Archive for the 'Deals & Offers' Category
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
American Express has a new card called the Premier Rewards Gold Card, which offers these primary perks:
* Earn 15,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $1,000 in your first 3 months of Card membership. MR points are very versatile, and can be converted to 15,000 frequent flier miles in a number of programs (or 10 Southwest credits), or you can simply get $150 in gift cards at several stores like Home Depot, Crate & Barrel, or Macy’s. I think you can also get cash equivalents at a reduced ratio.
* Offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on gas and groceries, and 1X points on everything else.
* Earn 15,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $30,000 per calendar year.
* No annual fee for your first year. After that it is $175.
There are two ways to maximize this offer. The easy way is to simply sign-up, grab the 15,000 MR points bonus, and then cancel anytime within the first year, that’s a quick $150+ bonus which is rare these days.
The only other scenario is that you are a big spender and purchase a lot of airfare, because triple MR points is pretty rare and you’ll have to reach that $30,000 spending target to offset the $175 annual fee after the first year.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
I almost forgot, I’m wanted to give away my Google Voice invite to a randomly chosen reader. So if you liked the features and money-saving opportunities, you can enter for a free GV invite by leaving a comment under this post with your First name (or nickname) only and valid e-mail address (will not be shown or shared). You can leave the actual comment box blank. For the first drawing, I’ll run it for 24 hours until 10/21 at 6pm Pacific. I’ll give out more if they put some more in my account.
No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Winners chosen randomly. One entry per person. Good luck!
Update: 6 winners were picked and sent an e-mail. Thanks to readers MattG, Gopi, Greg, and Pete who offered 5 additional invites. For those that didn’t win, I’ve gotten several comments that asking Google directly works and only take about 2 days to get your invite.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 118 Comments »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Get a free 6-piece box from Edible Arrangements via their Facebook page. I was a little skeptical, but I got my coupon in less than 24 hours. Valid for first 100,000. Delivery is not included. Get one for your significant other and be romantic for a day on the cheap! 
Bring this coupon to any participating Edible Arrangements® locations and redeem it for one (1) box of 6 FREE PIECES OF CHOCOLATE DIPPED FRUIT. Valid at participating Edible Arrangements® locations throughout the (50) United States and District of Columbia as well as Canada. Six pieces of Chocolate Dipped Fruit may vary and include one or more of any of the following types of fruit: Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Pears, Strawberries, and Pineapple. Fruit selection is not specified and options are at the store’s discretion. Delivery costs are not included. Offer may be picked up from any participating Edible Arrangements location to avoid delivery charges.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 8 Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
The Chase Freedom Card is now offering a $50 cash back bonus after your first purchase. The rewards program itself remains slightly better than the vanilla 1% back cards since they offer 3% back in rotating categories like gas, home improvement and department stores. This sounds like the current Discover card rewards system. You can no longer wait and redeem $200 in cash back rewards for $250 like the good ole’ days, but the rewards never expire and are converted directly to a check mailed to you.
No annual fee, and an intro 0% APR on purchases for 6/12 months. From the T&Cs: “Length of your introductory period will be either 12 billing cycles from account opening for purchases or 6 billing cycles from account opening for purchases depending on our review of your application and credit history.” Basically, this is for folks that would like to grab an easy $50 bonus, take advantage of the 0% APR on purchases, and have a no-hassle backup rewards card.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 40 Comments »
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
This post is targeted for those who have the grandfathered cell phone plan called the Sprint Employee Referral Offer (SERO) plan. This plan is no longer available to the general public, but for $30 a month it gave us 500 minutes per month, unlimited 7pm nights and weekends, unlimited text messages, and unlimited data.
Many of us love the plan, but it appears that Sprint really wants to phase us out, or at least upgrade us to their new Sprint Everything Plus Referral Program (EPRP)* where a similar plan costs $60. They are doing this by not allowing many newer phones to be activated on SERO, including the Samsung Instinct HD, Palm Pre, and HTC Hero (Android OS) phones. It seems like they will continue to ban all the best new phones. Here’s what I did to keep my $30 SERO plan and still get a relatively snazzy phone for a net cost of $130.
$70 Credit For Extending Contract By 2 Years
Do this first! Follow the abbreviated directions below exactly from user t-bob of SlickDeals. Do not call in. It will extend your contract by 2 years, but you’ll still be eligible for the $150 phone upgrade credit.
At 22 months you are eligible to renew your contract. When you are eligible, login to your account at sprint.com and click on the “contact us” link at the top right of the page in the black bar. Click on the “Email us” link. Search for something like “renew contract”. Now you should finally be at the web form to submit an email to Sprint eCare. For topic select “Plans, features, and services” and for subtopic select “Plan inquires.” In the text box say that you have heard that there is a $70 service credit available for renewing your contract and you would like to take advantage of that.
HTC Touch Pro2 for $199
You should get a reply within 24 hours that you can get the $70 credit. Verify online by checking that you now have a negative balance. Now, what’s the best phone that you can get to work with SERO? The answer in my opinion is the HTC Touch Pro2. Previously, the issue was that it cost $350 even after a $100 mail-in rebate. However, simply visit this link first, and then you’ll see the Touch Pro2 for only $199 on Sprint.com with no rebates. I thought it was just Sprint.com, but it was because I first saw this thread on Fatwallet. It checked out fine for me, and I already have my UPS tracking number.
Update 10/15/09 3pm Pacific: It appears this may no longer work on SERO plans. If you already got the $70 credit, you can either use eCare and tell them you changed your mind and have them reverse it, or you can wait to see if the price will drop again as the holidays near. Samsung Intrepid which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 is also available. Again, your contract will just shift to 2 years past your new purchase date.
You can read reviews of it here, here, and here. When you buy the phone, your contract will be extended again just slightly to 2 years after your purchase date.
It may not be the best phone out there now, but it does have a nice-looking touchscreen, a big physical keyboard, and access to a decent number of useful applications including Twitter, Facebook, Opera Mini, and Skyfire. All for $130 net. I can even tether it using PDANet and make it a wireless modem for my laptop, which I’ve been doing with my Motorola Q for the last 2+ years.
If you really want an iPhone or other specific phone and are willing to pay $30-$40 more per month for it, then I would say go for it because this plan won’t last forever. I’m just not ready to pay an additional $1,000 over the next 2 years just yet. 
* Russ.S.McGuire@Sprint.com / 383
Posted in Deals & Offers, Frugal Living | 67 Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
You can get the SuzeOrman.com Will & Trust Kit for free if you enter the gift code 898989 on this page. Save the resulting activation code. Retail price is is $13.50.
Based on a question-and-answer format, this online software includes the ability to create a:
- Will
- Revocable Trust
- Financial Power of Attorney
- Advanced Directive / Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare
I’m not sure how this compares to a more established legal service like LegalZoom which I had considered using up until now (I used them to incorporate my side business), but they charge about $70 for a basic will. I would think that this SuzeOrman option might be an acceptable temporary solution for those with very simple estates. However, for those who have enough assets to actually require a revocable trust, hiring an attorney would be worth the extra cost.
As for the advanced healthcare directive or power of attorney, I think that this could be useful at least to get the discussion started on what your wishes are with your family if you do become incapacitated.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Insurance | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Continental Airlines is offering 100 free OnePass miles for registering and learning about Continental’s PetSafe® and PetPass® programs. Valid through November 30, and the miles will post 4-6 weeks after that. Via Gary of View from the Wing. Like the American Airlines 150 miles offer, this is handy for resetting the expiration date of miles if you don’t fly frequently.
Continental likes to state that their miles have “no expiry date”, but “if no mileage is deposited in your account for 18 consecutive months, your membership may be canceled, and your miles may be forfeited”. Gee, that sure sounds like an expiration date to me.
Posted in Deals & Offers | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
I haven’t posted a bank promo in a while, but this one isn’t too shabby. Dime Savings Bank is offering up to $300 in bonuses for their Prime Dime Rewards Checking. You can get:
- $100 for account opening, bonus paid immediately
- $100 for setting up a monthly recurring direct deposit
- $100 for completing two Online bill payments
Minimum opening balance is just $1, but there is a $15 monthly maintenance fee if average daily balance is under $5,000. Takes 6 months to get direct deposit and billpay bonuses. Expires 11/15/09. Selected fine print:
*Bonuses for Prime Dime Rewards Checking are $100 for account opening, $100 for setting up a monthly recurring direct deposit, and $100 for completing two Online bill payments. The bonus for account opening will be paid at the time of account opening. The additional two bonuses will be paid 6 months after the opening date if the direct deposit service is established and the bill payments are completed within 3 months of account opening. There are neither account minimum balance nor balance time requirements to obtain the bonuses. If you close your account within 6 months of the opening date, any bonuses paid will be deducted at the time of account closing. Bonuses will be paid for new checking customers only. Bonus accounts are limited to one per household. Promotion is in effect until 11/15/09. All bonus payments will be reported as interest on IRS Form 1099-INT.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 18 Comments »
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
Online broker TradeKing has brought back their $50 sign-up bonus for new accounts, no referral required. You must open with $2,500 and make one trade within 30 days.
4) To qualify for this offer, new accounts must be opened and funded with $2,500 or more. Account funding must occur within 30 days of account opening, and one trade must be executed within 180 days of account opening, for account to qualify. Offer is not transferable or valid in conjunction with any other offer. Open to US residents only. One offer per household. TradeKing can modify or discontinue this offer at anytime without notice. The minimum funds of $2,500 must remain in the account (minus any trading losses) for a minimum of 6 months or the credit may be surrendered. Other restriction may apply.
TradeKing offers $4.95 trades with no minimum balance requirement. I’ve been using them for a while, they are a good basic broker. For more information, please check out my TradeKing Review.
Posted in Deals & Offers, Investing | 6 Comments »
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
You can get 150 free frequent flier miles from American Airlines by watching a two-minute video for Bose headphones.
This is handy for resetting the expiration date of miles if you don’t fly frequently. Currently, AA miles expire after only 18 months of non-activity.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 6 Comments »
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Zecco Trading, best known for their free stock trade offers, is running another promotion for their Forex trading accounts where you can trade foreign currencies and gold/silver. I opened an account previously due to their last $200 promotion (now expired) and got the bonus successfully. Here’s the current offer for newly funded accounts with promotion code ZECCOCASH2TRADE1:
You can get up to $1000 when you fund your account and meet the trade requirement before November 13th, 2009 5pm (ET).
Just four easy steps:
1. Open an account with Zecco Forex
2. Make your deposit before 10/30/2009 5pm (ET)
3. Make the round-trip trade requirements before 11/13/2009 5pm (ET)
4. Collect your bonus!
Note: If you open a practice account first, remember to use promo code ZECCOCASH2TRADE1 when you open your live account.
Instead of just making one trade, you have to make a certain number of round-trip trades. Mini trades and metals trade only count for 1/10th of a “full” round-trip. With a 1 pip spread on $100,000 standard trade amount, that would mean $10 for a round-trip trade if you ignore any price swings. (I tried this by buying and then selling immediately.)
Consider the offer carefully. If you’re not looking to actually do any speculating, the “easy” money is to just trade twice and get the $50 for two trades minus spreads. If you are looking to speculate, the bonus essentially takes away the spread costs. Forex for an inexperienced investor is a lot like gambling, and this is similar to one of those online casino bonuses. If you know the ropes, you can use such deposit bonuses to grab an edge.
Credit card funding. An possible extra is that you can fund via a credit card. It does show up an a purchase, which means we can get miles or cash back, but when I withdrew it just went back as a credit on my card. Users have reported that if you can keep the initial funding in for 6 months and trade regularly (which this promo seems to require anyway), you might be able to withdraw via check and keep the rewards. There is a $5,000 cap on each credit card funding, but you can perform multiple transactions.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Restaurant.com is offering a 80% off with the coupon code CHEF, resulting in a $25 “certificate” for $2. Offer ends September 30th.
Contrary to my skeptical remarks (I’ve never used one of these before), many readers responded that they indeed found these certificates very useful in savings some money. Read their comments here.
Here’s a sample positive scenario. You find a restaurant on the list that you like that usually runs around $20 + tip per person (~$48 for a couple). You buy a $25 certificate for $2, which usually comes with a $35 minimum purchase + 18% required gratuity on full price.
Dinner for two = $40 regular menu price
Minus $25 certificate = $15
Plus cost of certificate ($2) = $17
Plus 18% gratuity on menu price = $7.20
Total price w/ tip = $24.20, or $12 a person + taxes
In that case, you can save around 50% on the total bill. Good thing I’m married and don’t have to worry about going on dates with coupons! 
Posted in Deals & Offers | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Gogo Inflight Intertnet is now offering WiFi internet on select Airtran, American, Delta, and Virgin America flights. See here for participating flights. I signed up for their mailing list, and got a code for some free WiFi in case anyone is flying in the next few weeks. Here’s another code good until 10/31, but I can’t tell if it’s one-time use only: 222wifi21940a.
Jonathan, first timers surf the internet in flight with a free gogo session this month. Just look for the “gogoinflight” Wi-Fi signal at 10,000 ft and keep up with the world below.
Enter SURFGOGOFREE when you are prompted to purchase your session through October 15, 2009.
*Good through 10/15/09. Offer available on select American Airlines and Delta Air Lines flights. Offer is good for one use per person, may not be combined with any other Gogo promotional codes and applies only to single sessions, such as Gogo Flight Pass and Gogo Mobile Pass. Use of Gogo service requires registration. Terms and Conditions
Posted in Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Here’s a newly released coupon for 25% off real FICO scores and all other credit products at myFico.com. Use the promotional code FINANCIALHELP25 to get 25% off and a FICO score for less than $12, the best discount currently available:
The code is good until September 30th (although try it anyways and see if it works after that date), so be quick about it. For the Equifax credit score only, you can get it for $10.95 using the code SW94608, which is over 30% off. You enter the promo code relatively late in the buying process, right before entering your credit card information. Look for this:
Experian no longer allows Fair Isaac to sell FICO scores to consumers at all (even though lenders still buy and use them). They sell their own “FAKE-O” version now. Lenders almost always use FICO scores in their decisions, so those are the only ones you should pay for.
For the diligent, a cheaper alternative is to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Scorewatch, which includes two free Equifax scores and reports. Just remember to cancel as soon as you decide you don’t need it anymore. You are allowed to cancel online, without having to even call in.
You can always request your credit reports (not scores) once every 12 months at AnnualCreditReport.com. If you’ve already done that, you can still try these other direct methods for the unemployed, those denied credit, and victims of identity theft.
Posted in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 4 Comments »
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
For some reason, I’ve managed to collect a bunch of random Starbucks news. Granted, I’ve been going there more often recently for the ability to read and work in a comfortable atmosphere outside the distractions of home. I’m okay with paying about $2 for some caffeine plus an few hours of productivity once in a while.
Price-Targeting
First, I found out that last month Starbucks lowered the price of their basic drip coffee and lattes, while increasing the price of their “complex” drinks like Frappuccinos. This is classic price targeting, which involves company extracting the maximum money out of the most customers possible.
People who are frugal and pay attention to prices will now find that a large drip coffee from Starbucks costs just about the exact same amount as a large coffee from a place like Dunkin Donuts. Result: Starbucks gets more price-comparing people. A person who was paying $4 for a Frappuccino before was already paying 100% more for extra sugar, whipped cream, and 5 seconds in a blender. They most likely won’t mind paying another 25 cents. Result: Starbucks extracts more money from non-price-sensitive person.
iPod Touch/iPhone App
Want to buy coffee? There’s an app for that. The Starbucks Mobile App, from what I can gather, tries to make your iPhone or iPod Touch act like your Starbucks card. And right now, if you use it to reload $25 or more using your Visa card, you can earn a one-time $5 bonus. That’s two free drinks for me… too bad I don’t have an iGadget.
Free Birthday Drink
I’m usually not big on gift cards, but there are some decent perks with using a registered Starbucks card. You get 2 hours of free Wi-Fi per day, unlimited refills on drip coffee, and now you also get a free drink on your birthday. I like the first two features better, but free is free.
Posted in Deals & Offers | 3 Comments »
