Archives for December 2010

For some reason, I always thought the website eBillMe was a service that lets me pay over time (and also pay interest charges). I was confusing it with BillMeLater. Upon further review, it seems like eBillMe tries to do the opposite. The way their site works is that it lets you pay for things using your own bank’s online BillPay service. The advantage of this is that you are “pushing” your payment to vendors, and are thus not sharing any sensitive information like credit card numbers or even your checking account number from a personal check.

The disadvantage, in my view, is that you lose any potential credit card rewards you could otherwise get. You can still “live debt free” if you pay off your balances every month. 😛

In any case, I took a second look because they were promising some enticing things: 10% Off Home Depot Gift Cards and a $15 rebate on a $100 Amazon.com Gift Cards. However, you always have to read the fine print. One offer turns out a lot better than the other…

$15 Mail-in Rebate on $100 Amazon.com Gift Certificate

I’ll start with the better one. If you buy a $100 gift card from Amazon.com through eBillMe by 1/15/2011, they have a mail-in rebate for $15 cash. Here is the rebate form PDF. First-time eBillMe customers only.

Other than the fact that you have to do a mail-in rebate, this offers seems otherwise pretty straightforward. Very worst case, you still have the Amazon.com gift certificate. Selected fine print:

Buy any Amazon.com Gift Card using eBillme before January 15th, 2011 and receive $15 by mail. Customer must fill out the rebate form and mail in. Offer applies only to Amazon.com Gift Card purchases using eBillme between September 15th, 2010 and January 15th, 2011. Your Amazon.com Gift Card must be a minimum of $100 and your bill must be paid in full to participate in the promotion. Rebate must be postmarked within 15 days of purchase date. There is a limit of one (1) rebate per person, household or address. Order must be paid in full.

10% Off Gift Cards at Home Depot, etc.

Gift cards for 10% off at retailers like Home Depot, JC Penney, and Zappos.com? Sounds nice. What’s the catch?

Well, to start off instead of getting the savings upfront, you accumulate “cash back” in an account. After you reach a minimum of $10, you can use the money as a coupon when shopping through stores that accept payments through eBillMe. These are rather limited, and include Sears.com, Kmart.com, and Tigerdirect.com along with a bunch of smaller stores. Once you accumulate $50, then you can request actual cash via a mailed check, but only in $50 increments.

There’s more. You can only earn up to a limit of $20 “cash back” per order, and $200 total per 12 month period. Your earnings expire after 24 months. Finally, the 10% cash back is only valid for first time use of eBillme. You’re probably back down to 1% back after that first purchase. So I couldn’t just buy $500 of Home Depot gift cards and get a $50 check mailed to me.

Honestly, that’s just too many hoops for too little reward. I’m staying away unless they greatly simplify the process in the future.

American Express Gift Cards are basically prepaid credit cards that work anywhere that accepts American Express. The good thing is that they have no inactivity fees, no maintenance fees, no balance check fees, and they never expire. Other than for gifts, they are especially useful whenever you need to accelerate or time-shift your credit card purchases to be earlier than they actually are.

Here’s what I mean by that. A common problem you might have is that your credit card that earns frequent flier miles, and need to earn a certain number of miles to reach your next award or qualification tier. However, you want to redeem now, so with these gift cards your miles can show up faster.

Also, recently there have been a lot of great credit card sign-up offers that require you to spend $XXXX within a certain amount of time. For example:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred offering $400 in cash or $500 credit towards any major airline purchase – requires $3,000 in spending within 3 months.
• Starwood Guest Credit Card from American Express offering 25,000 Starpoints worth several free hotel nights or other perks – requires $5,000 in spending within 6 months.
• Citi AAdvantage Visa offering 50,000 American Airlines miles – requires $3,000 in purchases within 3 months.

Whether you have a Visa, MasterCard, or AMEX, you can simply buy these gift cards and they’ll count as rewards-earning purchases now, and you can use them up later at any merchant that accepts American Express. All the grocery stores I frequent take AMEX now. This way, you can either make the deadline or simply meet it early without worrying.

Finally, they can provide some anonymity when shopping, while mostly preserving your flexibility.

There are two additional fees that you have to worry about. First is the purchase fee, which is usually $3.95 per card. There is usually a promotion code floating around to waive these. They send me a promo code via e-mail EMDECWEL that will waive any purchase fees until January 31, 2011.

Next, there is a shipping and handling charge. Right now, 2-day expedited shipping is $5.95. However, if you sign up for their “Premium Shipping Plan”, you can get free next-day air shipping trial for 90 days. You must cancel before the 90 days is up, or get charged $99 per year. I actually opted just to pay the shipping fee this time.

During this promotion, customers who have enrolled in the Premium Shipping Plan may use the Plan at no cost for the first ninety (90) days after enrollment (“Trial Period”). The Premium Shipping Plan membership fee of $99 per year will be charged to customers ninety (90) days after initial enrollment if customer does not cancel membership through the Gift Card Account portal online prior to the expiration of the Trial Period.

By the way, for some reason, American Express does not ship gift cards to the states of HI, LA, and VT.

Here’s a little deal that won’t break the bank. Groupon has a national deal this weekend (Fri-Sun) that will get you three one-day rentals at RedBox kiosks for $1. Retail is $1 per day, so $3. If you don’t have a Groupon account already, please use my sign-up link, and I’ll get some Groupon credit for referring you. Then visit the deal link.

Expires Mar 10, 2011. Limit 1/person. Valid only at physical Kiosk US locations. Valid for 1st night rental only. Not valid for video game or Blu-ray. Code usage is subject to standard Redbox terms & conditions. Card will be charged if rental is not returned by 9pm next day.

If you’ve never used Redbox before, first-time users that register for a new account on their website also get a code for a free rental after their first paid rental. The unofficial site InsideRedbox is a good source for ongoing free coupon codes. Here is a kiosk locator.

Coin-changing machine operator CoinStar is repeating a promotion where if you change $40 in coins into a gift card, you can receive an additional $10 gift card by mail at certain retailers. It’s actually better this year because it is no longer run as an annoying mail-in rebate. This time, after you exchange $40 in coins for a gift certificate, they provide a promotional code on the receipt that you redeem online. The $10 bonus certificate is still sent via snail mail, but this time “within 1-2 weeks” and without wasting time with mailing forms and postage.

The participating retailers include iTunes Store, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Borders Bookstores, and Regal-affiliated Movie Theaters. However, the page also says that Amazon.com will join the promotion on 12/9/2010. (Update: Amazon.com is officially added. Redemption is via e-mail code, so no waiting. It mentions toys and games, but appears to be valid for anything else as well.) The page seems to hint that Gap and Starbucks will also join in eventually, but who knows. Personally, I like the idea of getting rid of my coins and getting a 20% 25% bonus since I shop regularly at Amazon anyway.

By the way, if you convert your $40 into a gift certificate instead of cash, you’ll avoid their normal exorbitant 9.8% processing fee. Here is their kiosk locator.

I wrote about Coinstar and other things to do with loose coinage before and people shared some nice tips in the comments.