a gift card.

Promotional 5x Boosts

Aside from the regular doubling of rewards at thousands of retailers, Kudos occasionally runs offers to get 5x rewards at select retailers. The best is when they run the 5x offer for a retailer who already has a 5x return. This results in 25x back on your purchase (5x you’ll get the the bank and 20x from Kudos).

We saw this once with Lowe’s which already had an offer to get 5% back from Discover and with Kudos it was possible to get an additional 20% back on top of that. We’ve also seen them run offers many times to get 5x rewards on travel sites, such Priceline.com or Booking.com. If you have a Sapphire Reserve card which earn 3x on Travel, you can get 12% back from Kudos on top of the 3x card rewards for a total 15x back on the purchase.

$20 Referral Bonus

Kudos also offers a $20 bonus to those who signup using a referral link and make a purchase at a purchase on a boost merchant site from one of the thousands of options offer by Kudos (Walmart,com, Bestbuy.com, etc, etc). Once the purchase has been confirmed with the merchant (typically within 60-120 days), your reward will be issued. Even a small eligible purchase would work to make you eligible for the bonus.

My appreciation if you use my referral link. The signup link will prompt you to add the Kudos chrome/safari extension and then to signup for an account by adding your name and credit cards. In the signup process there will be a box for a referral code. Mine code is CEDAR_KUDOS and I appreciate if you use it.

We’ll each get $20 if you signup with the referral code and make a purchase at a boost merchant. A referral code can even be added after the fact. No referrals in the comments below.

Our Verdict

Depending on how much your credit card is earning, the double rewards rate can be a nice chunk of change. Kudos will take over the tracking on the purchase, and so you can’t stack this with a shopping portal. Always be sure to compare portal rates and see if Kudos is a good deal for the purchase.

Many top retailers like Walmart.com and Bestbuy.com offer often have shopping portal rewards of just 1% back. With Kudos, it’ll often be possible to instead earn 2-5% back (depending which cards you have and what the various cards are currently offering). Very occasionally we might be able to earn as much as 20% back from Kudos with their special 5x offers.

The $20 signup bonus should be a nice and easy way of getting started. Just keep in mind that Kudos has a $30 minimum cashout amount. Also note, payout is currently only in the form of Amazon gift card, not cash (though they’re saying that cash/Paypal payment option will be added at some point).

My appreciation if you use my referral link, enter referral code CEDAR_KUDOS when prompted during account signup. We’ll each get $20 if you signup and make a purchase with a boost. You’ll probably also get a few extra dollars for adding Kudos to the browser, adding a card, and similar tasks. No referrals in the comments below.

Hat tip to reader Intl Churner

Deal History:

• Update 10/1/24: October 1st – 31st get 5x rewards (up to 25% back) at Dell, Stubhub, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia, Petsmart, Fanatics, Journeys, Nike, Tripadvisor, Neiman Marcus, Halloween Costumes, Backcountry, Stanley, Woot. Full details on Kudos at this link.
• Update 7/23/24: I’ve revamped this as a proper review and updated the post. I’ve learned more since using Kudos myself and think it can be useful a useful rewards option for a lot of situations. (Original promos we wrote about are now in the Post History at the end of the post.) 
• Update 8/25/24: Get 5x Rewards, Up to 25% Back At Select Retailers (Giftcards.com, Stubhub, Office Depot, PetSmart, etc)
• Original Post 5/22/24: Kudos app/extension is offering an extra 4x rewards on the following merchants: Lowe’s, Newegg, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Petco, Aliexpress, Discount Tire, Mattress Firm, Backcountry, Crocs. From now through May 30, 2024, we’re not just doubling your rewards – we’re multiplying them up to an amazing 5X at participating stores! So, if you earn 5X with your credit card, it’ll become 25X. If you add your Discover card in Kudos and activate the boost, you’ll be earning 25% back on Lowe’s: 5% from Discover for the quarterly category and a bonus 20% from Kudos. If you have a Blue Cash Preferred saved, you’ll be earning 15% at Kohl’s: 3% from the regular department store earn on the Blue Cash Preferred, and Kudos adds 4x on top of that for an additional 12%. Direct Link to offer
• Update 6/25/24: the 5x deal is back through the 4th of July, at the following retailers: Booking.com, Priceline, Viator, Stubhub, Samsung, Petco, Choice Hotels, Hertz, Sephora, Discount Tire
• Update 6/6/24: the 5x deal has been renewed, you can see the new list of merchants at this link. Lowe’s is still  included, and now they also have Office Depot, Groupon, and some others.
• Update 7/11/24: another 5x deal from 7/10 through 7/17 at the following merchants (ht reader John): Perry Ellis, GetYourGuide, Samsung, Woot!, Travelpro, AliExpress, Booking.com, Priceline.com, Trip.com, Home Chef.
• Update 7/23/24: Kudos recently came out with an offer for Priceline.com and Booking.com to earn 5x on Kudos, up to 25x.