Archives for February 2017

Get 150 Bonus Stars IF you purchase three qualifying food items (SBUX Rewards)

The Bonus Stars offers are picking up the pace again at Starbucks. This new promotion (that requires manual activation) can get you 150 bonus stars if you purchase three specific items between February 28 and March 6 in 2017 (seven days promotional period). If you regularly eat breakfast or lunch at Starbucks, this is easy to get you. All you need to get is:

  • one breakfast sandwich
  • one salad
  • one bistro box
  • any item from each category is eligible but make sure you are clear what qualifies for each group (eg breakfast versus lunch sandwiches)

You will only earn 150 bonus stars from this promotion even if you buy multiples of each category during this promotional period. The bonus stars will load up on your account by 3/13/17, but these days they are pretty good about loading them very quickly. It increases confidence in the accuracy of the Rewards program when things are done quickly and efficiently 🙂

February 28, 2017 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,

20oz Contigo Byron Stainless Steel Travel Mug for $9.34

Travel cups are all the rage these days! And sales too! The 20oz Contigo Byron Stainless Steel Travel Mug in the Gunmetal color scheme is currently on sale for $9.34 with free shipping for Prime members (or with a $35+ order) at Amazon by Amazon actual. Here’s how it looks:

This is a SnapSeal model, so it has its own rather unique way of dealing with the lid. Here’s a picture showing how to use it. The stickers are on the actual product. They don’t want to risk people returning it because they can’t guess how to use it 🙂 [this is a good thing, it’s better to over-explain than not explain!]

This is not the only model on sale. Peruse the different options at Amazon. For example, this Vivacious red goes for $10. If you want a slightly larger capacity, the 24oz “Stormy Weather” (some kind of a metallic blue?) goes for $11.12.

CUP STRATEGY

It’s a good thing they stuck to the standard coffee house sizes, 16oz is the Starbucks Grande after all 🙂 Another benefit is that some coffee houses, big and small, give you a small discount if you bring your own cup. So this will pay for itself. For example, Starbucks and Peets give you 10c off per purchase. So this will pay for itself in around 100 purchases 🙂

TIP: if you switch between coffee and tea or other delicate beverages, it is a good idea to have two. Use one for coffee, and another for tea. Coffee can overwhelm the flavor. And while stainless steel does not “drink” the drink like other material, coffee can find its way in the tiniest of nooks and crannies of a cup and lid.

TIP #2: if you want to have your own unique color combination, buy two different colors and switch the lids. So you can have a blue body with a red lid, and a red body with a blue lid 🙂

February 28, 2017 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With:

PlayStation 4 Slim 500GB Console – Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Legacy Bundle for $249 (limit 2)

And now we have a little something for gamers! Amazon has another Playstation bundle on sale! The PlayStation 4 Slim 500GB Console – Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Legacy Bundle is currently on sale for $249 with free shipping, with a limit of two bundles per customer at Amazon by Amazon actual. This ships in 2-4 weeks, so if you need to get it right away, practice patience 🙂 The bundle is ready to go, you just add the yellow “add to cart” button and go – you don’t have to assemble it on your own.

February 26, 2017 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: , ,

T-Mobile Tuesday freebies for 2/28: free eBook, discounts at Travelocity, Movies, Papa Johns (plus 1/4th get free pizza)

T-Mobile Tuesdays end the month with a mix of freebies and coupons. For February 28 in 2017, current T-Mobile customers will receive:

  • one freebie (an ebook from a choice of ten at BookShout; not as good as it sounds – you can only read it using the BookShout apps or website)
  • two coupons: $30 off at Travelocity, 25% off at Papa Johns Pizza
  • discounted movie ticket: $4 but you can use it all week, not just Tuesady

In addition to the above, about 1/4th of T-Mobile Customers (or T-Mobile lines – I don’t know if they do this by line or customer, neither of my lines got free pizza so far) will receive a free large Papa John’s Pizza.

February 24, 2017 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

30 Kindle ebooks for $2 each with coupon

If you are fond of reading e-books but don’t want to break the bank on them, we have good news for you! A new coupon offer! Coupon code READFEB17 gets you any number of these thirty Kindle e-books for $2 each. You only enter the coupon code once in your account. You can buy one, or buy them all. The offer expires 2/28/17.

Four of the thirty are in Prime Reading, so if you are a Prime member, you can check them out and start reading beyond the Kindle sample to see whether it’s something you would be actually interesting in completing.

Happy reading 🙂

February 22, 2017 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , ,

After 2PM Starbucks Rewards Challenge Returns (YMMV)

The “After 2pm local time” promotion is back at Starbucks Rewards. This is a YMMV offer, and you have to manually join in the offer before it starts tracking. Look for the right button to press in your email or in the official Starbucks app.

Like before, you have to make 4 or 6 purchases after 2pm local time between February 21-27 in 2017 at their stores. They need to be separate transactions, not separate days. If you do four of those, you get 50 Bonus stars, but if you do six or more, you get 100 bonus stars. This is a one time use promotion, so whether you have six purchases or one thousand purchases, you will only get 100 bonus stars – during this promotional period.

February 21, 2017 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,

T-Mobile Tuesdays for 2/21/17: Movie Rental, Discounts, and some get Free PIZZA

The freebies for the 2/21/17 T-Mobile Tuesdays are not as good as the Valentine’s bundle of last week. It looks like T-Mo is saving some of the best freebies for special holidays and events 🙂 The freebies for this week including another FandangoNOW movie rental (single movie, price up to $5) and two coupons, 25c off per gallon of gas at Shell (great for anyone who already refills at Shell; meh for everybody else), and 25% off a Papa John’s pizza.

But the best deal is the free pizza, which is going to be available roughly to 1/4th of the T-Mobile customers each week until March 7th. T-Mobile is rotating the customers who get this freebie (check the Tuesdays official app every Tuesday), to prevent what happened a few months ago when Domino’s pizza stores got overwhelmed with hungry Tuesday guests.

February 19, 2017 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

Azio EX01 USB Gaming Mouse for $7 with free S&H

If you like budget gaming mice with free shipping, the red color scheme (it’s mostly black, the buttons and scroll-wheel are red) of the Azio EX01 USB Gaming Mouse is on sale for $7 with free shipping by ANTonline through amazon.com. This ships directly from ANTonline, so everyone gets free shipping. However, it is not Prime eligible.

It is a compromise based on the customer reviews, it averages 3.9 out of 5 based on 60+ of them, but it’s also selling for 1/3rd to 1/4th of its usual price.

February 12, 2017 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: , ,

LG G Stylo 2 (Boost Mobile) for $50 with free S&H

If you are looking for a Wifi-only smartphone with a basic built-in stylus, this is a pretty, pretty, pretty good deal for $50 with free shipping! It is the LG Stylo 2 for Boost Mobile sold for a limited time at this price by Best Buy on eBay. Limit one per customer. Free store pickup is also an option where possible.

I have the Virgin Mobile USA version of this. I haven’t finished writing the review yet, but at $50, this is a slam dunk buy. So far I posted the Unboxing (text and pictures only; no annoying video), along with a walk-through how to deal with activation pestering.

Here’s what you get in the Virgin Mobile kit:

This is a no-contract phone, but it is locked to the carrier it comes from.

February 12, 2017 Filed Under: android, smartphones Tagged With: , , , ,

T-Mobile Freebies for 2/14/17 include Free Socks, Movie Rental, Lyft and Pizza coupons (and 1/4th will get a FREE PIZZA)

UPDATE 2/14/17: here they are! The store I went to was well stocked and was not busy, so if you are worried about crowds – don’t – go and grab the freebies 🙂 There are two color options, the black-white-red (below) and a white-red-black.

T-Mobile has planned one of their best freebie Tuesdays for Valentine’s Day, February 14 in 2017. There is a brand new freebie, a pair of T-Mobile branded Valentine-themed socks you can pick up at your local T-Mobile store. This is the second time they are doing an offer of this type, they had previously offered gloves and beanie hats. Both stores I checked had plenty of stock, and socks are less of a “sexy” freebie than hats and gloves. The offer is one per line, but some stores may only give one freebie (one freebie is _two_ socks) per person, so you may want to visit more than one store if you have two personal lines.

From there on, we have two returning offers, a free movie rental (up to $5 in value) at FandangoNOW. The $5 amount can only be used towards one rental. You can’t use it to rent five 99c movies. If the movie rental amount is more than $5, you have to pay the different out of your own offer.

The other two offers are the usual Lyft ride coupon (up to $15 per ride), and a new 25% off coupon at Papa John’s pizza.

1/4th of the Customers get FREE PIZZA

The above offers are available to all eligible customers. In addition to that, about 1/4th of T-Mobile customers (or Lines to be more specific) will be getting a free large Papa John’s pizza with online order and carryout. The offer will run for four weeks, with 1/4th of customers getting the freebie each week. The Tuesdays app will tell you whether it’s your turn. More details on our explainer post.

February 11, 2017 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: ,

T-Mobile Tuesdays add a new twist: Free Papa John’s Carryout Pizza within the next four weeks

UPDATE 3/4/17: It turns out the Papa John’s locations near me are closed, so I can’t do this promotion. But I took the screenshots for you. When it’s your turn, you will have an extra block in your Tuesday freebies announcing that it’s your turn. This is per line, so be sure to check all your lines!

As you can see in the screenshots below, you have the whole seven days to redeem this, you don’t have to rush on Tuesday like the crazy old Domino’s offer when the Tuesdays program launched.

Here is a close-up of the terms and conditions and nuances. Unfortunately I can’t do this offer, so I have no further insight:

UPDATE 2/28/17: it looks like the FREE Pizza is randomly offered on a per line basis, not a per account basis. One of my two lines got a free pizza, the other one didn’t. I will update with screenshots and details after I redeem the offer later on. The other nice thing about the free pizza is that you can redeem it throughout the week, in this case until 3/6/17. So by doing this, they are avoiding the chaos that befell Domino’s when every single T-Mobile customer got a free pizza on a single day. With this approach, it is spread out over 28 days.

Very smart move ~ because if it works well for all parties, they will do more. Domino’s got scared out of it and stopped doing it.

ORIGINAL POST

T-Mobile has a new twist in their Tuesday freebies. Instead of everybody getting the freebie on the same date, T-Mobile customers will be randomly split into four groups. For the next four Tuesdays (February 14, 21, 28 and March 7), about 1/4th each week will get a free Papa Johns pizza. You have to check the app every Tuesday to see which one is your Tuesday.

The freebie is pretty good, a large one-topping or pan pizza, with online carryout and online order placement. I am assuming this freebie is one per line, and if so, you may want to check all your T-Mobile lines if you have more than one line in your account.

This is the first time they split the offer in four, so we are in new territory. This is however a good idea, because the previous times they tried a pizza promotion (with Domino’s), the pizza company complained they were getting overwhelmed by hungry T-Mobile customers. So hopefully the 4-part split will make things easier for all parties involved (easier for us to get the freebies too!).

February 11, 2017 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: , ,

20% off back in Plenti points with $25 Netflix Gift Card

Cordcutters, unite and take over! For the shopping week of Sunday February 12 until the close of business on Saturday February 18 (2017), at Rite Aid brick and mortar stores, you get 20% back in Plenti points when you purchase a $25 prepaid Netflix gift card. That’s 500 points, which have $5 buying power in future purchases at Rite Aid and other participating Plenti merchants. The promotion is limit two for the shopping week (as usual).

Given that Netflix is rarely discounted, this is pretty, pretty, pretty good! Plenti is free to join, and you can always spend your points on Exxon-Mobil gas if you don’t need anything else from the other participating merchants.

Just remember that Plenti points don’t roll, so don’t use points to buy items that qualify for new Plenti points. Use them on everything else 🙂

February 9, 2017 Filed Under: media Tagged With: , , , ,

Buy $50+ in select Gift Cards, Get $10 off your next grocery purchase at Lucky’s

There is a very nice gift promotion at Lucky’s stores until 2/14/17 (yes, a Valentine’s Seasonal promotion). If you buy $50 or more from a list of eligible gift cards, which include Starbucks, Best Buy, Macy’s and Kohls), the cash register will print a coupon at checkout that gets you $10 off your next grocery purchase at Lucky’s stores. So you will pay full price for the gift cards. The list of eligible ones can be seen in the screenshot below:

You can get to $50 with any combination, one card from one retailer, multiple cards from the same retailer, or multiple cards from multiple retailers. If you plan to buy $100 or more, you may want to buy them in two separate transactions, so you can get two $10 off coupons.

“Next purchase” means you can turn around after buying the gift cards and start shopping groceries to spend the $10 coupon right away. You don’t have to come back at a later day. Even if you don’t need/want to buy anyone else a gift card, you can use these yourself. For example, you can load the Starbucks card into the app, and it will spend itself in Cascara Lattes and the like 🙂

February 8, 2017 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

Octavia Butler’s Parable Book series on sale for 25c per ebook

Reading is fun-da-mental! If you want to explore some of the critically-acclaimed science fiction / speculative fiction, a two-book series called “Parable” by Octavia E. Butler is on sale for the Kindle for 25c (yes, that’s $0.25) per ebook. Or you can buy them both together for $0.50 (it saves you an extra click). They are about 800 pages total. Book #1 is the “Parable of the Sower”, and book #2 is “Parable of the Talents”. Both ebooks average 4.4 out of 5 with a combined total of over 600 customer reviews.

February 8, 2017 Filed Under: media Tagged With: ,

12pk Health Warrior Protein Bars for $13

They are more famous currently for their small Chia bars, but they have also added to their line-up with the bigger “Health Warrior” bars. These are closer to the standard protein bar size range, with more nutrition to with them (10g protein). And the “Dark Chocolate Cococut and Sea Salt” flavor is currently on sale for just a bit over $13 for the 12-pack at amazon.com. Or if you fond of “Subscribe and Save”, you can get it for an additional discount. This is currently the lowest price of the flavors, and in my opinion, the better tasting 🙂

February 7, 2017 Filed Under: foods Tagged With: ,