Archives for March 2016

Plenti: 2000 Points on first Macy’s $50+ order

If you are participating in the Plenti rewards program, and haven’t made a purchase at Macy’s yet, there’s a new offer that gets you 2000 Plenti Points (that’s $20 equivalent) on your first $50+ purchase at Macy’s. You can redeem this offer online. Your Plenti rewards card or your phone number (associated with your Plenti account) must be used ~ that’s how they can track the purchase and give you the Plenti points.

macys_plenti

NOTE: you must MANUALLY activate this offer by pressing the Green button. It’s not an Automatic Offer!

Needless to say, this is a pretty good deal, that’s like a 40% off effective discount, assuming you will have no problem to spend the 2000 ($20 equivalent) Plenti points in the future.

PS: if you are not familiar with this rewards program, check our introductory write-up on it.

March 11, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

[DEAD] VISA Gift Card Promotion Returns at Staples (March 13-18)

This offer ended…

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March 10, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , , ,

Used “Space Above and Beyond” DVD set for $19 shipped

The scifi TV series “Space Above and Beyond” was a bit ahead of its time, back in the era 20+ episode seasons without the necessary budget. For whatever reason, it cannot be found on any of the major streaming services in the USA, which has kept the prices of its DVDs higher than other TV shows that are streamable.

If you don’t want to pay new condition prices [currently $40] for it, you can get it for $19~ shipped in “Used – Very Good” condition by Go Hastings through Amazon. This ships directly from GoHastings, so you can’t avoid the shipping fee even if you are a Prime member. This ships from Texas.

NOTE: there’s another seller offering it for a similar price but that one ships from the UK and it’s probably Region 2. So pay attention to who the actual seller is over there before buying!

PS: it’s one and only season had a total of 24 episodes (with the pilot included) ~ see EpGuides for details.

March 8, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

How to Use The $10 Amazon K-Cup Sample Box Rebate [Nice Surprise: you can also use it on some Teas!]

Amazon continues to run a promotion on a K-Cup Sampler. You buy it for $10 and a week after your order ships, you receive a $10 credit to your Amazon account to use on future K-coffee purchases. We covered the purchasing part in last week’s post. In this post we cover how to use your $10 account credit (it’s $9.99 actually but it’s easier to type $10).

But that’s not all! After experimenting with the shopping cart I discovered that some other coffee items are also eligible when redeeming your account credit for this promotion ~ see the last section below for details!… UPDATE: this also works with K-Cups Teas!

The email confirmation arrives
Now it’s been a week after I placed the order, so, as promised, Amazon sent an email with the title “Benefit Confirmation for your Order” that notifies that a $9.99 credit has been applied to my Amazon.com account. You don’t have to do anything, it’s automatically activated on your account. You can’t see it anywhere on the Amazon website, unless you put an eligible item in your shopping cart and proceed to checkout. Then you will a $9.99 discount.

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March 7, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

Plenti Offer: Earn 1000 Points with a Hulu Subscription

If you are part of the Plenti Rewards program [see our earlier write-up if you are not familiar with it], AND you haven’t been a Hulu subscriber in the last 12 months, AND you are interested in starting a Hulu subscription, they have a new promotion in your account. You earn 1000 Plenti Points ($10 equivalent) when you start a new Hulu subscription.

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March 7, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

Prime members: Pay with Discover Cashback, Get $15 OFF

If you are a Prime member, Amazon has yet another promotion for you. If you make a purchase using your Discover Cashback Bonus, you can get up to $15 off your order by doing so and entering coupon code DISC16EVER in the Amazon shopping cart. This promotion only works if you hadn’t previously done this. This is a great deal because it is a 1:1 translation, $1 Discover Cashback converts to $1 in Amazon buying power. Needless to say, you need to have your eligible Discover credit card added to your Amazon account. If you had previously used that card on Amazon, it’s all good. If not, you have to follow the steps to “link” them together.

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March 5, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

Old Dutch Cast Iron Tetsubin Teapots for $20 (multiple options)

If you are looking for a 20oz iron teapot with a removable stainless steel strainer, there’s a pretty good sale at Groupon, you can get various Old Dutch Cast Iron Tetsubins for $20 each. These are available in multiple colors and in two different styles, the “Osaka” that has the palm-tree type of pattern, and the “Sapporo” with the studded pattern. Both hold up to 20oz of liquid inside.

NOTE: the term “Tea Pot” is usually used for something you can brew tea in. The term “Tea Kettle” is used for things you can use to boil water. This is a tea pot, not a tea kettle! You boil the water elsewhere, and pour it in this one. Also please don’t do stupid things like microwaving an iron kettle or brew or cook *GASP* other things inside it. These are intended for tea and water only 🙂 Also keep in mind that metals like iron can retain heat a lot longer than glass or porcelain, so it will remain hot to the touch longer. So be careful when you touch it or where you place it.

They offer free shipping with orders of $35 or higher (eg if you buy two of these). It comes with free returns as well if you don’t like it ~ just make sure you understand the trade-offs of iron tea pots before you buy. However, this will take a while to arrive, their estimate is 12 business days from purchase date. It’s like the anti-Prime 🙂

This is part of their latest Featured Sale which expires 3/7/16. The items won’t disappear after that, but the discount will end.

March 5, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With:

Staples reduces Rewards benefits once again (this time Free Shipping benefit)

This should come as a surprise to no one, since the 3-to-1 long-winded consolidation of the three major office supply chains began. Slowly but steadily all three of them are chipping away at their Rewards and Rebate programs, slowly but steadily perhaps hoping to fly under the regulator’s attention. The latest reduction in benefits is that Staples Rewards members no longer get unconditional free shipping. Starting on Monday March 7 in 2016, free shipping will only be on orders of $14.99 or higher (with the usual exclusions of supersized items). Alternately you can do free store pickup (assuming the item is or can be made available nearby).

This is a partial screenshot of the email they sent earlier in the week informing of this benefit reduction:

staples_reducing_free_shipping_Benefits

March 5, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: ,

21.5″ Dell SE2216H Monitor (HDMI, VGA) for $90

With the increasing volume of tablets, phones, laptops, and 2-in-1s in the market, having a computer monitor with HDMI input is almost a must have if you don’t need for a very specific device or task. And with many computers having VGA outputs, that’s still a useful input to have, again, unless you have a specific setup.

So what I’m trying to say is, if you are going to buy a monitor, it’s a good idea to have both HDMI and VGA. This is one factor to consider when shopping around, and an advantage versus VGA-only or DVI-only or HDMI-only monitors.

Which brings us to Staples, they are offering the 21.5″ Dell SE2216H Monitor with HDMI and VGA inputs for $90. This is featured in their circular ad, so the offer is good until the end of day on Saturday 3/12/16, unless they sell out before that.

This is a 1920 x 1080 monitor, with built-in basic speakers (3W each), and a one year warranty. The last picture over there in the vertical gallery shows where the connectors go. It averages 4.9 out of 5 based on 19 customer reviews over there at Staples. Note that the reviews at Amazon are pooled together from a number of different screen sizes. Here are the reviews for this particular model, a total of 22 of them.

CAUTION: note that the Amazon reviews say it doesn’t have speakers, but they are listed in the Staples product specs. I don’t have the monitor, so I can’t verify either way!

March 5, 2016 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: ,

Free PreRelease Animated Movie on Google Play: BLING

This is a bit strange, but for a limited time, Google Play is offering for FREE a pre-release movie. That’s right, the movie hasn’t come out in the theaters yet, but you can digitally own it for $0.00 on Google Play. This is an 81-minute animated movie called “Bling”.

It’s certainly one way to generated buzz about the movie, or perhaps apologize why Taylor Kitsch and Tom Green are voice-starring in it [meow!].

March 3, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: ,

Buy K-Cup Coffee Pod Sampler for $10, Get $10 to spend on Future Coffee Purchase

UPDATE 7/27/16: this one has not come back yet, but there a couple of others in-stock at the moment, Dog Food and Crest Dental, see them all at the Sample Boxes pages…

UPDATE 5/17/16: the K-Cup promotion is still unavailable, however, Amazon has just launched a similar promotion with a $10 Protein Bar Sampler box. I just placed an order for that and will have more details after it arrives…

UPDATE 4/25/16: as of this check, this item is not available for purchase, so the promotion is in hibernation until it returns back in-stock. The offer is good until 10/31/16, so there’s plenty of time for new supplies to arrive. I have no inside knowledge, so its return is definitely in YMMV territory…

ORIGINAL POST
If you use coffee machines that take coffee pods, and you drink caffeinated coffee, Amazon has a nice promotion. You pay $10 and you receive a sampler of Coffee Pods. You will receive a minimum of ten, but quite a few people are receiving a dozen. Free shipping for Prime members.

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March 3, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With:

50% off a single Movie Rental on Google Play

Google Play has a lot of good promotions running at the moment. If you like to rent movies, especially new releases, this promotion is a good way to get one for a more reasonable price. Pay attention to the slideshows of the various offers inside the Google Play store, whether you are using an Android device or a Web Browser. This is how the promotion teaser looks:

googleplay_rental_offer2

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March 3, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With:

Prime Pantry Credit returns to Amazon Shopping Cart Slow Shipping Options

IF you are an Amazon Prime member, and you make a purchase, and you are willing to take the slow shipping option (instead of the 2-day shipping), you may get a $6 Prime Pantry credit instead of the usual $1 eBooks/digital-content credit. This appears in the shopping cart automatically. It partially depends on the items and the price in your shopping cart, so you may not get it. It may or may not be targeted.

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March 2, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With:

March 2016 Kindle First Options Look More Promising (Free for Prime members: 1 out of 6)

March 2016 is here, so if you are an Amazon Prime member, it means you can get another pre-release e-book for FREE! You have six pre-release ebooks to pick from. You get to read that one right now. The rest of the books will be available to everyone on April 1st in 2016. Many of these eventually make it to Kindle Unlimited as well, so that’s another thing to consider.

If none of them speaks to you right away, just give them a week or two. More and more people will read them and publish reviews, and you can use the reviews to better help you make a pick. It is a use it or lose it monthly freebie, so you lose nothing by picking a 50-50 ebook versus picking nothing.

So here we go, the choices for March 2016 are:

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March 1, 2016 Filed Under: media Tagged With: ,