Mr. Rebates puts savings a click away

If you're planning to shop online for the holidays, you should check out Mr. Rebates, a referral site that gives you cash rebates for shopping online.

When you shop through Mr. Rebates, rebates are credited to your account. Then at the end of the month, quarter, or however often you redeem them, you get paid rebates in cash by Mr. Rebates. They can either send you a check in the mail or give you a credit in your PayPal account (your choice) so you can shop some more online.

It's easy to get started. Go to mrrebates.com and sign up using your email address and home address so they can send you rebate checks. It costs nothing to join. In fact, they even give you $5 for signing up.

Whenever you shop online, go to Mr. Rebates first to see if the online store you want to visit is on Mr. Rebates. The rebates range from a few dollars to 25 percent of an item's cost.

To get a rebate added to your Mr. Rebates account, go to the site and search for the store you want. You can type the name of the store in the search box, search alphabetically and by category.

Select your store and you will see the amount of the rebate as well as any coupons available for the store. Click on the link to the store and you will go to the store's website. Just be sure that when you actually make your purchase (just putting items in your shopping cart won't give you the rebate), you have arrived at the site by clicking through a link at Mr. Rebates.

For example, if you're planning to travel for the holidays, go to Mr. Rebates to see which travel website (Expedia, 2 percent; Orbitz, 1 percent; Travelocity, 2 percent; hotels.com, 5 percent) is offering the better rebate that day. You can also compare hotels directly through Mr. Rebates (Staybridge Suites, 5 percent; Holiday Inn, 5 percent; Best Western, 3 percent; Sheraton, 2 percent). It is the same with airlines (Virgin Atlantic, 2 percent) and rental cars (Avis, 3 percent; Enterprise, 2 percent).

Don't necessarily opt for the better rebate; consider the best deal/rebate combination.

Mr. Rebates isn't just for travel. The site has more than 2,000 online stores. Some favorites include:

Target, 4 percent; Sears, 5 percent; Walmart, 3 percent; Nordstrom, 4 percent; Bloomingdale's, 3 percent; Coldwater Creek, 4 percent; Macy's, 3 percent; QVC, 4 percent; Home Depot, 4 percent; Vistaprint, 6 percent; drugstore.com, 6 percent; eBags, 10 percent.

Rebate amounts change frequently, so make sure you check with Mr. Rebates before making your purchase decisions.

Your rebates become available for payment 90 days after you make a purchase through the site.

Mr. Rebates is featuring a store of the week in the right sidebar of the site. This week, the featured store is hotels.com, with a rebate of 5 percent, instead of 4 percent. Nordstrom will be the featured store next week.

During the holiday season, Mr. Rebates will be having special promotions, with increased rebates and special coupons for hundreds of participating stores. The Cash-Back Christmas promotion runs from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31.

If friends join Mr. Rebates through your e-mail invitation, you will get a small rebate every time they use the site - 20 percent of their earned rebate. It's not much, generally pennies a purchase, but every little bit adds up.

Mr. Rebates doesn't cover every store. Amazon and Zappos are not on Mr. Rebates. But with more than 2,000 stores on Mr. Rebates, there are plenty of options.