One of the main ways that banks and card issuers can differentiate themselves from every other bank, are with offers and discounts for spending.
For example, HSBC have 2% cashback on their debit card when using contactless as part of ‘Everyday Extras‘, American Express has ‘Amex Offers‘ with cashback at a range of merchants and occasionally across specific categories like smaller businesses or payment methods like Apple Pay.
Commonwealth Bank has ‘CommBank Rewards‘.
First launched back in 2019, it lives inside the CommBank app on your iPhone or Android phone, and has a handful of targeted offers that change from customer to person based on where you spend and how much you spend – pretty similar to Amex’s Offers program.
You’ll find big name brands like Coles, Myer, Nespresso, The Good Guys, Menulog and JB Hi-Fi, but not your local cafe or restaurant.
It’s available across CBA’s Mastercard range, from regular debit and credit cards, through to the ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ StepPay offering.
It doesn’t work with their Travel Money, Corporate Credit, Business Debit and pre-paid Mastercards though.
To get started, you’ll need to opt into CommBank Rewards, if you haven’t already.
Open the CommBank app on your phone, tap on the ‘For You’ Tab, and then tap on ‘CommBank Rewards’. Once you’re all set up, you can also add it as a Favourite on the Home Screen of the CommBank app (just tap ‘Customise’, ‘Favourites’ at the bottom of the Home tab)
On the ‘Rewards’ tab in the CommBank Rewards section of the app, you’ll see the offers available to you – as mentioned, these will be personalised and differ from person to person depending on where you spend, how much you spend, etc.
In this example, I’ve got a $15 cashback offer after spending $150 – so 10% off a Coles shop (of $150, of course) – not bad. And CommBank doesn’t necessarily know *what* you bought, only that you spent $x at that merchant.
So if you’re after a gift card, consider it 10% off (eg say you spent $150 on an Apple Gift Card at Coles, you’ll most likely get $15 cashback from CommBank) – just check the T&Cs listed when tapping on the offer in the app.
Once you’ve activated an offer, it’ll show on the ‘Activity’ tab, along with any other offers you’ve activated, as well as how much you’ve “saved” with CommBank Rewards over the past 12 months.
In Settings, you can turn on or turn off notifications regarding your offers, check your eligible cards, and also opt out of CommBank Rewards altogether.
Of course, the best part is the cashback! Within 14 days, you should see the credit appear in your account.
The main thing to note is you have to spend with your card directly – Apple Pay and Google Pay is fine, but you can’t use Afterpay, PayPal, Zip and whatnot – to ensure you get the cashback.