Nearly every referral link is exactly what it looks like: an ordinary signup URL with somebody’s ID attached to it. Six quick checks confirm that in well under a minute, and they are the same six we apply to every invite submitted here.
This is a description of a working system rather than general advice — the full review criteria are published at how submissions are reviewed. Run these yourself on any link you meet anywhere, and you will be able to use it with confidence rather than crossed fingers.
The six checks
Confirm where the link goes
The highest-value check and the quickest. Long-press the link on a phone, or hover it on a desktop, and read the domain in the status bar rather than the text of the link.
A referral link lands on the brand’s own domain, or on a referral subdomain of it. Tracking parameters after the
?are completely normal and are a sign the referral is being credited properly, not a warning.Prefer a link you can read over one you cannot
Link shorteners have perfectly good uses, but they hide the destination — which means neither you nor anyone reviewing the listing can judge it. We route these domains to a human rather than blocking them, for exactly that reason:
appsonair.link · onelink.me · bit.ly · tinyurl.com · t.co · cutt.ly · shorturl.at · rebrand.ly · linktr.ee
If you meet a referral behind one of these, just ask the person for the plain link. Someone sharing a genuine referral is usually happy to send it.
Match the offer to what the company does
A banking referral offers a banking reward; a food-delivery code offers delivery credit. When an offer describes something outside the brand’s actual product, it is usually a listing filed under the wrong brand rather than anything sinister — but it means the terms you are reading are not the terms you will get.
Cross-check against the brand’s own referral page. Almost every company with a referral programme publishes its current terms, and that page is the authority — not the person sharing the code, and not us.
Expect to go straight to the signup form
A referral link takes you to a signup form on the company’s own site, and that is the whole of it. Everything after that happens between you and the company.
So anything asked of you beforethat point — existing account details, a verification payment, a screenshot, a code from an SMS — is not part of how referral programmes work. That is the clearest single signal there is, and it is easy to check because the correct answer is always “nothing at all”.
Read the conditions, and expect there to be some
Almost every real sign-up bonus has conditions: a minimum deposit, a first transaction, a number of trips, a 30- or 90-day window. Conditions are a good sign — they mean whoever wrote the listing has actually been through it.
Specific enough to plan around
“The bonus lands after your first 10 trips, not at signup. Upload a clear photo of your licence at step 2 or verification stalls about 3 days.”
Worth asking about first
“Use my link for the best deal available today — amazing offer, sign up now and start saving!”
The second one is not necessarily a bad offer. It is an undescribed one, and the fix is a question rather than a decision.
Ask the person behind it
This is the check the other five exist to make unnecessary. A code attached to a profile you can open, read and message lets you ask the only question that really settles it: did this work for you, and when?
It is also the part of the design we would defend hardest, and the reason every invite here carries a member you can write to before you sign up.
What we choose not to list
A directory is defined as much by what it leaves out as by what it collects, so it is worth being specific about ours.
6 categories are out of scope entirely — gambling, casino, betting, sportsbook, adult, nsfw — and listings carrying direct contact details are declined too, because they route the conversation somewhere nobody can see it. Both are checked at submission rather than after publication.
What “checked” means here
No platform can promise a referral bonus will pay out. What it can do is be exact about what it verified — so here is ours, in full.
- The link’s domain belongs to the brand’s referral programme, and the destination is visible.
- The offer described belongs to that brand’s actual product.
- The description contains at least one specific thing a reader can act on, and clears a minimum length and word count.
- The listing carries a real member account, with a profile and a history attached to it.
What it does not mean: that the amount is current, that the brand will honour it, or that the terms have not moved since the tip was written. Bonus figures are written by members in their own words, and referral terms change without notice. Treat any figure on any referral site — this one included — as true on the day it was written, which is why every listing here carries its date and its author.
Next: which kind of code you are actually holding, or where a given offer is valid.