Archives for June 2017

Pay $40, Get $50 Cold Stone Creamery Gift Card

For a limited time only, coupon code ICECREAM10 gets you $10 off towards the purchase of a $50 Cold Stone Creamery gift card at amazon.com. It is ice cream season after all. The price will drop during the Checkout process, the last step before you actually place the order. If it doesn’t drop by $10, it either means you have not select the correct gift card or amount, OR the promotion expired.

(Unspecified) Mid-price smartphone coming to Project FI

So far, Project FI has been featuring only Nexus and Pixel phones. Of the new condition phones, prices are on the high side with the Pixels and Nexus 6P. For those willing to dig into the used market, more options open up with the Nexus 5X and 6. However, given the uniqueness of the Nexus phones, their price bottom is harder than the typical phone. So a need for something more affordable is mordant 😉

Good news is that responding to a customer’s question on Twitter, Project FI revealed that a new “mid-tier price” smartphone from a “partner” will be coming to Project FI later this year. No further details were given in the tweet, which you can see below…

WE TRY TO GUESS WHICH MID-PRICE PHONE IS COMING TO PROJECT FI
However, we can have some good educated guesses! Because Project FI is a mix of GSM and CDMA (Sprint), this compatible phone will need to be able to support both out of the box. There is only a small number of such phones that can do this at the moment. Since they are mentioned as “mid tier”, my first thought goes to the Motorola Moto G 4th and 5th generation phones. They are readily available and work with all. And there’s a pre-existing “relationship” between Google and Motorola 🙂

But they are not the only option. A number of other phones are using some of Qualcomm’s all-carrier processors, such as the Snapdragon 625. One such phone is the brand new Alcatel Idol 5S which just launched on Amazon. The product description says that CDMA support (Verizon, Sprint) is coming later this year. Which is when this new “mid-tier” phone is coming.

Considering the level of phones Google has made so far, a Moto G4/G5 or Idol 5S is probably as low as Google would go in terms of performance to showcase Android at its best. If they go lower, not as show-case-y.

I am currently doing the Project FI experiment with a Nexus 6. I switched from T-Mobile to P-FI last month with the good old Nexus 6. A review and more on Project FI is coming up. Spoiler alert: not perfect, but so far so good 🙂

T-Mobile Tuesdays freebie for 4th of July is a Redbox Blu-Ray

A little bit on the light side are the 4th of July T-Mobile Tuesdays freebies, perhaps because of the holiday. There is really just one freebie, a 1-day Blu-Ray rental at Redbox. Everything else is a coupon, the usual Shell 25c off per gallon, 25% off at Papa Johns pizza, and the debut of a new offer, you pay $20 for a 1-year subscription of Ever Plus. You also get a free 3-month trial. Still a coupon, not a true freebie 🙂

YMMV (Targeted): 5% back on AT&T Universal card

This offer is a very YMMV, as it appears to be a targeted offer, perhaps to encourage people who are not using their AT&T Universal card as much as their computers think they should be 🙂

If you have received this offer, by email or by mail, it goes like this: you earn 5% as a statement credit on purchase made with the card until 9/30/17. This includes almost all purchases, it is not a quarterly reward type. However, the maximum you can earn through this promotion is a $25 bonus, which means it phases out either at $500+ in purchase or $625+ (if they only count the 4% towards the bonus since you earn 1% anyway with the Universal card).

Excluded are AT&T purchases and similar offers that earn a similar or higher percentage already.

You MUST first activate the offer before you can earn the bonus! Here’s a screenshot of what I received:

Trader Joe deal: Pint of Humboldt Organic Coffee Chip Ice Cream for $2

If you are near a Trader Joe, your local store may have or may be getting this in! An ice cream of hippies! One pint of organic coffee (with chocolate chip) ice cream from Humboldt is in their freezer for $2. That’s right, yummy organic ice cream for just $2. Less than what you pay for a single scoop at most ice cream stores (and the chain stores are not organic).

I just inhaled the whole pint, so I’m typing this on a sugar and coffee high 🙂 The whole pint is 800 calories (four servings of 200 calories). If you eat the whole pint, that’s 12g of protein, 48% cholesterol, just 8% sodium, but 120% saturated fats. The percentages are based on the RDA standard.

By the time I got home, the top edges were melting, making it taste like a frappucino of sorts. As the name suggests, there are chocolate chips inside but they are not hard or big. They won’t slow down the inhaling 🙂

As you may recall, last year Trader Joe had another special buy from the same ice cream company, they had those $3 rectangular (and reusable) tubs in four flavors (but none of them was coffee). Perhaps this one is closer in flavor to their “Mint Chip”, with coffee replacing the mint 🙂

Note that even though this is a very milky ice cream, it also contains some soy (soybean oil and soy lecithin).

Since this is a frozen ice cream, it is safe from the hoards of eBay and Amazon resellers that scoop a lot of things up from Trader Joe stores 🙂

2pk Furrino Bedroom End Tables for $21

And some more furniture shopping to put your Prime membership to work. A set of two Furrino Bedroom end tables, in a dark brown color scheme, are on sale, together for $20.82 total at amazon.com and Prime eligible. Only the dark brown color scheme is currently on sale. The others are either at their regular prices or not available.

The official model number for this is 2-11157DBR and all these colors, together, average 3.4 out of 5 based on over 1000 customer reviews, and have over 40 questions answered as well if you are curious about them.

Free 24oz or 28oz Water Bottle with $60+ Prime Pantry purchase

If you are planning a bigger Prime Pantry purchase by July 7th (2017), then you are in luck! Orders of $60 or more placed through Prime Pantry can get you a FREE Water Bottle with the PrimePantry logo on it. You must manually add the water bottle to your shopping cart along with the rest of your order.

Even better yet, you have multiple options, both in terms of the color of the water bottles and also the material. You can get either a 24oz Stainless Steel option, or a 28oz Aluminum. If you like them well enough, you can buy more, they go for $9 each. Only the first one is free with a qualifying $60+ order 🙂

As you can see, these won’t take up a lot of your Box space. Each bottle is just 1.2% of the box 🙂

The above offer is stackable with the on-going Buy Five Select Items and get FREE Prime Pantry shipping. You don’t have to buy five separate items, any combination, eg five units of one eligible item, works.

One more thing: don’t forget to check whether you have any remaining “Slow Shipping credits”. The shopping cart will automatically apply them anyway, but make sure you place an order before they expire. You can quickly get to your balance by going to amazon.com/norushcredits while you are logged-on to your Amazon account!

24pc Stansport Camping Enamel Tableware Set for $14 (four complete servings)

Whether you are planning an outdoor trip or camping adventure, or want some extras for “indoor camping”, Amazon has a limited time promotion, they are offering the Stansport 24 Piece Enamel Camping Tableware Set for just $13.72 with free shipping for Prime members or with a $35+ order. Limit four bundles per customer during this sale.

This 24-piece set includes four complete sets. Each set has six pieces, a plate, a bowl, a cup, and the big three of flatware ~ the big three being fork, spoon and knife 🙂

The set averages 4.3 out of 5 based on 280+ customer reviews and they have over twenty questions answered. They are only available in the blue color scheme shown at the page above.

NOTE: as of the time of writing, this is restricted to PRIME members ONLY!

2pm to 5pm Local Time: BOGO Iced Espresso Drinks at Starbucks (June 27 – July 2)

There is no coupon, no activation, and no rewards membership required for this offer. It is running automatically at Starbucks stores, between June 27 until the close of business on July 2nd in 2017. Between the hours of 2-5pm local time, they are running a BOGO (Buy One, Get One FREE) on Iced Espresso drinks.

Any combination and sizes work, but you pay for the most expensive one, so in situations like these, it’s a good idea to match the drinks to make the most of your money 🙂 Any ICED drink that includes espresso inside is eligible. You can also ask for decaf instead.

The Heroes of Olympus Paperback Boxed Set for $25

This can make for an ice gift set for kids of all ages, or even as a donation at a local school or church or non-profit. It is a Book Boxed Set, all five books, the The Heroes of Olympus Paperback Boxed Set, going for $24.95 at amazon.com. Free shipping for Prime members. If you are not a Prime member, you need to add a filler item of $0.05 or more to get the $25+ books free shipping promotion.

The price is such that the Kindle ebooks go for $40, while the actual physical paperback books go for less 🙂 The books themselves average 4.8 out of 5 based on almost 300 customer reviews. I haven’t read them as I’m many centuries away from the YA demographic 🙂

FURINNO Low Rise TV Stand for $28

If you have a Prime membership, you don’t have to worry about the shipping fee for these. Some assembly is required obviously, but $28 is what it takes for you to get this FURINNO Low Rise TV Stand available in either Blackwood or Espresso color scheme. This is model 15044.

It has a multi-tier design, giving you some flexibility on what kind of A/V gear it can hold. There’s half a dozen pictures over there at Amazon, and it averages 3.4 out of 5 based on 25 customer reviews.

Pre-order new Alcatel Idol 5S Unlocked for $200 with Prime Lockscreen Offers

If you don’t like contracts, but do not object to seeing ads and sponsored screensavers on your phone, and if you are a Prime member (or do not object to becoming one), you can get an $80 discount on the brand new Alcatel Idol 5S, unlocked and without contractual obligations!

Prime members can get this in the Prime Lockscreen Edition for $200, versus $280 for the standard version. It is the same phone, except for the ads. It is up to you to decide whether a $80 discount is an acceptable trade-off to seeing ads. Check reviews of previous phones Amazon offered in this fashion to see if this is something you can live with.

Certainly $80 is a bigger discount than some of the other phones Amazon offers in this program that range from $30 to $50. Trying to capitalize on the success of the Idol 4S, they pick up a well-received Snapdragon for this model, the 625 Octa-Core, with 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, and a microSD slot that can take up to 512GB cards, which is nice.

You get a 5.2-inch 1080p touchscreen, a very fresh Android 7.1 (compared to the fast majority of other Android phones out there). It supports T-Mobile and AT&T out of the box, and per the description over there, support for Sprint and Verizon is coming later in the summer.

The Snapdragon 625 is used in other “all carrier” phones like the Motorola Moto G5, so it is certainly capable for supporting Sprint and Verizon.

Both the Standard and the Lockscreen Ads versions of the phone are expected to be released on July 10 in 2017. So many phone choices, so little time 🙂

IF you are not a Prime member, but you want to get the discounted version, you’ll have to buy it at full price ($280) but after you become a paid Prime member, in other words after the 30-day free trial ends and you pay for the Prime membership, Amazon will give you an $80 gift card, the difference between the lockscreen and non-lockscreen version. There are some conditions in place to make sure people don’t try to cheat on this, so check the terms/conditions.

[DEAD] 13.3″ ASUS Chromebook C300SA for $150

Oy! I jinxed it. As of late night on 6/27/17, they got sold out. Someone probably post them on a big deal website or something…

[Read more…]

June 27 T-Mobile Tuesday freebies headlined by Vudu store credit and e-cookbook

A more digital than physical theme is here for the Tuesday June 27 (2017) freebies at T-Mobile’s Tuesdays. The two actual freebies are digital, a Vudu movie rental, which in practice is a $5.50 store credit which you can use as you please (buy or rent, movies or TV shows), along with a free e-cookbook, but the ebooks offered through Tuesdays are not DRM-free, you have to use some stupid website that exists for promotional purchases. So you are stuck reading the books on the web or using that company’s apps. You can’t use your own ebook apps or your own e-readers. Needless to say, their technology is maybe 10% that of a Kindle.

The two other offers are coupons. Your pet gets $10 off at Pridebites with free shipping, and you don’t even get a B1G1, but rather a sad “Buy One, Get a Second One for 99c” Sundae at Baskin Robbins ~ just like previous weeks.

Afternoon Dash returns at Starbucks June 27 until July 3rd in 2017

The weather is heating up, and so are the Bonus Stars promotions at Starbucks! A brand new just rolled out by email, and if you had been selected by their Big Computers, you have to first manually “Join the Dash” before you’ll earn the bonus points.

This is yet another variation of the After 2pm (local time) Dash. If you make five purchases after 2pm local time, between June 27 and the close of business on July 3 in 2017, you will get 50 bonus stars, in addition to the regular stars from your purchase. Or if you make seven or more, you’ll earn 100 bonus stars. So two extra purchases double your bonus. In other words, if you reach five, you might as well go the extra mile and reach seven.

You only earn this once, so whether you make seven or 70 purchases during this promotional period, you’ll only earn 100 Bonus Stars 🙂

Don’t forget that today (Monday June 26) is a Surprise Double Stars Day.

Also, if you have a Chase Freedom credit card that participates in the 5% Quarterly 5% Rewards, you may want to hold off reloading your Starbucks account until July 1st, because the July 1 through September 30 quarter includes Restaurants and historically Starbucks had been earning 5% through Chase!