Raise has launched a new app called Slide which offers 4% cashback when buying instant gift cards. These appear to be first-hand gift cards rather than the discounted gift cards you can find on Raise which are second-hand (although Raise does sell what it calls Cash Back gift cards which are first-hand).
The Slide app works in a similar way to other apps like Fluz and United’s MPX, along with the Pay With Ibotta feature in the Ibotta app in that you can buy gift cards for specific amounts rather than whole dollar amounts. For example, you can use Slide to buy a gift card for $16.21, so you don’t have to buy a $25 gift card and have $8.79 left over.
Although Slide has been created by Raise, it’s being kept separate and so you can’t view gift cards you’ve bought from Raise in Slide and vice versa. That means the cashback earned in Slide isn’t the same as Raise Cash; you have to earn at least $15 in Slide cashback in order to cash out.
The Slide app is currently only available in the App Store on iPhones which is a shame because I only have an Android phone, so I can’t check out the app right now. They’re apparently developing an Android app though, so hopefully that’ll be out soon.
4% cashback doesn’t sound overly exciting seeing as you can often buy discounted gift cards for even greater savings. Depending on which brands are available in the app though, this could be interesting. For example, Fluz, MPX and Pay With Ibotta all offer cashback/miles for Walmart but usually at a 0.5% or 1% rate, so earning 4% would be excellent in comparison. Similarly, earning 4% cashback on Best Buy gift cards would be very nice, particularly for product resellers. That might not be such good news for gift card resellers though because it’d mean the market would get flooded.
It’s also not clear how Slide will code on credit cards. Fluz doesn’t pass on the coding for the retailer’s gift card that you’re buying, but I believe that in many (or all?) cases, the MPX app does. My guess is that Slide won’t pass it on, but I’ll have to wait until it’s available on Google Play to find out for myself.
Questions
If you have an iPhone and feel like exploring the app, I’d love to hear more about it in the comments below. Are there any notable retailers where 4% cashback represents an excellent deal? Is it easy to use? If you end up buying any gift cards, does it code in a special way?
Update: Reader EW has reached out to advise that neither Walmart nor Best Buy are available in the app which is disappointing but not surprising. There are some other more valuable brands like eBay, Lowe’s and Bed Bath & Beyond though.
You can also add funds to the app in advance to earn an additional 1% for a total of 5%. Based on the Slide app’s website, it looks like that funding can be done by credit card rather than having to be done via bank account, so it makes that option worth considering.
[…] in June 2020, Raise launched a new app called Slide. This offers a flat rate of 4% cashback when buying a range of third party gift cards and paying […]