Everyone knows about the benefits of airline and hotel reward cards, we have previously blogged about them here. Our focus in this post however is how to get cold, hard cash in your pocket!

As always with cash involved you need to ensure you are not getting yourself into trouble. There could be tax implications or you could be contravening rules and regulations within your company. We don't have the knowledge or qualifications to advise on this type of thing so please ensure you have everything checked out yourself before embarking on any of these Money making schemes!

AirBnB are focussing quite heavily on business accommodation right now and there are rewards to be had. If you can talk your company into signing up for AirBnB for business you can benefit with a $50/£39 voucher to the email address your accommodation was booked with (so make sure it's yours). Read more about this offer here.

Upside is a company that specifically deals in business travel. As well as potentially saving your company money on the offers they have, each time you make a purchase they reward you with a gift card, sometimes amounting to quite large sums. Not quite cash for this one, but definitely worth mentioning.

Using Cashback sites are an excellent option and cover pretty much all of the likely expenses you are likely to incur while on your business travels. If you haven't come across these before - 'A cashback site is a type of reward website that pays its members a percentage of money earned when they purchase goods and services via its affiliate links.' Here we look at some of the pay-out options on offer for typical business expenses. They're all great ways to get yourself some more cash and maybe start saving for a trip that doesn't involve working.

Airport parking is obviously a must if you drive to the airport. Topcashback and Quidco both offer cashback options when pre-booking, including off airport services such as Purple Parking in the UK. Topcashback wins on this occasion with a wider range and some cashbacks of up to 36%!

The two cashback sites we have looked at for this article both offer transfer services from airports with cashback up to 15%. It's worth checking both (Quidco and Topcashback) as well as others, depending on your destination, availability in that area and the cashback amount you will receive. Of course some business hotels offer this service for free which is even better than paying in the first place.

Car rental is another option on the Cashback sites. Again, we recommend you shop around. There are different options and availability depending on where in the world you want to hire and the type of vehicle you’re looking for. Always check what excess you're paying when looking for a hire car, and check with your company if there are preferred firms you should use.

Making money on credit cards is not a phrase you hear very often but it can be done. Look for the highest cashback deal available. If your expenses are always paid back on time then you can ensure it’s always paid off before any interest accrues. If your company is slow at reimbursing you or you are not particularly good at getting your expenses in on time then you also need to look at the interest rate you will be charged. As far as credit cards and business travel is concerned cashback may not be the best option for you. If you’re collecting air-miles or other reward offers then it may be worth looking at other deals on offer.

There are plenty of comparison websites detailing the cashback offers available  on credit cards and they are constantly changing so we’re not going to list current offers here.

The Cashback websites we’ve mentioned in this post and others like them also offer a variety of cashback deals for hotel bookings. This includes cashback for both hotel chains and the bigger booking websites such as booking.com and lastminute.com which already offer some of the best hotel prices around.

If you know someone in the country or area you are visiting it’s worth having a chat with your company to see if you can save the company money by staying with them. You should obviously pay your hosts something, so you may be able to arrange charging and invoicing of a room through AirBnB or something similar. No cash for you doing this unless you are able to offer a reciprocal deal with your friend if he/she is also a traveler and likely to be visiting your area.

Of course, we couldn't write an article without mentioning our own services. The Sociocean connect card makes business travel more sociable and enjoyable, but did you know you can make money too? You get a discount on any products in our store simply for having one, but to make money you simply post a photo to our website of you and other Sociocean members you have met on your travels, both with your Sociocean cards or products and hey presto - the person with the most photos wins a cash prize - every month!