Upromise

[Laker]

Does anyone have any experience with the Upromise that supposedly helps save for childrens college tuition. If so, how is it working? I am just wondering, no kids on the horizon yet.

[planet]

UPromise, IMO, SUCKS!!! We signed up and basically everyone in the extended family signed up. You have to give your CC info and purchase through the site or give your grocery store card #s. DH's account, in the last year, has single digit chump change contributed. WHY?? Don't know what's not working because we have had some very deliberate site purchases made by family who otherwise wouldn't have bothered, but at this point I think it is a marketing thing and not very useful. I have a few more hoops to jump through to successfully remove our info and erase the account. Maybe others have had better luck.

We signed up and have had the same experience as jfinma. In the last year we have only earned something like $3 although we haven't really been going out of our way to make Upromise purchases. That is just what I have earned from grocery shopping. It's more beneficial for me to make my online purchases through American Airlines rather than Upromise so that I can get the frequent flyer miles. I think your biggest earnings come from having a Citi Upromise card and it's just not worth it to me to sign up for another credit card.

[BonBon]

Huh...we signed up before we were even pg with #1 and so far have accrued ~$350 - and we don't even have any family members signed up. Wonder why it's not working for you guys? :|

[planet]

Huh...we signed up before we were even pg with #1 and so far have accrued ~$350 - and we don't even have any family members signed up. Wonder why it's not working for you guys? :|

Yeah, I don't know. Do you have their cc? We have actually picked groceries with the UPromise logo when shopping. ILs made their new washer/dryer and fridge purchases through the UPromise website. We had higher hopes. It does seem like a good idea. Well, glad it is working for you anyways! BTW Laker, we have DH and his school loans as the recipient rather than our kids.

[BonBon]

Nope, we don't have their cc either. Nor do I even notice if the groceries I buy have the logo...I would guess that most don't. That's really odd, because we have earned most of our $$$ by buying through their website. Might be worth it to contact them. I would have a serious bug up my butt about that.

We've had great luck -- have had over $1500 in "earnings". For the grocery shopping for the 'Upromise' items to work you have to also have your grocery "savings" card registered with them - not just your credit card. Over $1000 of the earnings came via a purchase a friend made, but she has no idea what she did or why it came through that way. I kept waiting for them to take it back, but it's been over 2 years now, and the $ has been transferred to our 529 long ago.

We do not have the Upromise Citi card.

[DCJenn]

So far we've registered everything we could get our hands on- grocery cards, credit cards, essentially every card that we have that they take-

and Nikolai has gotten about 75 bucks a quarter to the 529- just for buying toilet paper, etc...

Jenn

[Sheherezade]

We do OK with Upromise, too. We used to make our most money off "participating restaurants" because we ate at a place regularly that gave 5%. We just recently got the Upromise credit card, so I'll let you know if that vastly increases our earnings. DH is using it for all his reimbursed business expenses, so we're hoping that will be like "free" money for the 529.

Do you check your monthly activity reports? Do they have the transactions you mentioned listed? It's weird that you haven't been credited for your families' use. We've had no problems.

[planet]

One more thing on the 'to fix' list.