adventures in hotel bookings -- random updates

1) when i was talking about points hound the other day, i had said that it might be a good alternative because the rebates via great canadian rebates and big crumbs weren't reliable for the actual hotel websites. if you wanted hotel chain points and stay credits, you had to book on the actual hotel websites. after completing my stays at various sheraton hotels in march and april, i had yet to receive my 2.1% credit for my stays on either website. frustrated, i booked on points hound instead.

and then, in my e-mail this week, i find out that i was being too impatient:

great canadian rebates

big crumbs

so perhaps i spoke too soon. i'm definitely happy that my rebates came through!

2) i did actually book a starwood "double dip" stay on points hound. these "double dip" rates offer a few miles / dollar spent in addition to hotel chain points and stay credits. but what i completely forgot about was that there was a 500 point first booking bonus. it's credited to my points hound account and simply needs to be assigned to a partner program (like united mileage plus or american aadvantage). it's a super easy process.

you'll notice that my sign-up bonus was credited to united mileage plus -- that's because they were the only program to offer points initially. from here on out, i think i'll work on my american aadvantage account. i already have a small sum in aadvantage points, and i need an aadvantage account to dump all of my occasional oneworld points in. i still need to weigh whether 2 miles / dollar is equal to whatever big crumbs and great canadian rebates can offer me, though.

3) i was planning on doing another seattle mattress run during the august long weekend when i suddenly remembered that that is the vancouver pride parade weekend! it's always fun, and on a travel related note, during the parade over the last few years:

• westjet was distributing %-off vouchers
• flight center was distributing $25 off coupons for domestic airfare

and anyone who really knows me knows that i love my free stuff.

4) oh, and i just randomly found out that starbucks is having a $10 card for $5 from groupon. use bigcrumbs in order to get 5.6% cash back too.

saving an additional 5-6% on hotels using bigcrumbs and greatcanadianrebates

when i was young and new to the internet, i signed up for a program called mypoints. at the time, you would earn points by clicking on links and then redeem those points for gift cards. i was 17 at the time, and i lied on the application form so that i would be 18 and thus eligible to participate. it was semi-lucrative for a high school student. there were months where for 10 minutes of clicking action a day, you'd earn a 10$ gift card. 10+ years ago, that was worth it for me.

one of the things that they incentivized was online shopping, where you'd earn x amount of points per dollar spent on online shopping. i wasn't a huge adopter of online shopping, and to be honest, i'd say that the vast majority of my purchases remain offline. even now, unfortunately, the earning potential of mypoints remain quite limited -- better offers for online purchases can be had elsewhere.

these days, there are two websites that i go to mostly for my online shopping, and i choose these particular sites because their referral bonuses are generally the highest. for canadian shopping, i go to great canadian rebates (GCR). for american based shopping, i go to bigcrumbs. (please note, both of these have my referral information in it -- if you'd prefer not to be referred, just type in the name of the website with a .com at the end). retailers pay the above mentioned websites a commission for sending traffic and sales their way. bigcrumbs and GCR then send a portion of that commission back to you. both of these sites pay via paypal, which i use all the time. there are lots of retailers that they pay rebates out for, but i mainly use it for travel.

in my previous post, i talked about using the best price guarantee on expedia to reduce the cost of one's hotel by 50$ a night. if you use bigcrumbs or GCR, then you can get a percentage of your base spending (after coupons but before taxes) back as a rebate, thereby reducing costs even more.

i typically use either expedia.com (for their best price guarantee) and hotels.com (although i change the currency to canadian dollars to avoid the exchange fee). via bigcrumbs, expedia gives you back 5.6% back in hotels, and hotels.com gives you back 4.55%. via GCR, expedia.ca gives you back 1.50$ back per air ticket (i book two one-way tickets instead of return), or 4% for hotels. these are all rebated back to my paypal which i then cash out to my bank account.

when we include this rebate, that 80$ (base fare) hawaii hotel is no longer 90$ all in.

• with expedia.com, that same hotel is 80$ - 50$ BPG (expedia.com) - 5.6% (bigcrumbs) + 10$ taxes - 1% (expedia rewards) = 37.92$ a night. 
• with hotels.com, that hotel becomes 80$ - 4.55% (bigcrumbs) - 10% (welcome rewards) + 10$ tax = 86.36$. 

the former is a big win. the latter, if nothing else, is a little bit of extra pocket change for the journey.

checkout 51 -- a rebate app in canada

one of the apps that i've really started to enjoy on my iphone is checkout 51. this is downloadable on your iphone via the apple store. it's a canadian app for real canadian savings. here's the deal:

every thursday, they post a list of items that have rebates associated with them. this week, the quantum finish had a 3$ rebate, and the dole salads had a 1$ rebate. they have different specifiers (i.e., sizes, flavours etc.) that you have to meet. the list looked like this before i had the foresight to do before and after shots:

the weekly list

then you buy the item and you scan the receipt. you have to scan all of the receipt, and the program on the app lets you cut-and-continue in case your receipt is too long.

i bought my quantum dishwasher liquid, 20 count, which was already on sale at superstore

then you take photos of your receipt as per the specifications on the app ... they even have the lines on the side to help you focus your picture

note that as per my receipt, you can use manufacturer coupons and still get your rebate. once you take the picture, you just have to send it in via the app. this does use data, so i try to do this when i'm back at home or in a wifi zone.

 

your account page after the receipts have been processed. i originally had 1$ before, and now they've added 4$.

you get a check mailed to you after you reach 20$. i haven't actually gotten that far, but we will see how this turns out. if i do actually get paid, i'll be playing with this app quite a bit more in the future.

for those of you keeping track: my 20 count dish washing liquid was 5.97$ + 12% tax = 6.68$. minus the 2$ manufacturer discount and the 3$ checkout51 rebate, it was only 1.68$. last week, they had glad products where after coupons and rebates, you actually earned 0.03$.

(note that there are no referral links in this post)