An unexpected free gift card - Bing Rewards

So I should start off by mentioning that this post isn't directly related to the typical miles and points.
It does fall under the Cash category though, and at least for blogging purchases, "Cash" is my middle name.

I don't specifically remember signing up for Bing search rewards, but I happened to notice recently that whenever the Bing search page would load, I would see my name along with a number that was a little bit higher each time I saw it.  I finally clicked on this and found out that I had apparently been earning bing.com rewards points for some time.

I had enough points for $10 worth of gift cards.  I redeemed the points for two $5 Tango Cards which were e-mailed to me within a couple of days. From what I can see so far, this deal is probably good for around one $5 gift card per month.

I don't actually go to the bing.com page to do my web searches, my default search engine setting in Internet Explorer is Bing, so I'm really earning these points without doing anything different from how I would normally browse the internet.  It may not amount to much but it's free, and if nothing else it will cover a few coffee runs at the airport Starbucks.

  If you're interested in signing up for Bing rewards, You can check it out at my link HERE.

Plastic Jungle - $20 Bonus through 1-19-2013

Plastic Jungle is currently offering a $20 discount off a future purchase of discounted giftcards

It appears that this offer is combinable with TopCashBack for an additional 2.5%.  I'm not a big fan of TopCashBack compared to other cash-back shopping sites, but they are the only one with a link for Plastic Jungle, so in this case they'll get my business.

This is a pretty good offer on it's own if you happen to have a couple of gift cards that you need to liquidate.  It can be an even better offer if you recently used your AmEx Platinum $200 airline reimbursement to pick up a couple of American Airlines gift cards.   It just so happens that I did this just last week, so I have $200 worth of AA giftcards that I've got no immediate plans for.  I'll get $160 cash for the gift cards, $4 from TopCashBack (hopefully) and $20 towards a future giftcard purchase.  In this case I value the cash now over the airline giftcards to use at a later date, so sometime today I'll be taking advantage of the offer.


If you're interested in learning more about Points, Cash, & Miles, consider following by email or just bookmarking the page - I'll be here with new material 2-3 times a week, possibly more if there happens to be anything I find really exciting in the world of points and miles.

It's Back! – 15% back at Priority Club Hotels with MrRebates.com

Mr. Rebates is advertising IHG Hotels as their "Store of the Week" and offering 15% cash back

This is 2 1/2 times their normal cash back rate.  I took advantage of this deal the last time it was offered for a hotel stay I had in September and found it to be an excellent deal.




What is Mr. Rebates?
Mr. Rebates is a shopping portal which provides cash back on purchases at select merchants.  Many of the major online retailers are partners with www.mrrebates.com and I tend to use them as my go to shopping portal as I find their cash back rates to be some of the best available.  They give you a $5.00 sign up bonus after your first purchase through their site and they do offer referral credits, so if you do choose to sign up I'd be appreciative if you'd use one of my links– if prompted for a referral email address, just use pointscashmiles@yahoo.com.

Mr. Rebates Link

Don’t leave Cash on the Table – 15% back at Priority Club Hotels with MrRebates.com

I'm not sure how long this sale is going to be running but I believe this is close to 3x the usual cashback amount for IHG hotels.
 

 


I’ve used other cash back sites over the years, including Big Crumbs, ebates, and TopCashBack.  I started with BigCrumbs, added ebates.com when some sites weren’t available on BigCrumbs and then eventually moved away from those sites as Mr. Rebates seemed to have a better selection of retailers and the best payouts.  TopCashBack does frequently offer slightly higher rebate percentages than Mr. Rebates but I've sometimes had problems with the transactions showing up in my account and getting credit.  I've never had any problems of the sort with Mr Rebates which is part of the reason they are my go to cash back portal.


What is Mr. Rebates?
Mr. Rebates is a shopping portal which provides cash back on purchases at select merchants.  Many of the major online retailers are partners with www.mrrebates.com and I tend to use them as my go to shopping portal as I find their cash back rates to be some of the best available.  They give you a $7.50 sign up bonus after your first purchase through their site and they do offer referal credits, so if you do choose to sign up I'd be appreciative if you'd use one of my links– if prompted for a referral email address, just use pointscashmiles@yahoo.com.

Mr. Rebates Link

Gift Card Sale at Chase Ultimate Rewards

Chase is currently running a promotion where you can redeem points for select Gift Cards at either a 10% or 20% discount depending on the brand.  It's scheduled to run through the end of September so there's no real rush, just an interesting redemtion alternative to consider.

Keep in mind that I'm not necessarily recommending redeeming in this way, I'm fully aware that transfering the ultimate rewards points to airline or hotel programs can provide a better value but this still works out to 1.25c per point (on the Lands End and Gap GCs) and could be very handy if you need something and are short on cash.  Land's End GCs are redeemable at Sears, and I would certainly consider redeeming for them if I was low on cash and needed something like an appliance or a new grill. Similarly, if I needed to do back to school shoping I would consider the Gap giftcards as they can be used at Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and their outlet stores.

I won't personally be taking advantage of this offer, largely because I'm not in the market for anything from these particular stores right now but also partially because I redeemed most of my Ultimate Rewards points earlier this year for roughly $1800 worth of Southwest Airlines flights.  I mention this because, I full well knew that I could get more "value" by redeeming for high end hyatt hotels or business class international flights, but these weren't things I needed.  I needed (or I should say wanted since I could have chosen not to travel) 6 Southwest Airlines tickets and couldn't or at least didn't want to spend the cash on them. 

My point here is simple; Always consider the best value for you when making redemptions and keep in mind this can change over time.  This year, my best value for UR points was Southwest flights, next year it could be first class international tickets or it could be giftcards.

Fandango Free Movie Fridays - Visa Signature Promotion

OK, so you might have to have a Visa Signature credit card and it's not really free... but it is Buy One Get One Free which is still pretty good in my book.  I haven't used the offer yet but plan to use it either tonight or next Friday.

The Details:

• Only valid on Fridays
• www.fandango.com/visasignature
• you pay for the first ticket (and convenience fee) and the second is free at checkout.
• Through August 17th
• You can use the offer once per card if you have multiple Visa Signature cards.

This isn't by any means an original find, it's actually an offer that's been running pretty much all summer, I think I first saw it a couple of months ago over on the MommyPoints blog at Boarding Area.  I didn't write about it back then but wanted to mention it now that I'm taking advantage of the offer.

Slightly Off-Topic - One of my favorite Travel Snacks

I eat pretty much constantly; I'm always snacking on something.  Add in the fact that I'm cheap and I (generally) try to eat fairly healthy which means that when I travel, I need to pack my own snacks.

Just saw that Amazon Local is offering a deal on one of my favorite travel snacks today - dried fruit from Peeled Snacks

$15 for a $35 voucher

It's dried fruit that comes in individual serving pouches.  It's lightweight and easily slides into your carry-on bag and provides a healthier option than the snacks I seem to usually go for in the airport.  I find it to be a bit pricey so I'm always looking for a coupon code when it's time to order more.

The variety offered by peeled was what surprised me the most, I've found dried cherries and apricots without added sugar before but I'd never even seen dried pineapple that wasn't candied.

My favorites are the Pineapple, the banana, and the mango.  I wasn't a big fan of the apples as they are rather chewy and I prefer Apple Chips.  There's no sugar added to the fruit which keeps it low calorie and it's organic if you're into that stuff (I don't really care either way it just tastes good).

PointsCashMiles.com Giveaway - United Red Carpet Club / CO Presidents Club one day pass

EDIT: 04-16-2012:  I apparently over estimated the either the amount of readers for the blog or the interest in a lounge pass that expires next month.  We'll extend this to Next Sunday Apr. 22nd to see if there are any takers.

I was just going through my travel folder and realized I have a United Red Carpet Club / CO Presidents Club one day Pass that expires May 26th.  I'm not going to be able to use it so I figured we might as well give it away to a reader.  If you're interested, just comment to the post and I'll randomly pick a winner out of all the entries we have between now and 12:00am Sunday Apr. 15th.  To be fair, I'd appreciate no more than one entry per person, per day.

This may not be the most exciting giveaway, but I want to make sure the pass gets used.
There will certainly be more giveaways to come, and I promise some of them will be more exciting.

Goodluck!