Archives for July 2016

July 31 – August 6: Buy $25 Google Play Gift Card, Get 600 Plenti Points

This is the best Google Play gift card deal as far as I can recall. To get it, you have to be a member of the Plenti Rewards program (free to join) and be near a Rite Aid store when the offer is running. So here’s how it goes…

For the shopping week of Sunday July 31 until the close of business on Saturday August 6 in 2016, at Rite Aid brick and mortar stores, if you are a Plenti rewards member and buy a $25 plastic Google Play Gift Card, you will receive 600 Plenti points on your account. These are the equivalent of $6 in future purchases at Rite Aid or Exxon-Mobil gas stations or Macy’s or other participating retailers. You can’t convert the points to cash, but the have the equivalent spending power. If you do the math, that’s a 24% off effective-discount assuming you’ll have no problem spending the Plenti points.

Better yet, this is a “limit 2” promotion for the whole week, so you can get two $25 gift cards and score 1200 in Plenti points.

$25 off first AmazonFresh order with coupon

If you have never placed an AmazonFresh order before, but you are willing to start a free trial, they have a coupon promotion to entice you, coupon 25FRESHOFFER gets you $25 off the total of your first order. This only includes products from AmazonFresh, not from third-party sellers or gift cards. This must be purchased in one order and limit of one coupon per customer. The promotion is good until 9/30/16.

More details on the offer at the Promotional page.

TL;DR: AmazonFresh is a more expensive version of Prime. It includes the standard Prime along with the grocery door delivery service. This should not be confused with PrimePantry which is part of the regular Prime membership but has a $6 flat delivery fee. And then there’s Subscribe And Save, which is not part of Prime, and everyone can use. And the oldest of all, buying groceries at Amazon like any other item. Deconfused or did I make it worse? 🙂

YMMV AMEX Offers: 5000 Membership Points on $299+ at Dell

If you have an American Express credit card that has Membership Points rewards (not the AMEX Blue that has cashback rewards), check your offers. You may be eligible for a new Dell offer as you can see in the screenshot below (View Larger):

dell_amex

If you spend $299+ at Dell.com by September 12 in 2016, you will receive 5,000 Membership points, which you can redeem for a $50 gift card at a number of national retailers and restaurants (those that offer 1:1 points to pennies exchange). Based on the text of the offer, you don’t have to make the $299+ purchase in a single transaction, so it can be cumulative. So you don’t have to do it with a PC purchase, it could be random accessories purchased over time.

Before all that happens, you have to add the offer to your card. This is easy, all you have to do is press the “Add to Card” button.

IMPORTANT: even though the offer expires 9/12/16, it doesn’t mean the sign-up will be offered in your account until then. If you think you are going to use it, you must “Add to Card” now. They often have a limited time of sign-ups, so the offer may no longer be available for sign-ups long before it expires.

July 28 – August 7: Bonus Stars on packaged coffee and VIA Refreshers

Things got quiet with the special offers during the transition from spring to summer at the Starbucks Rewards, but they are back now with a new promotion, emailed to Rewards members. Note that I have no way of knowing what percentage of participants are receiving this email offer.

This is an automatic offer, you don’t have to opt-in or use coupon codes. It just happens if you are invited to participate and purchase the qualifying items during the promotional period as shown below:

sbux_packaged_rewards2

This offer, running July 28 to August 7 in 2016 focuses on prepackaged coffee and refreshers. The more you buy, the more bonus stars you get. If you buy three of them, you earn 150 Bonus Stars, which are the point-equivalent of 1.2 actual rewards, not bad, considering a reward can be redeem for items costing $6+. If you buy two of them, you get 75 points, not bad. If you only buy one, you just get a miserable 25 points 🙂

This offer can only be used once per account, it won’t roll around if you buy more than four during the promotional period. The bonus stars should appear in your account by 8/17/16 if all is well.

Per the email, their definition of packaged coffee is: “Whole Bean, Ground, Starbucks VIA Instant Beverage, K–Cup packs and Verismo pods”.

Dog Food Sample Box with $10 credit (Prime only!)

Hooray dog lovers or if you want to donate dog food to a local shelter or volunteers who take care or foster dogs! If you are an Amazon Prime member, Amazon has now launched a Dog Food Sample Box.

The deal is the same as before. You pay $10 for the sample box. It arrives with a minimum of seven different foods and treats. One week after the order ships, Amazon will send you an email that a $10 credit has been added to your Amazon account. After that happens, you can use the $10 credit to purchase any combination of the 250+ eligible items. You can split the $10 credit among multiple items and multiple orders, or it can go towards a more expensive item. It happens automatically, it’s the first thing that gets deducted from the total before your gift cards and credit cards are billed.

dogfood_sample_box

Even though these are for Prime members, they only ship with one speed, standard shipping. You cannot change this to 2-day Prime shipping and you cannot change it to slower shipping to get shipping credits. In practice, how fast it gets to you depends on how close you are to the warehouses that have them in stock 🙂

As usual, there is no stated expiration date on the offer, this is good until they run out of them. If you haven’t done this before, there are a few other Sample Boxes running. You can also check our write-ups on the previous offers.

LG G Stylo 2 Android phone for $100 (Boost Mobile)

The first generation LG G Stylo was a bit of a disappointment, so LG upped the specs and the OS version with the second generation, aptly named “LG Stylo 2” (hey, at least they got the name right!). As the name suggests, its claim to fame from a bushel full of entry to mid range phones is the built-in stylus. It has more usable specs than the first generation, with 2GB RAM, Snapdragon 410, and Android 6.0 out of the box. It has a 5.7-inch IPS 720p display, along with 16GB on-board storage and microSD slot.

This is however locked to Boost Mobile, so if you are planning to use it as an actual phone, you are stuck with them. Later on you may be able to use it on other Sprint-affiliated networks, but don’t count on it. On the other hand if you are planning to use it as a Wifi-only device, eg as a general purpose “household remote” and “bedtime phone” type of a device, then you don’t need to worry about the cellular aspects.

By “bedtime phone” I mean you can use this at night, and save the battery life of your day-phone. I’m sure I’m not the only one who does not feel comfortable sleeping with a phone connected to live electricity throughout the night 🙂

All that brings us to the sale, it is currently going for $100 with free shipping, in new condition, by ShopCells, with the order fulfilled by Amazon (so it is Prime eligible) or from the same seller but through eBay (over 370 units sold so far).

PS: if enough people are interested, I can get this and review it. I have a lot of balance on my prepaid account, so I can get it through that. Let me know if the comments if you are interested in seeing a detailed review of this critter 🙂

T-Mobile Tuesday August 2 freebie is Suicide Squad tickets [updated]

UPDATE: they have now updated the page/app with the full teaser for Tuesday 8/2/16, it is (as I speculated) headlined by Suicide Squad movie tickets. We also have the return of the small Wendy’s frosty (remember this one has to be redeemed in-store within a 2-minute window as you are placing the order). The other two offers are returning from last week, 1-year of Pokemon data, and $15 Lyft ride credit. Here’s the screenshot:

tmobile_tuesday_august2c

The original post is below…

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Good News: Office Depot Bonus Rewards arriving very quickly

The merger of the Office Depot and Office Max rewards programs was bad news for consumers as the merged reward program was more like the Office Depot than the Office Max rewards program. So gone is the option to roll rewards.

However, we have some good news on a different front, Office Depot appears to be releasing the Bonus Rewards a lot faster than before! They had a Paper Ream 1c after Rewards offer running between July 10-16 in 2016, and already the rewards for this promotion are in the Rewards account! I just checked today (7/26/16) but it may have been there earlier! This is a screenshot, but I cut out the certificate number and PIN for obvious reasons 🙂

maxperks_arrive_fast

PRO TIP: you can send these certificates as PDF files to your e-book reader. Because it’s an e-ink screen, their cash registers can scan their bar codes, even if the cash registers are unable to read smartphone screens.

[DEAD] 4pk of small 50ml Tea Cups for $7 (Prime eligible)

This sale ended, as of 8/2/16 the price jumped to $11…

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[DEAD] July 29-31: 2X Lucky Rewards members, free Tote bar

This weekend promotion expired…

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[DEAD] July 29-31: 50 Bonus Stars with Frap and Bakery Item together (Must Activate First!)

This 3-day only promotion expired…

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T-Mobile Tuesday Freebies for July 26: Lyft credit, HotelTonight coupon, 1yr Conde Nast Traveler (digital), and …Pokemon Go

The time is almost upon us once again MagentaHeads! A new Tuesday is upon us, and the teasers at the T-Mobile Tuesdays app reveal the freebies for July 26 in 2016. You can see them in the screenshot below, and in text form after that:

tmobile_tuesday_july26

The Pokemon promotion returns in case you missed it last week, or forgot to add it to all your T-Mobile lines. With this offer, which you just have to claim through the app or website (no other action needed), you get free Pokemon Go data until August 2017. This offer is not stackable, if you already claimed it last week, it won’t add any additional time since it has a specific expiration date, 8/31/17.

Lyft returns again with another ride credit up to $15, while the other two offers are brand new. You get a 1-year digital subscription to Conde Nast’s Traveler magazine (these are claimed through the publisher and can be viewed using various newsstand app (eg Google Play Magazines)). Last and probably least, you get a $30 off at Hotel Tonight which sounds more like a coupon-ad than an actual freebie. We give you hard truths here 🙂

What’s missing? No more free frosties at Wendy’s and no more $5.50 credits at Vudu 🙁 The offers that got pre-empted last week for Pokemon Go that includes a free T-Mo t-shirt are not part of this week either.

Still good: FREE 57oz of Red Diamond Tea for Luckys Rewards

If you are a Lucky (the grocery store chain) Rewards member, their free bottled tea promotion has been extended until Tuesday 7/29/16. If it’s not already in your Luckys Rewards account, you have to first manually add it by clicking on the red button in the email informing of this promotion. Partial screenshot below:

luckys_diamondtea

This is a 57oz container you can find in the refrigerator or their regular bottled tea area. There are three different options, so pay attention when picking it up. There is an Unsweeted option that has no sweetener of any kind. There’s the sweetened one with sugar, and the Sugar-Free one whose name is slightly misleading, it has artificial sweeteners. So make sure you read the label if you have a strong preference on which one you like to drink or avoid.

PS: speaking of Lucky’s, for a limited time, you get a free bottle of Coconut Water (I forgot which brand), when you purchase one of their personal size watermelon. There’s a sign in the store next to the watermelons with the promotions and the coconut water. If you don’t spot it immediately, circle the watermelon area, it may be hiding in a blind spot 🙂

Prime Day $10 Promo Code good for Prime Pantry as well

Good news bargain hunters! If you participated in the Prime Day Amazon Gift Card promotion (you got a $10 promotional credit if you purchased a $50+ Amazon Gift Card), you can use that promotional credit at PrimePantry as well, not just for regular Amazon.com purchases. Here’s the evidence in my shopping cart (screenshot below):

primepantry_eligible_for_primeday_promocode

Not only that, but it is also stackable with the July free shipping coupon PANTRYJUL, as long as you buy five items from the Free Shipping List. You don’t have to buy five different items, you can buy five of the same item, or any combination. As long as the item is on the list.

PS: I don’t have any active PrimePantry slow-shipping credits, so I don’t know if that’s stackable as well.

100pk Twinings Earl Grey Tea Bags for $8 [Prime Pantry]

If you are planning to place a Prime Pantry order and like Earl Grey tea in the tea bag form, we have good news for you, the 100pk of Twinings is currently going for $8 exactly through Prime Pantry with a limit of 30 per customer. One 100-pack is almost 2% of the whole Prime Pantry box, so you can stock up for a whole zipcode if you like 🙂 This currently averages 4.6 out of 5 based on 440+ customer reviews.