Referral jargon, explained

The terms behind every referral offer, in plain English — what they mean for the money you get and the protection you have. If a brand page uses a word you don't know, it's defined here.

Referral code: A code or link an existing customer shares so a new customer can join. The brand sets one reward centrally, so codes for the same brand don't differ in value — only in whether they're still live, which is the thing worth checking.
Sign-up bonus: A reward a brand pays a new customer for joining and completing a set action, such as a card purchase or a first ride. On TopReferrals it is the figure we score in the 'reward value' factor — and we always show what the new joiner receives, never the referrer's cut.
Two-sided bonus: An offer that pays both the new customer and the person who referred them once the qualifying action is done — for example, Monzo's £10 each side. Two-sided offers score higher on our 'two-sided value' factor than one-sided ones.
One-sided bonus: An offer that pays only one party — usually the referrer — while the new joiner gets a separate, often variable welcome offer or nothing. Revolut's campaign is the clearest example, which is why it scores low on two-sided value.
Qualifying action: The specific step a new customer must complete before a bonus pays out — one card purchase for Monzo, three £5 purchases for Klarna, a first paid ride for Lime. No qualifying action, no bonus, however well you sign up.
Eligibility window: The time limit for completing the qualifying action — commonly 30 days, sometimes 60 or 180. Miss it and the reward is forfeited even if you finish the action later, so the window is one of the first things we record for each offer.
New-customer eligibility: Most referral bonuses are reserved for genuinely new customers. An existing — or even a previously abandoned — account can flag your phone number or email as ineligible. It is the single most common reason a referral silently fails to pay.
Self-referral: Using your own link to open a second account and claim both sides. It breaches almost every brand's terms, is routinely detected, and typically ends in a clawback and account closure — never worth it.
Cashback: A portion of your spend returned after a purchase. A cashback site earns a commission when you shop through its link and passes some or all of it back to you; the price at the retailer is unchanged.
Tracked cashback: A purchase a cashback site has successfully recorded against your account, shown as 'pending' until the retailer confirms it. Tracking can fail if an ad-blocker, a competing voucher code or a dropped session breaks the referral link.
E-money (EMI): Digitally stored value issued by an FCA-authorised Electronic Money Institution, such as PayPal or Klarna. Unlike a bank deposit, an e-money balance is safeguarded in segregated accounts rather than FSCS-protected — a real but different form of protection.
FSCS protection: The UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme guarantee. Eligible deposits at an authorised bank or building society are protected up to £85,000 per person per institution if the firm fails. It covers current and savings accounts — not e-money, crypto or investments.
Capital at risk: A reminder that an investment can fall as well as rise, so you may get back less than you put in. It applies to shares, funds, free-share promotions and crypto — none of which carry FSCS protection on the amount invested.
Section 75: A UK Consumer Credit Act protection that makes your credit-card issuer jointly liable with the retailer for purchases between £100 and £30,000. Paying through a wallet such as PayPal can break the chain and remove it, so pay big-ticket items directly on a credit card.
TopScore: TopReferrals' own 0–10 editorial rating, combining six weighted factors — reward value, ease of claiming, payout speed, protection, two-sided value and dependability. It is computed from each offer's published terms using the weights set out in our methodology, so any reader can reproduce it.