So if you are a savvy credit card rewards optimizer, you know that different credit card have different promotions for select categories. You can get as much as 5% on things like groceries, gas, drugstore, restaurant, seasonal and other purchases. That's pretty much documented.
What is perhaps flying under the radar is the world of 1% earnings. Most of the cashback credit cards offer 1% on all categories that do not earn a bonus. In most cases 1% gets you 1:1 in rewards, sometimes less if a reward point is worth less than 1c.
What distinguishes Chase Freedom from the rest is that their rewards program has a special bonus on the cashback reward. If you are patient enough (or spend a lot) and accumulate $200 in cash rewards, you will instead receive a $250 reward. That's an extra $50. That is 25% more ($50/$200). That means that your 1% purchases are actually earning 1.25%. And that's why Chase beats the other 1% programs.
Be sure to check with your rewards program details to make sure you are enrolled in this particular version of the program. We do not know if there are multiple variations or everybody is signed up to the same program.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Why the Chase Freedom Cash back beats the other 1% cards for 1% purchases
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Chase Freedom Blink $10 reward just for using the card!
If you have a Chase Freedom card with Blink, check your latest snail mail! Chase has a special promotion where they encourage people to use the Blink feature of their card. The Blink is the "wireless swipe" of the card using the chip on the card.
The promotion in the mail says that if you have three or more Blink transactions from now until June 2008, you will receive an additional $10 cashback bonus or 1000 points, depending on whether you are setup for cash or rewards. You can always switch between the two so it's not an issue.
The good news is that there are no spending requirements, just use the card three or more times at a place that takes Blink, like 711, Jack in the Box, Arby's, etc. Not all locations may be participating, so check with your local stores to see. You can also find a list of participating locations by zip code at ChaseBlink.com. Please note that their website uses Flash.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Money Saving websites!
We have ran into a couple of websites that have some great ideasl on how to save you money!
We start with Frugal Dad whose mission is to help people spend less and enjoy life more! That's right, spending does not equate happiness! You can get started by reading their top ten posts.
You can get many great ideas and discover new money-saving sites and blogs at Money Hackers. Just like Life Hacker, this is all white-hat stuff :-)
And if you have a Providian/Washington Mutual credit card, look through your snail mail letters. They do have a promotion where you get an extra 3% cash-back on ALL purchases. This is unconditional, so you can use it to pay anything and get a total of 4% cash back. This is a limit time offer and has a $30 reward cap, which means you have to spend $1000 to get the maximum $30 reward. Ideal perhaps if you are planning to make a tax payment :)
Monday, April 14, 2008
31c Scoop Night at Baskin Robbins!
Baskin Robbins is having a special 31c Scoop Night promotion on Wednesday
April 30, 2008, between 5pm and 10pm. Small ice cream scoops will be reduced to 31c per during this special promotional period.
Baskin Robbins is doing this to raise awareness for the Fallen Firefighters foundation, and will donate $100,000. Also be sure to check with your local Baskin Robbins, as some of them may also be accepting donations to this very worthy cause.
For more details, be sure to visit the Baskin Robbins web site. Do they have 31 flavors of their website or just one? :)
Walgreens coupon for 15% off order of $50 or more on Taxday!
Walgreens has a new special for Tuesday, April 15, 2008, aka Tax Day! Simply enter coupon code DAY2SAVE when you place your online orders, and voila, you save 15% if your order is $50 or more! A way to "enjoy" tax day, especially if you are not getting a refund!
Walgreens also has a free 4x6 digital prints special, and on top of that there are more free stuff available this week at Walgreens, Rite Aid, Staples, and Longs Drugs. Be sure to check our weekly freebies post for all the details!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
New Discover Cashback Bonus More Card special in the Sunday paper
A new Discover Cashback bonus More card offer is included in the Sunday paper, more specifically in the coupon book section, on the back page of the SmartSource coupon booklet.
This new offer promises a $75 Discover Cashback Bonus if you make $500 worth of purchases within three months of being approved for the new card. That is great news, because it's like an affective 15% reward bonus on $500 of purchases. Where else can you get that kind of a bonus? :) The invitation code is DAMV.
You also have a 3.9% APR special that lasts until 2012 (twenty twelve) on balance transfers, and you earn 5% cashback bonus on select categories that change every three months. Be sure to note however that these 5% earnings are capped, you don't get unconditional 5% earnings in each quarter.
You do get unconditional 5% to 20% off your online purchases when you make them from the Discover Card website shopping portal. The percentages are usually higher on smaller, boutique type of shops, and lower on mass market retailers. As you can expect.
For all other purchases you receive the miserable up to 1% cashback bonus from Discover. Miserable because you start at 0.25%. That is really sad. Really. In a world where Citi is offering 5% and Chase 3% (effective 3.75% if you earn $200 in cash rewards and get the $250 bonus), and just about every other cash card starts at 1%, Discover insists on starting at 0.25%. Be sure to read the fineprint on this one as it gets twisted on what counts and what doesn't. You do "graduate" to 0.50% and 0.75% and 1% eventually though.
Free stuff in the Sunday Paper Ads (after rebate of course)
Welcome to another edition of the Sunday Paper Freebies! In today's episode we have drugstores and Staples freebies! We start with the latter.
Freebies at Staples
Staples uses Easy Rebates, which are the most consumer friendly rebates out there, as you don't need to mail or photography anything. You simply enter numbers from your receipt on the Staples rebates website and thus you submit your rebates!
The freebies are Pentel retractable assorted highlighters or permanent markers. You can chose one or the other. The highlighters are a four-pack of orange, yellow, pink and blue. The permanent markets are blue, black and red. The SKU codes are 698067 for the highlighters and 698057 for the permanent markers. Both are of the retractable variety, working like a pen in that you click it for the writing tip to come out of the shell. The SKU numbers are helpful so you can easily match the offer to the product display at Staples. And you don't need to rely on a CSR to match the offer with the rebate!
Also free, after a $140 mail-in rebate (not Easy Rebate), is the Peachtree Pro Accounting 2008 software package, by Sage. Limit one per customer. You still have to pay sales tax on the whole amount however. Be sure to check the box or the Staples website for more details.
Free after rebate at the drugstores
Longs Drugs is offering the Refresh Dry Eye Trial Pack free after a mail-in rebate using their Longs Rebate Catalog. You assemble all your rebates for the month, and mail them all together in one envelope. The price before rebate is $5, which is what you pay in-store. Plus any applicable taxes of course :)
At Walgreens, free after a on-box rebate (not a Walgreens Easy Saver Catalog rebate) is the Accu-Check Aviva blood glucose meter system. Limit one per person. The rebate amount is $20, which is what you pay in-store. Remember the rebate for this item is on/in the box, not the Walgreens rebate book!
Meanwhile Rite Aid has three items that are free after rebate. Rite aid rebates can be submitted online, which spares you the trouble of making photocopies and mailing stuff at the Post Office! Not to mention that you know within 3-4 days whether your entry was approved. Which gives you plenty of time to fix it or return the item if you accidentally got the wrong one. The three Rite Aid freebies (after rebate) are:
Free after manufacturers coupon
Rite Aid is offering the Adidas Action 3 antiperspirant/deodorant, 2.6 to 2.8 oz, for $4.99. And if you dig into the coupon section of your sunday paper you will find a coupon for $4.99 off this item. So if you use your coupon at Rite Aid, you will get this item for free. No rebates to mail, this is free after coupon!
Totally Free: 15 prints at Walgreens (on Tax Day!)
As an extra incentive to get your taxes done early, Walgreens is offering 15 free 4x6 prints on Tuesday April 15, 2008. This is unconditional, no rebates, no other purchases. You do have to present a coupon which you can find in the weekly Walgreens circular which is in your Sunday paper, but also in each Walgreens store. You will also receive it via email if you are in the Walgreens mailing list. And you can probably print it from their website as well. It's FREE :) The prints of course are 4x6 digital prints, don't expect to get 15 giant posters for free :)
You can also do this online, promotion code TAXDAY. For online stuff, you can redirect them to your local Walgreens shop or you can get them by mail, which I assume will have the additional cost of shipping and handling.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Best Buy Reward Zone: 100 bonus points and faster online delivery!
If you are a member of Best Buy's free Reward Zone rewards program, check your email inbox! They have a new promotion where you can sign up for online delivery of your rewards certificates. Best Buy promises that they will be delivered two weeks earlier with online delivery, and as an incentive for signing up and saving them the costs of printing and mailing, they will give you 100 bonus points.
100 bonus points are not a whole lot in the Best Buy Rewards Zone program, but getting your rewards two weeks earlier sounds like a good idea, especially if you are a regular Best Buy shopper that loads up on rewards points and wants to spend it yesterday :)
Monday, April 7, 2008
One roll of film developed free at Walgreens (Wednesday)
Walgreens is continuing with the free theme this week. As you may recall, last week they offered a free ink cartridge refill. This week, they are offering free development of one roll of film on Wednesday April 9, 2008.
As with before, the coupon is available for free in the Walgreens circular which you can find in your sunday paper, in your local Walgreens store, and also in your email inbox if you are subscribed to the Walgreens emails.
The offer applies to 35m film, APS film and one-time use cameras. Limit one roll per customer! This is free one-hour development even, so it's not like you have to wait forever to get it.
Be sure to check the Walgreens site to find participating stores in your region.
No purchase is necessarily, they are using this as a ploy to get people through the door. With digital cameras being more and more popular, and places developing film fewer and fewer, we are guessing they are trying to capitalize on that.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Coupon $10 off $50+ purchase at Sears for Citi Cards members
Citi Cards members check your statements! There is a coupon in the statement, part of the statement, that gets you a $10 discount off your purchase of $50 or more at Sears! The coupon is valid until May 31st, 2008, so that gives you plenty of time.
You do have to use a Citi Card to pay for your purchase in order to use the coupon! But of course as with most coupons, it is not an unconditional $10 off $50, there are excluded items from this offer. For example, you can't buy gift cards, which makes sense since they won't move any merchandise, but instead they would be giving you an extra $10 in hand.
Actually the list of excluded items is long, here it is. The offer is not valid on the following:
And now if there's anything left in-store you want to buy, you can use your coupon! :-) The terms state one coupon per purchase, and cannot be used in combination with another coupon. If you have multiple Citi credit cards that participate in this promotion you should be able to use them in separate purchases since the terms do not mention "one per person" but rather "one per purchase".
Thursday, April 3, 2008
New Borders Rewards members coupon and specials
If you are a member of the Borders Rewards membership program, be sure to check your emails as there is a new coupon posted! The printable coupon offers offers 20% off the list price of one item. The coupon is good only if you have a Borders Rewards membership card.
The good news is that the membership is free, and you can get one online or you can get one in mere seconds at any Borders store! It's free! And we like free in this blog :)
However, the 20% off coupon is not unconditional, so be sure to read the fineprint. You can also use it at Borders Express and Waldenbooks.
Also don't forget that April 2nd through 8th is Educator Savings week, and there will be a special reception on April 4, 2008. That would be tomorrow, Friday, from 4pm to 8pm local time. More details on the Educator Savings at this special events page at Borders. There you can find participating stores in the promotion.
In addition to the Borders Rewards program, they have also launched an online rewards program, Borders Perks which gets you online savings. This is independent of the bookstore business.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Free stuff in the Sunday paper (free after coupon or rebate!)
We all like free, free is good! And this is a good week of freebies in the Sunday paper of March 30, 2008.
We already mentioned the free after coupon special at Walgreens, free cartridge refill today only (Wednesday April 2nd), with a coupon. The coupon is easy to find, it's in the Walgreens weekly circular which can be found in the Sunday paper and in the stores. You can also print the coupon from your Walgreens email specials email, and you can probably find it on their website as well! The value of a black ink refill is $10 and color is $15. There are no prerequisites for this deal, no purchase necessary. They do have a list of printer cartridges that are compatible however, so be sure to check if your printer is in the list.
Two nice FAR Staples Delta Elite pens
Next up we have a nice two-pack of black pens at Staples, free after easy rebate. Easy Rebates can be submitted online, and you don't need to mail anything! The pens are the Staples Delta Elite black pens, retractable, and refillable with Parker-style refills. Limit one per customer. We checked yesterday at our local Staples and they still had some in store. This is Staples SKU number 492989. These are nice pens! And the Staples rebates are fairly fast and reliable!
Six FAR items at Walgreens
Meanwhile at Walgreens, we have six free after-rebate EasySaver catalog specials. We start with what you can eat: a free bar of SoyJoy 1.06oz), free after a $1.39 rebate. These are nice compact nutrition bar, but they are a bit dry and cardboard-y but eating them with a cup of water helps bring out the taste :)
Then at Walgreens we have your choice of Aquafresh Extreme Clean Polishing Action (5.6oz) or Advanced 2X Whitening (6oz), free after the rebate of $3.49. And if you need a toothbrush, after a rebate of $3.99 you can get the Colgate 360 Clean or Deep Clean toothbrush.
Next up, we have Turns Quik Pak (24 pack, Berry Fusion), after a rebate of $4.49. Yum for the tummy when it needs some help? :)
For the cosmetics buffs on a budget out there, the Jane Be Pure Mineral Brush or Kabuki brush is offered, the price before rebate is $4.99.
And last but not least, you can get the Wal-Zyr 24 hour allergy relief (5ct, 10mg), value of $3.99.
If you are not familiar with the Walgreens Easy Saver Catalog, you submit all your rebates together at the end of each month, in one envelope, and there is no need to send UPC codes. You do need to send the original receipts and circle all the rebate items. For all the details, be sure to check the Walgreens Easy Saver Catalog site.
FAR at Rite Aid
RiteAid's rebates are even better than Walgreens in terms of submission. You can submit them online, entering numbers from the receipt, with no need to mail anything in! That is really nice. Then at the end of each month you request your total rebate amonut for the month. More details at Rite Aid Rebate Plus.
This week's FAR special includes the brand "Certain Dri Feet" for free after a $4 rebate. You have a choice of Powder (1.25oz) or Pads (74ct). Limit one rebate per person.
Meanwhile a double $2.50 single check rebate is offered for Lifestyles (12ct) or Excite gel (0.5oz). Limit one rebate!
And more FARs at Rite Aid! Your choice of Neutrogena Triple Moisture Shampoo or Conditioner or Serum. The rebate is $3, but it is doubled, so it becomes free after rebate!
PS> Not free, but of interest to Tom Of Maine fanatics, you can any two items (mouthwash, toothpaste or deodorant) for $5 after a $1 Single Check Rebate.
RiteAid free after on-package mail-in rebates
These are traditional individual mail-in rebates, you have to send individually, by snail-mail and such, may have to send upc codes as well. The rebates are on the package, they are not in the RiteAid catalog.
The items? Accu-Check Aviva blood glucose meter ($20 MIR), Ascensa Contour blood glucose monitoring sytem ($10 MIR), OneTouch Ultra 2 glucose monitor ($30 MIR), and Freestyle Freedom Lite monitor ($30 MIR). MIR of course being the mail-in rebate.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Free Printer Cartridge refill on April 2nd at Walgreens!
Fans of free, we have some good news for you! Walgreens has been sending emails to the people in their mailing list for a free printer cartridge refill special on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008. Check your emails if you are subscribed to Walgreens specials, or check their website for more details.
The refills are available for the following brands only, Dell, Lexmark, Okidata, HP, Xerox, Sharp and Primera. As you can see it is a pretty nice list as it includes some of the most popular manufacturers, but obviously not all of them as Canon, Brother, and Epson are not on the list. To see the complete list of compatible printers, be sure to check the Walgreens Printer List.
You can print the coupon online but you can also find it in the weekly Walgreens circular ad which can be found in your Sunday paper, but also in your local Walgreens store! Check the Walgreens site to find participating stores in the promotion.
The coupon is located on page #5 of the ad, and the special is only good for Wednesday April 2nd (In Hawaii, the special is valid on Monday April 7). You don't have to buy anything to get this freebie! The promotion goes all throughout the day, obviously during the hours that the store is open. Some are open 24 hours, others are open for fewer hours.
The value of this freebie is $10 for a black refill and $15 for a color ink refill, but on that very day you are getting it for free. It is probably Walgreens way of introducing this service to the world and getting repeat customers. A risky perhaps strategy since many people like FREE :)
The terms on the coupon state one refill per person per household, and other restrictions and such may apply.
Discover the Sweet Taste of Gevalia
If you like your coffee to fill up your room with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, take a look at the following Gevalia offer. Not only do you get some really nice coffee to get you hooked, but you also receive a nice coffee machine for free. As you can see from the picture below, this is not just a generic coffee machine, it's a feature packed programmable appliance, to fill up your room and your palate with the aroma of real coffee!
The lovely coffee machine is yours to keep regardless, and so is the coffee! If you do like what you get, you can set up a recurring delivery program. If not, you can simply cancel online, or by phone or by mail. For all the details, be sure to check the link right below!
They do have all sorts of coffee varieties, from traditional strong coffee roasts, to lighter and flavored coffees (oh my?), along with decaf for those who are over-caffeinated or are trying to avoid too much caffeine.
