Archives for September 2016

Android Pay Offer: $5 off $10+ Yelp Eat24 Orders

Android Pay is running a new promotion until October 15 in 2016, you get $5 off orders of $10 or more using the Yelp Eat 24 app. This is for orders placed via the app, not an in-store/in-restaurant promotion. An email with the details got sent out to people signed up for offers via email, here’s a screenshot of the important part:

androidpay_yelp_eat24

The offer can be used multiple times during this time period, however, they have an “anti flooding” mechanism in place, if you place more than one order within one hour, they may temporarily suspend your payment method. I guess to prevent a digital variation of ordering 100 pizzas?

September 30, 2016 Filed Under: foods Tagged With:

Duracell Battery Rewards return at Office Depot/Max October 2-8 in 2016

Battery party time! If you are a fan of doing the Duracell batteries 1-Cent Rewards offers at Office Depot and Max stores, rejoice! The promotion is coming back October 2-8 in 2016 at their brick and mortar stores according to the Weekly Ad for that particular week shown on their website.

omx_duracell_october_2016

The offer has the usual terms, limit two for this week, you can get a 16-pack of single use Duracell AA or AAA batteries. You can do any combination to get to the limit of two (one of each, or two of AA or two of AAA). Remember, DO NOT Pay for these with Rewards – you will not receive any rewards for amounts paid with rewards. The old days of the rolling Office Max rewards are over. Office Depot (ODP) never had rolling rewards and the new reward program is mostly the ODP one.

To be 100% safe, check the printed Weekly Ad, and make sure it says that these Rewards will be sent to you separately from the regular monthly rewards. These has two benefits:

  • you will receive the full $13.98 amount if they are sent separately
  • they arrive faster than the regular rewards these days

What I mean by the full amount is this: with the new Office Depot-Max rewards, you only get monthly rewards in multiples of $10. Everything else rolls over on a quarterly basis and then you lose it. So unless you are an over-the-top OCD planner, you can never get your full rewards. I’m surprised none of the State Attorney Generals launched an investigation in this very sneaky practice. On the other hand, rewards that arrive separately get you the full amount.

September 30, 2016 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: , ,

October 2-8 (2016): $15 back on $300+ Mastercard Gift Cards at Staples

The offer is back at Staples for the week of October 2-8 in 2016 at their brick and mortar stores. Buy $300+ of Mastercard gift cards, and receive a $15 Staples Gift Card via Easy Rebate (in about 4-6 weeks). You can submit the rebate online, you don’t have to mail anything in. All you need is your cash register receipt (online or printed, as long as it has the offer ID and the transaction ID which are needed to process the online rebate).

staples_mastercard_gift_cards-_oct2016

The strategy is the same whether they offer a $20 or $15 gift card back. You need to get to the $300 amount with two or one gift cards. Since $300+ gift cards are unicorns (for the most part), you’d have to get there with two of them, eg $200 and $100. The activation fees make it very close, $7 for the $200 and $6 for the $100, so you are squeezing a $2 profit on a $300 investment. It’s a 0.64% return on investment with a one-month vesting period, so it beats checking and savings accounts 🙂

This becomes a better deal if you have a credit card that gives you cashback rewards on office supplies that are higher than your everyday purchases. So for example if you have the Chase Ink that gets you 5% on office supplies, you can buy the Mastercards with these offer, and then use them to purchase items that get you 1% cashback rewards. So just like that, you earned $12 in cashback rewards with this offer (4% of $300), in addition to the $2 “profit” 🙂

September 29, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , , ,

Heads Up: Starbucks Double Stars Day in first week of October

This is a heads-up alert if you are a regular Starbucks shopper. Time flies, and a “Double Stars” day is almost upon us! Pay attention to the emails you receive from Starbucks (or messages/notifications in their mobile apps) to find out when your specific Double Stars day is going to be.

According to the email teaser they just sent (partial screenshot below):

sbux_double_stars_october_2016

… this will happen next week, meaning the week of October 2-8 in 2016. I think they only do Double Stars on weekdays, so I am guessing most people will get their day between October 3-7 in 2016.

Strategically, this is the time you want to buy the more expensive items. And by that I don’t just mean coffee machines. This is great if you buy coffee mugs/cups, and bags of coffee beans or boxes of teas or K-Cups. With Double Stars, you earn a reward for every $31.25 you spent. With normal stars, you earn a reward every $62.50 you spend.

September 29, 2016 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,

National Coffee Day Special: Free Shipping at Peets (without minimum)

Today (September 29) is National Coffee Day and various coffee shops (but not Starbucks) are offering specials to celebrate the day. Peet’s Coffee (now owned by a couple of German billionaires, no longer the hippies in Berkeley) is offering free shipping on their website with no minimum order required. This is a good opportunity to pick up an accessory you need, or coffees and teas that would not normally qualify for free shipping.

No coupon code is needed, the free shipping is factored in on their website. One good place to start is their Sales page currently featuring 11 items, but expect that to dwindle as more people wake up to the news of free shipping 🙂

This was announced via an early morning email to their subscriber list. Partial screenshot of that below:

peets_national_coffee_day_free_shipping

UPDATE: here’s another good pick, city-based coffee mugs for $6 with free shipping (during 9/29/16).

September 29, 2016 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,

$10 Video Credit with 2016 Fire Stick activation by 10/31/16

If you are interested in getting a Chromecast-style “media stick”, Amazon just launched their 2016 edition of The Fire Stick and if you purchase and activate it by 10/31/16, you will receive a $10 Amazon Video credit which you can use in their store to purchase or rent movies and TV shows. This offer is on the Fire TV stick with the Alexa Voice Remote. You must not only purchase this, but also activate it in order to get the credit.

In addition to the $10 store credit, you also get two free trials IF you have never been a customer of Hulu and SlingTV. You get 2-months of the “Hulu With Ads” subscription (their euphemism PR name is “limited commercials”), and 1-month of Sling TV.

To see the details click on the banner mentioning the promotion there. It pops up, it does not open in a new window…

firestick_offer

The store credit cannot be used towards monthly subscriptions, only towards purchases of actual movies and shows. This includes Season Passes, and combined with the slow-shipping credits for Prime members, it can get you a TV season at a pretty good price.

September 28, 2016 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: ,

T-Mobile Tuesday Freebies for 9/27/16: 1-Year WIRED, Lyft Ride, Wendy’s Frosty and JackThreads Coupon (Boo!)

Time sure does fly these days. Another Tuesday has arrived, and this means another round of freebies for T-Mobile customers. This round, for September 27 in 2016 is on the so-so front, there are three freebies and one coupon. The coupons are a disturbing trend since they are not really a freebie but a coupon 🙂

tmobile_tuesday_sept27

No Vudu store credit this time, but two regular offers are back, the Lyft ride credit (up to $15), along with the Wendy’s small Frosty. I hope the stores finally figured out how to do the Frostries because every time (except for one) that I tried to use those, I got confused and puzzled cashiers.

The coupon is a 25% off coupon for JackThreads, it’s really more of an advertisement for JackThreads than a freebie for T-Mobile customers. Another way T-Mobile straddles the Un-Carrier and Totally-A-Carrier divide 🙂 Politicians are everywhere these days.

Last but not least, the best offer of this lot is a 1-year digital subscription to WIRED magazine. You have to follow the steps outlined in the promotion. The redemption must happen by 5am ET on Wednesday, but don’t wait until the last minute. Even though it’s a digital subscription, their forms are data-hungry for customer information. Give them as much as you feel comfortable with, eg whatever is necessary for the digital subscription.

September 27, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

Plenti Rewards: 10x Points at Macy’s (4 days left)

If you are participating in the Plenti rewards program, check your account for a new offer from Macy’s, good for the next four days, you get 10X points on your purchase. That’s essentially 10% back on your Macy’s purchase amount (excluding taxes and shipping). You have to first activate the offer by pressing the green button on your Plenti account. Screenshot below for reference:

macys_plenti_10x

PS: if you are not familiar with the Plenti program, check our older introductory post.

September 25, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

12pk Pepsi Cola 1893 Ginger Cola under $10 with coupon

If you are on the Cola Revival bandwagon, there is both a sale and a coupon happening at the moment at Amazon on the 12-pack of Pepsi Cola 1893 Ginger Cola. There is a 20% off Clip-On coupon there, and the coupon is good for one-time purchase and Subscribe-and-Save. As of posting time, the prices are $12 and $11.40 respectively BEFORE the 20% off coupon is factored in. Note that prices can and do change often, so YMMV…

pepsi_cola_ginger

September 24, 2016 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,

LG Stylo 2 for $100 (Boost or Virgin) [no contract]

If you like phones with a built-in stylus but don’t want to pay the Samsung flagship bucks for the Note line, there is a prepaid phone by LG available at a couple of Sprint’s cousins going for $100. It is the LG Stylo 2, a second generation model, going for $100 with free shipping at Amazon in the Virgin Mobile and the Boost Mobile.

NOTE: when reading reviews and price-checking around, make sure you are looking at the second generation model. The first generation model was under-powered and plagued by performance issues. The “2” has more reasonable specs and comes with Marshmallow out of the box. It has a 5.7-inch, 2GB RAM, Snapdragon 410, 16GB on-board plus microSD, etc. 2GB RAM is a good minimum to shoot for as apps, just like the web, get bloated as time goes by.

September 24, 2016 Filed Under: android Tagged With: , , , ,

Starbucks Rewards: 45 Bonus Stars on PrePackaged Coffee/Tea and Cups/Mugs/Merchandise [Beats Double Stars for Items under $22.50]

sbux_bonus_45_prepackaged

Starbucks took a break from “Bonus Star” offers for a few of weeks, but they are back now with another offer. This is an in-store offer but it is focusing on pre-packaged coffee and tea. You earn 45 Bonus Stars (that’s roughly 1/3rd of a Reward) when you buy any pre-packaged coffee or tea product from their brick and mortar stores.

But that’s not all. The bonus also works on cups, tumblers and brewers and other assorted merchandise of that sort. Here’s a screenshot of the part of the email that mentions the “other” items:

sbux_bonus_45_prepackaged2

Perusing further down that email, we find the fine-print that says the offer ends on 9/28/16, you can use this offer as many times as you like during this promotional period. The stars will post to your account within 24 hours of purchase. Pre-packaged food items are NOT eligible, only coffee/tea and merchandise (mugs, etc).

BETTER THAN DOUBLE STARS for ITEMS under $22.50
So this is a good time to stock up on that stuff, this is better than double-stars except for items priced over $22.50. During the double star time of the month, you earn double the usual 2X stars, so a $22.50 item will get you 45 bonus stars during Double Stars. With this offer you get a flat 45 stars. With either offer, you earn the standard 2X stars, so that’s a wash.

September 23, 2016 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,

YMMV 250 Bonus Points with Lucky Rewards Survey

If you are participating in the Lucky’s Rewards program, check your emails. This is mentioned in the email with the weekly freebie that came out earlier on. It gets you 250 Bonus Points if you participate in a brief online survey. The buying power of 250 points is $2.50. The survey is about their Rewards program. The survey promotion expires 9/25/16 but it may end earlier if they get enough responses. Limit one per customer. I will post an update below after I complete mine…

lucky_rewards_survey_bonus

September 23, 2016 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: ,

New iPhone 7s invade Virgin Mobile starting at $550 and $670 respectively

If you are a Virgin Mobile USA fan, and want to get the new iPhone 7s, you may want to “camp” on their website. They have listed the new iPhone 7 models, with prices starting at $550 for the iPhone 7, and $670 for the iPhone 7 Plus. There is a limit of two per customer, and as of posting time, they are both out of stock.

iphone7_virginmobile

The prices above are for the 32GB entry-point models. The rest of the storage-options follow the typically Apple prices, you go +$100 for every storage jump. So the 32GB to 128GB jump (there’s no more 64GB; which should have been the entry-point considering the prices but I’m digressing) is +$100, and the jump from 128GB to 256GB is another +$100. The price jumps are the same for the 7 and 7+.

None of the iPhones (old or new) can be purchased with Virgin Mobile account balance. Neither can the Galaxy S-flagships, but most of the other phones they have can. The “account balance” option is no longer available on their website, so you have to call their toll-free number and order (if you want to use your account balance). This makes sense if you have build up a big account balance.

September 23, 2016 Filed Under: iPhones Tagged With:

Lucky Rewards: Free Chips or Popcorn (Market Essentials Brand)

If you are a member of the Lucky Rewards program, there’s another freebie waiting for you, good until Tuesday night (9/27/16). As usual, first you must add the freebie to your account which is easy to do, simply press the big ole red button in the Lucky’s email that mentions this promotion. You can verify it’s there by going to your Lucky’s Rewards account.

lucky_free_popcorn_or_chips

The freebie is your choice, either Chips or Popcorn, all sizes and varieties available, from the Lucky’s house brand “Market Essentials”. Which is why they are so generous with this offer, since it’s their own 🙂 It is a while-supplies-last promotion, but if they happen to run out, you can try asking for a rain-check.

Once successfully added to your account, it looks like this under the Rewards Dashboard over there:

lucky_free_popcorn_or_chips2

September 21, 2016 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: , ,

[DEAD] Cordcutter Alert: starts Thursday 5:49pm ET, Mediasonic HW130STB sale

This particular limited-time offer expired, but the Mediasonics go on sale on a recurring basis…

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September 21, 2016 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: ,