Social media something-or-other site Bckstgr.com is offering new users up to 1,000 United MileagePlus miles for registering and linking your Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts. 400 miles for sign-up, 200 miles for each link. You have to provide your United frequent flier number and PIN, but as you can see on this United.com page, the partnership is legit. Came in handy for me, as United miles expire after 18 months of inactivity. Screenshot below:
Back again, quantities limited . Amazon is running a Facebook promotion with a $5 off $25 purchase credit if you connect a Facebook account and share about it (can just share with yourself and/or delete link afterward). You must spend $25 in one transaction, and the promotional expires 11:59 PM PST on Sunday 11/9/12. The promotional credit may only be applied to products “Ships and sold by Amazon.com” and may not be applied to digital downloads or gift card purchases.
Looking for a self-gifting idea? Consider the OBi110 VoIP bridge which lets you replace your monthly landline bill with Google Voice and NO monthly bills, which is now only $40.99 with free shipping = Under $36 with this coupon.
American Express Gift Cards are a popular option for those last-minute or difficult holiday gifts. Here are the highlights:
The standard drawback is that these cards usually have two separate fees: a $3.95 purchase fee and a $5.95 standard or $8.95 expedited shipping fee.
EXPIRED. Until 11:59 PM EST on Sunday 12/4/2016, you can get $0 purchase fee and free expedited shipping with promotion code CYBER16.
Some people also use these gift cards for meeting credit card spending hurdles as you can buy them with any major credit card (AmEx, Visa, Mastercard, or Discover card).
The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN is an upscale-oriented charge card for small businesses where you must pay off the balance each month, but you get the famous AMEX perks like purchase price protection, extended product return protection, and AMEX extended warranty. Here are the highlights:
Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have had a Business Gold Rewards or any other Business Gold, Green or Platinum Card® account within the last 12 months.
Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. Why? Because any individual can be a small business as well. The business type is called a sole proprietorship. Perhaps you sell items on eBay, Craiglist, or Etsy. Maybe you do some freelancing and/or consulting. If you earned more than $600 from a single client, you probably got a 1099-MISC tax form and filled out a Schedule C. Boom! You have business income, you’re paying self-employment taxes (meaning you’re an employer), and you’re a sole proprietorship. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.
Specifically, this card will require you to personally guarantee that you’ll pay them back what you charge on the card, which means they’ll check your personal credit score like any other consumer card. However, the card itself is a business card so it won’t show up on your personal credit report, so it won’t change things like your credit limits, average account age, or credit utilization ratio.
I acknowledge that the spending requirement amounts to a little over $1.500 per month, which can be tough. Here are some tips readers have suggested. You can try to buy AMEX gift cards to help spread out the purchases over time, buy gas or grocery or Costco gift cards, prepay utility bills or insurance premiums, use the personal version of Amazon Webpay to pay others or send money to family/spouse/friends with no fee ($1,000 per month max), load money on American Express Serve with no fee ($25 bonus, $100 max load per day, $250/500 month max), and I’ve even bought some Forever postage stamps to put me over the top.
As usual, compare this card with other current $500+ credit card bonuses that you can also apply for.
Here is another American Express Sync promotion if you sync your AmEx card with your Xbox LIVE Gamertag on Xbox 360. Visit AmeXbox.com to register. At the very minimum, you’ll get $10 for registering your card at AmeXbox.com, with more lucrative opportunities if you have Halo 4. As with other American Express promotions like Small Business Saturday, I assume you can get $10 for each card you own including authorized user cards, if you have multiple Gamertags. I don’t have an Xbox, but reader Nic helpfully sent me the e-mail text below.
American Express and Xbox are bringing you a new way to save. From now until December 31st, Cardmembers can sync an eligible American Express® Card with their Xbox LIVE Gamertag to unlock exclusive content, offers, and more.
• Spend $10 at AMC Theatres®, get $5 back
• Spend $50 at PacSun®, get $25 back
• Get a $10 statement credit from American ExpressCardmembers who sync their Cards with Xbox LIVE and play the newly released “Halo 4” will also be able to unlock additional offers by reaching specified in-game achievements. These include:
• Spend $100 at Best Buy®, get $50 back
• Get a $25 statement credit from American Express
I’ve already written about the Ink Plus® Business Card (review) previously – which has a great 60,000 point bonus worth $725 towards any travel, good Ultimate Rewards structure and redemption options, and the first year annual fee is waived. If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred that’s nearing the end of the first year and you don’t want to renew, you can just open up an Ink card and transfer your Ultimate Rewards points balance over instantly for free. You can even transfer points between spousal (or anyone’s) accounts for free, so it’s easy to keep the balance alive.
An added Ink card benefit on top of all that, buried in the benefits details, is a mention of “complimentary airport lounge access”:
Complimentary airport lounge access to over 350 VIP lounges worldwide. Lounge amenities include internet access, complimentary snacks and beverages, phone, fax, conference rooms and more. ($150 comparable value)*
How exactly do I get this free lounge access? Once you get your Chase Ink Bold or Ink Plus card, you must go to loungeclub.com/inkcard and enter an invitation code which should be mailed to you with your card details. Otherwise, simply call the number on the back of your card and they’ll tell you. (It’s not very creative.) You’ll sign up with your personal info and card number.
Next, Lounge Club will send you a package with your personalized membership card, welcome letter, and informational brochure. You’ll need to present the physical card at the airport lounges to gain access, but you can find a directory of all the available lounges at either LoungeClub.com or via their iPhone/Android smartphone app.
Last year, we debated how much money do LED Christmas lights really save?, where I suggested that since the electricity savings were on the order of $1 per year per 100-light strand, it wasn’t really worth throwing away perfectly good incandescent lights if you had them already.
Well, this year Home Depot is having a Christmas light trade-In promotion where you can get between $3 and $5 off a box of LED lights for every string of old lights you give them to recycle (working or not). You can get up to 5 coupons per customer, promo ends 11/14. The cheapest lights that can be found online are about $8.50 for 50-lights, or $5.50 after coupon. The GE-branded lights (~$20 for 100 lights) are slightly more expensive but easier to compare prices, and based on a quick scan the prices are competitive so that after the coupon you should be ahead.
Throw in the fact that the price differential has narrowed, and this may be a good opportunity to recycle your old lights and upgrade to energy-efficient LEDs. Fine print below.
Updated with new 5% off code. CouponTrade.com is another marketplace for unused gift cards. You can buy gift cards from other individuals at a discount from face value, or you can sell your gift cards (partial balances okay) at a price that you name and get cash instead.
The main difference between CouponTrade and other gift card sites like PlasticJungle is that at CouponTrade the seller sets their own price as opposed to fixed pricing. Therefore, you have a chance at selling at a higher price than competitors, or buying at a lower price. For example, at times sellers will curiously list at full value, turns out in the hopes that someone has a coupon code that CouponTrade will honor on their end.
Buying fees details. There are no fees for the buyer, just pay the listed price and get free shipping. Sometimes you’ll find a great deal, other times the prices are too high, and finally many times there will be no stock at all. After the holidays, activity should pick up. Here are currently active coupon codes:
Selling fees details. If your gift card does not sell, you won’t be charged anything. If your gift card does sell, the standard fees are a flat 10% commission plus a listing fee of $1.75 for a physical gift card and $0.99 for an electronic e-gift card sale. You can choose to get paid via check, Amazon gift certificate, or Paypal. Current promo codes:
Looking for where to enter your promo code at CouponTrade? Here are some sample screenshots:
Target recently announced a new “Holiday Price Match” policy that will let you price-match with select online stores between November 1st and December 16, 2012. Full details are to be released on October 22 at target.com/morereasons, but for now the qualifying retailers will include Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com and Toysrus.com. Target is even offering free WiFi now in all stores to aid your price-matching activities. (Target press release)
Combine this with their REDcard credit/debit cards that offer 5% off everything at Target and Target.com, and things may actually end up cheaper at your brick-and-mortar Target than online. Sales taxes are another variable. (Does your state charge sales tax? Does Amazon charge sales tax in your state now?) Also consider if you want to provide your gift recipient the ability for easy in-store returns. An interesting stat taken from this WSJ article:
A recent survey by brokerage house William Blair & Co. found that on average Target’s prices were about 14% higher than Amazon’s, Best Buy’s were 16% higher and Wal-Mart’s prices were 9% higher. The comparison included shipping costs for Amazon, but not sales taxes.
This follows similar announcements by Best Buy and Toys R Us, although each have their fine print. I don’t think I’ve been inside either a Best Buy or TRU in years.
Amazon.com and Mastercard are currently running a promotion that gets you an additional 10% off the first shipment of select “Subscribe & Save” items with promotional code MSTRCRD1. This is on top of the standard 5% off all Subscribe and Save items (including future shipments) and also the Amazon Mom 20% off discount on baby items. Must pay with Mastercard. Expires October 31st, 2012. Now extended through November 30, 2012.
Eligible items include food, baby, household, pharmacy, and nutritional supplements. If you only want it once, you can still just sign-up, get your 15% off, and then cancel the subscription with a few clicks after the order ships. Or, just wait and Amazon will e-mail you before the next shipment goes out. I forget the exact time period, but you get at least a day or two, enough that I usually just wait for the e-mail to cancel.
Things that I buy with S&S… Tasty Bite Punjab Eggplant and other hard-to-find ethnic foods (also cheaper than local), Diapers (appear to be excluded from this promo), Pamper’s Baby Wipes (net cost 1.8 cents each).
Updated. American Express has a product called Serve – a combination of their prepaid credit card and a Paypal-like online payment service. No credit checks, no monthly fees, and one free ATM withdrawal per month (the ATM itself may charge a fee).
The current live promotion is a $25 account credit on any single $25+ load, valid through December 31st, 2012. Basically a free $25 if you’re new, you could just transfer it back into a bank account, use it to buy an Amazon gift card, or just do a split transaction on a larger purchase (put $50 on the Serve card, and the rest on another credit card).
You can load funds from a bank account for free, and Serve is also waiving credit card and debit card load fees until March 15, 2013 but it warns you that your card issuer may still classify it as a cash advance. Last I checked, the limits on credit card loading were $100 per day, up to a cumulative $250 to $500 per month. May be handy for meeting spending requirements on credit card bonuses, especially if you have access to a fee-free ATM. I used this tactic on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card earlier and it worked as a purchase.
Mobile payments are hot, and start-up LevelUp let’s you pay by scanning a QR code from your smartphone that is linked to your existing credit or debit card. You know what that means… venture capital spent on customer acquisition! New users can get a free $5 credit by signing up through a referral link or with code JL8U06. The referrer also gets $5, but only if the user spends $5 on their own credit card. Nice detail: The app lets you use your camera to grab your credit card number instead of typing it in.
In addition to the referral bonus, you’ll also get a few bucks of free starter credit at each of thousands of participating merchants (mostly restaurants). For example, in San Francisco you can get $1 a Adam’s Grub Truck, $2 at Slider Shack and Quiznos, and $4 at Asa Sushi. In New York City you can get $2 for Big D’s Grub Truck. Neat feature to encourage trying out a new place. There are also loyalty promos, for example you may get $5 after spending $50 at a store over time. They seem to have many major metro areas covered, but there are holes.
Overall, another mobile payment app based on the idea that whipping out a credit card is just too much trouble. I do think there will be a big winner in this arena, but competitor Square is already moving towards the concept of leaving both your wallet and phone in your pocket entirely and essentially paying by saying your name once your phone is nearby. One interesting feature is that they offer zero merchant fees for businesses, which sounds great but I’m not quite sure how they pull that off. In the meantime, I like checking out new startups and will enjoy my free lunch.
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