update: checkout 51 actually does pay!

back in march, i wrote about checkout 51, a grocery app which lets you save on groceries. the premise is that it has various rebate offers each week (e.g., $2.00 back when you buy listerine mouth wash). you take a picture of your receipt, upload it to the app, wait 24-48 hours for it to be processed, and the amount gets credited to your account.

it took a whopping 7 months for me to accrue enough for a minimum cash out. some of the problems i had were:

• many of the products didn't interest me -- e.g., cereal offers for a guy who skips breakfast daily is unlikely to be helpful
• many of its offers weren't offered at a time when the major stores were having a sale for said item
• i became really, really lazy when it came to grocery shopping on a weekly basis
• starting a month ago or so, the app must have became quite popular because offers were actually running out by the end of the weekend. when offers run out, there are no more rebates to be had.

some of the nice surprising rebates this year were:

• $1 rebates for a single grocery store bill of $60 or more
• $1 rebates for a single grocery store bill paid with visa of $20 or more. this one worked nicely with the pivot visa.

so in early october, i hit enough to obtain the minimum cash out amount of $20.

account balance -- you need $20 to cash out

i hit the cash out button, entered in my details. i clicked send, and i received a nice confirmation:

cheque requested

and then a few weeks later, as promised, i received my cheque.

cheque received

so i can now say confidently that checkout 51 is legitimate. i'll still browse it every now and then and upload receipts when i can. i'm not expecting to become rich off of the app by any means, but $21 is still better than nothing.

flight centre's latest $50/$100 coupons + the death of topguest?

1) flight centre's $50 and $100 coupons
i received a promo in my inbox from flight centre. it's for $50 off domestic flights and $100 off flights between vancouver and toronto on air canada. unlike their other promotions, you don't have to actually go into a flight centre store -- you can do this over the phone. this is a change that i like. the discount is only for flights within the month of september. this limits the utility of the coupon as flights less than 7 days from departure are usually drawn from a more expensive fare bucket than flights greater than 7 days from departure. in any case, the coupon is here for those who do not subscribe to the ads. expiry date unlisted.

2) the death of topguest?
i also received another e-mail about yet another program that has dropped out of the topguest program. for those who don't remember, topguest is a program that rewards you with points for every check-in on facebook, foursquare, or twitter at various hotel/airport locations. after checking in at those hotels, you would receive a small amount of points for that particular hotel program (e.g., i received 50 priority club points for checking in to the holiday inn right beside my house every morning -- i would do this as a part of my morning wake-up ritual). i think i earned over 60,000 points in total over two years.

they used to be associated with big names: virgin elevate (for every check in at a virgin check-in counter, gate, baggage carrousel), best western rewards, priority club, hilton hhonors (only double tree locations), and united airlines (every check in at united-served airports). united left first. best western was the next to go. then i was devastated when priority club left. and now today, i learn that the last remaining partners are dropping out as well.

As of September 13, 2013 Topguest members will no longer earn points or rewards for checking into CLUBHOTEL or VOILA locations. Any points earned through the use of Topguest through this date will be transferred into your account. For questions regarding your VOILA account please visit http://www.vhr.com/contactus.aspx For questions regarding your CLUBHOTEL account please visit http://www.clubhotel.com/customer-service/ For questions regarding your Topguest account, you can reach us by emailing help@topguest.com

a similar e-mail was sent out for virgin america's elevate. i haven't been an active member since the priority club left the program, but it's kind of sad to see the end like that.

links from the web: preparing for cross check, singapore airlines ads, $5 mistake fares on united, new checkout51 deals

1. my friend points me to an article from air canada about what it means when they say "cabin crew, please prepare for departure and cross check." and in my romanticized view of singapore airlines, i imagine the graceful, perfectly groomed singapore girl whisking from one side of the aircraft to another, doing whatever it is they do when they cross check.
2. view from the wing posts a commentary on airline ads. more specifically, he posts the latest of the singapore airline collection, which actually makes you believe that there is a genuine service aboard their aircraft.
3. canadian kilometers posts about the $5 mistake fare on united airlines this morning, although after it was pulled. most of their base prices were set to $0, and so domestic flights with all fees included were roughly $5. whether they'll honor it or not is something to be seen. i honestly wished that i caught it earlier too -- i would have booked 10-20 different trips with the hopes of being able to make use of one.
4. checkout51's latest deals now include $1 to $2 rebates on grocery purchases over $20 when you pay by visa. i don't have a visa except for my new prepaid pivot visa card. oh, that's right ... the benefits keep rolling in. other goods this week include:
• $1 back on eggo waffles (8 count or more)
• $1 back on a loaf of wonder bread (wonder or wonder+)
• $2 back on any variety of opti-free contact lens solution. i'll be looking for the travel sized ones
• $1 back polident products -- which is great because i'm looking for polident toothpaste for my retainers
• $0.50 back on alcan aluminum foil wrap
• all of these are stackable with your other coupons or promotions in store

taking advantage of sales tax differences between provinces

i was born and raised in alberta, the land of zero provincial sales tax. all we had was the gst, which started at 7% but had fallen to 5% under the conservative government. so when i moved to bc for the start of residency, the extra 7% in provincial sales tax was maddening. friends who moved from outside alberta to alberta all felt that it was like a free discount -- they never saw sales tax as an extra burden. my friends who moved the other direction, on the other hand, couldn't.

i typically go to calgary 3-4 times a year. when i first moved to vancouver, i used to go 8-9 times a year. one of my habits is to save on my provincial sales tax. this typically involves knowing how long the return period is and holding onto receipts. then whenever i go back to calgary, i go to the store, buy the product on a new receipt (no provincial sales tax) and return on the old receipt (provincial sales tax).

but sometimes, you run into snags. for clothing, often times there are sales when you buy the item but no sales when you want to do the exchange/return. so then it doesn't make sense to buy and return. sometimes, you need to buy a certain size in order to return the size that you bought but they're out. that's why i keep the bar code and bring them with me in my wallet. sometimes, they will relent and give you a price adjustment if the price is actually lower, but there is a chance that that adjustment will occur for the province of original sale. in other words, pst may still be there. always safer to do a full return.

an example today:
express men: i needed to grab a few pants last week because i don't stockpile a huge wardrobe. $59.90 regular price, but i bought them for $49.90 each, or $55.89 after sales tax (gst + pst). i was expecting to get $7 back in provincial sales tax.

bonus today: 40% off regular price, or $35.94 each, or $37.74 after sales tax (gst only).

the issue: i could only find one of the two pairs of pants. they were not willing to do a straight out price change, but offered to let me buy it. then, if, by chance, i found my original pair, i could return that on the old receipt. i haven't heard anything so ridiculous in a long time. so for that one pair of pants, i made a purchase. i asked about whether the other location would have the other one that was missing, and they said they would call. "don't worry, if i have to go to [insert location here], then i'll just return these there on the old receipt." i made it very clear that this was what was going to happen anyway. and luckily, another cashier came up, kind of gave a sigh, and said, "i might as well save you the trip." so she did the price adjustment and also returned my newly purchased pants on the old receipt.

i was nervous that the price adjustment would still include the provincial sales tax, but it didn't. the end result: i got a refund of $18.15 per pair, or a total of $36.30. not too bad! and i really do have to give kudos to sales agents who are empowered enough to bend company policy enough to let common sense prevail.

next stop:
costco to pick up higher priced regular goods. tide laundry pods, dishwasher pellets, razor blades.

"if i keep on doing this," i told my mom afterwards at home, "then this trip will basically pay for itself."

hotels.com 10% coupon codes -- to use or to skip?

hotels.com typically has 10% off coupons all the time. you can find them everywhere. sometimes they use individual one-time use codes, other times they have a generic code that anyone can type in. recently, they released one for their e-mail subscribers.

it's clearly a generic code -- i can't imagine that i was so lucky to get a randomized code that spelled exactly CAVACATION. as above, you have to book by september 8 for stays between august 13 and january 31, 2014. the fine print says that this is not eligible for welcome rewards. this is exactly why these codes don't really offer much benefit to me.

welcome rewards is their reward program which gives you a free hotel night after 10 eligible stays. after staying 10 nights, your free hotel night stay is worth the average price paid for those 10 nights. this is a 10% rebate right there. so the choice is between whether to get the 10% up front or whether to hold off and redeem for a reward.

there are two reasons why i don't redeem up front:

1) there are times when i won't have a coupon but still need to book a hotel, and it would take forever for me to reach those 10 nights in order to get my free night reward otherwise.

2) sometimes, those rewards will void your big crumbs rebates since it's a coupon code you're using. sometimes it won't. if you don't use the coupon, you get 4.55% back on your hotels but that one free night won't earn you anything (obviously). sometimes, the coupons will allow you to earn rebates by accident. if that's the case, then you get the rebate on the lower final price. by not redeeming the coupon now, you will get a rebate on the higher total, meaning a larger rebate. that's what i end up going for.

but all that being said, the coupon code is there if you want it. you get the most bang for your buck by using the big crumbs link to purchase through hotels.com (not .ca). make sure you change your currency to canadian dollars and then everything will work as if you were shopping through hotels.ca.

hotel 3rd quarter promos

1) hilton hhonors introduces its third quarter promo a few weeks ago. hotel stays between july 9 and september 30 earn triple base points on fri-sun nights, and double points on mon-thurs nights. registration is required here: triple points promotion

2) starwood introduces its third trimester promo today. hotel stays between september 1 and december 15 will earn double points. every 5 eligible nights will earn a bonus 2,500 points. registration is required here but not yet open: take two promotion

3) and while not a hotel, still very deserving in its own right: kfc's latest coupon book is available online at kfc.ca. choose your province and get your coupons. never pay full price for finger lickin' good food again.

the taxi game + $50 coupon is back at flight centre!

i was on call last night. it being welfare check wednesday this week, and being in the downtown core, the call shift was extremely quiet. i ended up taking the cab home slightly early. as mentioned before, certain cabs in the vancouver region have seat back entertainment. and oh look! the flight centre game is back! i even took screen shots to show:

i've played the game before, and it actually does take a good 5 minutes of effort, which for a 5 minute taxi ride, makes it hard to complete the offer for the coupon. but just underneath the "enter to win", you can hit "skip the game".

once you skip the game, you have to choose where you would like to go if you were to win the "around the world" contest. if i were smart, i would have chosen a more expensive destination than las vegas ... but my finger slipped in my effort to get this done as fast as possible.

up until this point, all you think is happening is that you're entering a draw for a contest that you'll never win. but then the following screen appears. just for entering your e-mail, you'll get a $50 voucher!

 

it's been roughly 8 hours or so, and i haven't received my voucher yet so i don't know what constitutes a vacation. based on previous experience with the same wording, it usually means $50 off any domestic round trip flight, usually with a far expiry date (like 5 or 6 months). also, the vouchers don't have names or unique codes on them, so you can keep using them over and over again despite one voucher per e-mail. and the fact that it's 8 hours late doesn't worry me yet ... the last time it took about 2 days before it arrived in my inbox. 

have a good night out on the town, be safe, take a taxi home, and make sure you get your $50 coupon.

links from the web: $111 in playnow.com money; free accor top tier status; free la quinta points; cheap itunes cards

1) view from the wing posts two different promos recently offered.

• you can get free accor hotel top tier status. once you have this status, he suggests that you can easily get status matches at other hotel chains like best western, priority club, and marriott. i haven't taken advantage of this, and doubt that i will just yet.
• you can get 300 free la quinta points by following through his link and then watching a short video. it's yet another one that i didn't do ... although if i pick up pennies from the floor and collect them in a jar, i guess i should do the same with la quinta.

2) from smart canucks, residents of british columbia can get a free sign up bonus of $111 (+$10 in other promos for a total of $121 free) for signing up with playnow.com. this is an online casino that is run by the bc lottery corporation. you can play slots, poker, or even buy 6/49 and lotto-max tickets on there. anyway, if you sign up with the promo code STROMBONE1, then you can get the free money. you can't cash it out directly, but you can play the slots and then cash out the winnings.

• so i went ahead and signed up. i instantly picked up the $111 "luongo bonus" (i can only assume this has to do with the canucks' goaltender). i picked up another $10 in the new slot player bonus.
• i went to play the diamond queen game. i started with my free $121.00 in credits. i kept playing $2 per spin, and kept spinning and spinning. i came out with $201.85 that i can cash out with. all for a total initial investment of $0.00.
• this only works if you can control your spending. as the bc lottery corp says, know your limit, stay within it. 
• and no, i'll be waiting until another free promo before i play again ...

look at the promos that are free for the taking!

balance: $201.85 and the new token balance: $0.00

3) also from smart canucks, there is a reminder that future shop is selling their itune gift cards for 20% off ($50/$60/$100 denominations). before this, 7-11 was selling their $25 gift cards for $20 (that promo is now over, from what i see). this is a reminder that one should never, ever buy itunes gift cards at full price! this is in-store only.

update 7/12/2013: i have confirmation from my bank that $201.85 was deposited from playnow.com.

shopper's drug mart $10 off of $40 june 22-28

in the realm of points and things, i came across shopper's drug mart's $10 off of $40 (as found on smartcanucks). it's good from jun 22-28. normally, their prices aren't that competitive, unless they have deals like this. they have their own shopping program, shopper's optimum, which may be worth mentioning to help bring costs down. their base program is as such:

• 10 points per $ spent
• one redeems in tiers, such that the more you redeem, the higher the return is.
• 8,000 pts = $10 rebate (i.e., spent $800 for $10 back, or a 1.25% return)
• 95,000 pts = $170 rebate (i.e., spend $9,500, get $170 back, or a 1.79% return)
• there are almost weekly bonuses, whereby spending a certain amount gets you either a set large amount of points, or a high points multiplier. other weeks, they increase the value of your points, such that redeeming points will give you higher rewards (e.g., spend 95,000 points, get $195 back)
• during a 20x the points event, your potential return can be as high as 35% (1.79% x 20) 

there were a few things that i would consistently buy from there:

• supplies for my braces -- i found that nowhere else would sell threading floss and dental wax
• toothbrushes and toothpaste -- usually colgate products (85mL toothpaste, soft single toothbrushes) would be sold for $1 each. i would generally combine this with the 20x the points events ... meaning i would be coming out with a lot of toothbrushes and boxes of toothpaste

otherwise, their prices were too high to justify a mere 1.79% return (unless it was that 20x the points event).

however, i recently started playing around with my scotia bank gold amex card. it gives 4% return on gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment. drug stores are not a part of that higher earning. so that's why you buy shoppers' gift cards from petro-canada. not only do you get the 4% return, but you also get 20 petro-points per dollar (which i kind of hinted about its potential and versatility here -- see the portion on the sears' mastercard). 20 petro-points is equivalent to a minimum of 2% back in travel, or 2 cathay pacific asia miles, which is worth anywhere from 2-5c each. furthermore, purchases made by gift card also earn shoppers optimum points. so the lesson: you should never pay directly at shoppers drug mart when you can buy a gift card first from somewhere else.

so if you combine the petro-points and the additional bonus that you get from your credit card by shopping at a gas station (2% above your regular no-fee cash back card), then that's an additional 4-12% off. and add that to this $10 off $40 coupon, which is essentially 25% off, shopper's may be quite competitive after all.

i got my brandsaver coupons! -- june 2013 edition

in the mail the other day, i received my brandsaver coupons. ever since moving into an apartment and no longer getting any of those penny-saver leaflets, i feel like i'm missing out on great deals. and so those coupons in the mail were a great source of joy. seriously, they are.

they're easy to cut out, easy to redeem, and stackable with checkout 51. simply register here and every few months, a new batch of coupons become available to order. they're very similar to the coupons i saw in my parents' leaflets the other day, which doesn't make me feel quite as bad. save.ca and websaver.ca are similar sites, although not linked solely to a particular company. the number of coupons they have are not quite as large.

brandsaver will, from time to time, offer free samples, which is also so much fun to receive in the mail. they keep giving me these tide pods, and i keep using them ...

in my coupon booklet, i received:

• 50c off one charmin toilet paper product
• $4.50 off any crest pro-health toothpaste/crest 3d white toothpaste/crest 3d whitening rinse + oral-b toothbrush
• $2.50 off any crest pro-health toothpaste/3d white toothpaste + crest 3d whitening rinse 
• $8.00 off any 3d whitestrips
• free gillette razor with purchase of gillette cartridge pack
• $1.00 off any two pantene products
• $1.00 off any two head and shoulders products
• $3.00 off any tide pods + downy unstopables
• $1.00 off any tide pods
• $1.00 off any bounce dryer bar
• 50c off any bounty paper towel product
• $1.25 off any two different bounty or charmin products
• $1.00 off any cascade actionpacs product
• $1.00 off any two dawn products
• $1.00 off any coppertop duracelle batteries
• $1.00 off any febreze, swiffer, mr. clean or gain laundry products
• $2.50 off any two febreze, swiffer, mr. clean or gain laundry products
• $1.00 off any febreze product
• $3.00 off any two febreze products

i don't expect that i'll be using all of these. but if there's a great deal in combination with checkout 51 where i actually earn money for my purchase, or if there's just a great deal period, then i'll be happy to have these coupons on hand.

links from the web -- june 15, 2013

1) canadian kilometers writes about the $20 trick in vegas to get a free upgrade. this is a well-written about trick that i honestly don't know if i have the guts to try out for myself. but he tries it by slipping a $20 in his passport photo page, and innocently asking for a complimentary room upgrade to a higher floor. and it works. i'd rather get the complimentary upgrade because i've earned it with status, though.

2) hack my trip has a screen shot of the new united interface that gate agents use. it appeals to the airline enthusiast in me to figure out how they determine if involuntary denial of boardings (bumps) are required.

3) on an older note, there was a wonderful post done by a united gate agent in 2006 which described the rules as to how he would assign operational upgrades in the case where planes were oversold in the back but not in the front, or at least how they were processed. it would appear that the common held belief that schmoozing up to the gate agent makes an upgrade no more or less likely. upgrades, as he explains, are done solely to help the  company.

4) late on this, but view from the wing notes that you can get free virgin atlantic silver status. they don't have any meaningful partnerships which would impact my own travel. if they were a part of an alliance, then i would probably sign up as it would likely give me an increased free luggage allowance on those member airlines. but because they're not, and because there are no free miles being handed out here as well, it's an offer that i'll just let sit. (the benefits of silver status are here, and there is note that there may be a partnership with delta in the works).

5) from my favorite canadian deals blog, smartcanucks links to a 15-20% off coupon for all purchases at the hudsons bay company valid until sunday, jun 16, 2013. i remember how when i was growing up, that was the only place where i used to shop. pretty much now, it's still the only place i go to for household stuff.

Hidden city fares -- the art of throwing away the last segment.

Hidden city fares used to be great back in the day. Let's say you want to go from A --> B. Usually, a direct flight is quite expensive. However, flying from A --> B --> C can sometimes be cheaper. A "hidden city fare" is the technique of buying the A --> B --> C itinerary at a cheaper fare knowing full well that you'll be getting off at B and "throwing away" the last leg of the journey.

Let's use an example. This weekend marks the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco (May 18-22). Let's say that my bf and I wanted to go to this conference, and that we wanted to arrive the day before it starts (i.e., Friday, May 17, 2013). Let's say that I can only take the last or second last flight of the day because I need to still work on Friday. And because the actual conference starts on Saturday, I don't have time to drive down to Seattle or Bellingham where it's cheaper to fly. What are our search options?

1. YVR (Vancouver) - SFO (San Francisco) direct on Air Canada = $921 all in for a one-way ticket.
2. YVR - SFO direct on united airlines = $802 all in for a one-way ticket.

Both pretty expensive. But it's my mistake for thinking about booking this busy conference so late in the game. (note: this is all for illustrative purposes -- I've booked my tickets a long, long time ago).

So this is where hidden city ticketing comes into play. Pricing is based on demand. Prices are based on city pair involved, regardless of stopover cities. United Airlines is selling me a ticket from YVR-SFO, and this is the price. the demand for this particular city pair is high because there's a major conference happening in the city at that exact time. that makes sense.

But what would happen if I pretended that I was going to Los Angeles (LAX) instead? The demand is much lower because there isn't a major conference happening at that time. A search on United shows one possible option of flying YVR --> SFO --> LAX. In this case, the price per person comes out to $673. so if you jump off the plane and "accidentally" miss your connection to lax, you end up still going to your intended destination (SFO). You save $129 per person, and as it so happens in this example, you get to ride up in business class as well.

This is a very bad example, of course, because this is a very specific situation. But it is not uncommon to find YVR --> YYC (Calgary) --> LAX cheaper than YVR --> YYC. this is most likely due to the sheer amount of competition that is available with the US-based airlines. I have occasionally found fares going from YVR --> YYZ (Toronto) --> MCO (Orlando) cheaper than flying YVR --> YYZ alone. Usually, the most luck I've had with finding hidden city fares is when I intend to fly domestically but look at transborder flights with strategic connections instead.

A quick search right now doesn't reveal many such savings, at least not for tango fares on Air Canada. But if you're looking for status miles and are willing to book flex fares domestically, hidden city ticketing still offers some advantages. For example, YVR --> YYC on may 30 at 8am on Air Canada = $262 (flex fare). YVR --> YYC --> LAX on the same day and time on air canada = $226. So you get the additional status and end up paying $36 less. Of course, if you only intended to buy tango fares domestically, then this technique doesn't make sense.

Some rules when playing this game:

1. Only buy one-way tickets. If you skip any segment, it invalidates the rest of your itinerary. If you book two separate one-way tickets, then your return ticket is not invalidated as it's on a separate reservation. Therefore, only skip out on the last leg of your itinerary and nothing else.
2. Checking luggage is an absolute no-no as your luggage will be sent to the final destination. For obvious reasons, this is not what you want. Also, under no circumstances do you want your carry-on gate checked either. This is why having star gold status is useful -- if you board first, you aren't at risk for having things checked at the gate. 
3. Do this sparingly, not weekly. In the travel terms and conditions, it does state that they could possibly charge you for it or find a way to recoup the cost. But if it's just every once in a while, it should be okay. I certainly don't do this often, and no one has ever asked me for payment.
4. In the case of irregular operations, always ask to be re-booked for the next flight out to the intermediate city (where you want to be), even if the connection to the final destination looks horrible. Because really, who cares? It's not like you're actually going there anyway. There is always the risk that you end up going to the ticketed final destination via other connections in the case of irregular operations (snow storm, mechanical issues, etc.), but that's a risk that you will need to be comfortable with. 
5. Due to #5, do not do this with very important, not-to-be-missed dates. I will be willing to do this with a vacation to Calgary or even to my review course in London next year. I will not be doing this for my Royal College exams.
6. Always be careful if you think your plans are likely to change. Change fees within Canada are much cheaper than change fees transborder.

Have you ever played with a hidden city fare? Or have you ever "thrown away" the final segment to make your travel just that much cheaper?

expedia.com's rewards program

when i book hotels that are not a part of the starwood group, like days inn (the wyndham rewards program does not have an elite program) or other independent hotels, i normally book via hotels.com. hotels.com uses practically the same search engine as expedia.com, except there are a few differences:

1. hotels.com gives a 4.55% rebate via big crumbs. this was discussed in my previous post. 
2. hotels.com allows you to pay in canadian currency, thereby eliminating the 2.5% forex fee
3. hotels.com has the welcome rewards program, where after 10 nights, you get a free one based on the average pre-tax cost of the previous 10 nights. you pay the difference if the new night is more.

overall, it's not a bad program. you essentially get a 14.55% rebate if you use the program right.

however, expedia.com (which i've heard is owned by the same people), have a different value proposition for me. it comes mainly in the form of their best price guarantee. if i can find a hotel cheaper on a competing site, i get an additional $50 voucher for the future. however, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. expedia.com gives a 5.6% rebate via big crumbs.
2. expedia.com only charges in US funds, which means that there will be a 2.5% forex fee (unless you have a no forex fee credit card.

if i have a best price guarantee, it makes sense to book on expedia.com. note that bookings made via either hotels.com or expedia.com (or any online travel agency, really), do not count towards elite status or point accrual for most hotel chains.

when booking on expedia.com, something that stands out for me is expedia's rewards program. ultimately, it doesn't offset the larger rebates that you can get from the welcome rewards program by hotels.com. however if you're going to book on expedia anyway, you might as well collect.

expedia rewards: an introduction to earning

this is a free program to enroll in. points are earned from various purchases on the site. the points earning potential is as below. note that by throwing in a cheap car rental into the reservation that includes a hotel, you earn double the points. and if you're an american with frequent airline bookings, booking via expedia makes sense as flights purchased on expedia.com still do qualify for airline miles and status.

of note: a package is considered any combination of two or more of the above items where at least one item is a hotel.

points do not expire unless there is no activity in the account in the preceding 18 months. and unlike airline programs, you don't actually have to be the one consuming the travel in order to book. the points go to whoever make the booking.

expedia points redemptions
there are three main redemption options:
1. redeem for a hotel certificate

 7,000 pts = $50

13,000 pts = $100

18,000 pts = $150

20,000 pts = $200

25,000 pts = $250

29,000 pts = $300

37,000 pts = $400

44,000 pts = $500

46,000 pts = $600

47,000 pts = $700

48,000 pts = $800

49,000 pts = $900

50,000 pts = $1,000

in other words, after you spend between $25,000 to $50,000 in bookings, you can get up to a 2% return in hotel credits.

2. redeem for flight credit
i attempted a dummy booking for yyc-yvr on may 31 to jun 1. prices using westjet indicated a revenue ticket price of $418.16 CAD. using points, they wanted 53,900 points. in other words, if you have 53,900 points available, you might as well use them for a hotel redemption as you would get over twice the value like this.

3. donate to st. jude's, a children's hospital charity that expedia supports.

bonus earning opportunities
like most rewards programs, there are various bonus point opportunities. there have been double points awarded for booking expedia v.i.p. hotels, for using mastercard, or just for booking. sometimes, they randomly throw points into your account as a "top up" reward. it's kind of a nice treat when that happens.

conclusion
expedia rewards offers another 0.71 - 4.00% return (standalone hotel at lowest redemption value vs. hotel package at highest redemption value) on your bookings for hotels. i consider it a bonus and only if you're booking an expedia best price guarantee hotel as i would rather use hotel.com's welcome rewards instead.

they've also made some significant changes to the program since it last came out. the redemption chart has weakened. furthermore, it was once possible to get more than 2pts/$. if you booked a hotel with two other items (e.g., flight + car), you would get 3 pts/$. if you booked a hotel with three other items (e.g., flight + car + activities), you would get 4 pts/$. so really, capping the maximum earnings to 2 pts/$ makes the overall value of the program slightly weaker. there are more changes to the program to come over the next year, and we will have to see if the value of these points stay the same.

border-crossing tax

a friend of mine recently sent me a news link regarding america's decision to "study" the merits of introducing a land crossing charge at the us/canada borders. no specific amount has been proposed. one article had randomly used $5.50 per person per entry. if you had a full car with 4 adults, that's an extra $22 per car.

charging to enter the country isn't new. if you look at the fare breakdown on an airline flight, for example, you'll find many different immigration/customs fees:

if you were flying domestically within the states, the fees are much fewer. the following screenshot is from a dummy booking on united, SEA-LAX:

delta airlines provides a nicely formatted table that lists the various charges. the federal transportation tax is already built into the cost of the ticket price on the us-based airlines. doing the math, airline travel across the border would incur an agriculture fee, US immigration user fee, and a US federal customs fee. taken together, each flight into america costs $18.40. yet, despite the cost, i haven't complained about it so far. i wonder whether that will change in the near future.

i don't imagine that they will impose a border fee anytime soon, if at all. it seems like such a short term cash grab while ignoring the revenue that is gained from those impulsive cross border trips. and indeed, there are border businesses which thrive off of cross-border roadtrips. gas in blaine, washington last weekend was $3.99/gallon, or $1.054/liter. in vancouver, gas is about $1.33/liter. (in seattle, it was $0.948/liter.) business such as 24/7 parcels in blaine, washington would quickly die out as a $5-10 per passenger charge would quickly negate any potential savings. and the poor costco in bellingham won't have an influx of canadians trying to clean them out of their dairy products.

but if they did impose a fee, i'm sure that a (worst case scenario of) $18.40 per person fee would stop some people from going. i'm sure that it would strongly discourage the daytrip folks. those folks who were willing to pay an extra 12% (no duty free exemption for stays less than 24 hours) for lower-priced american products may not tolerate an additional fee. but provided that the fee is nominal, like 5-10$ a person, i'm not sure that it will affect my own road trip behaviour. my mentality has always been to make such roadtrips as a weekend away from home. to make up for it, i may pass up on other expensive options instead. maybe cut my shopping budget a little bit more. maybe i'll sink low enough to be one of those housekeeping cart raiders.

as a side note, as a nexus card holder, since we've saved the system money, maybe the nexus lanes should be exempt from these fees. after all, it does cost time (and thus money) for regular border agents to harass you about what you had for dinner, why you would want to visit your friends who live in a different city, or how it is that you're related to your brother who has the same last name as you do.

we will have to see whether a fee will come to be in the end.

on the road to status: seattle mattress run + 24/7 parcels

and yet another episode of mattress running has begun. this is for stays #5 and 6 of the year for the starwood program. we arrived late last night, having left vancouver at around 7pm or so. we arrived at the sheraton bellevue and promptly went to bed. today, we are going to be moving to the four points by sheraton, downtown seattle. two different hotels, slightly more work, but totally worth the extra stay credit. as an aside, it is cheaper to stay in bellevue than it is to stay in seattle proper.

en route, we passed by blaine, washington, which is about a 30 minutes' drive from vancouver. we stopped off there to pick up my friend's um ... expensive ... boots that she bought from online. she introduced me to 24/7 parcels which is a service aimed specifically at vancouverites. they understand that american versions of websites (e.g., amazon.com) usually offer lower prices compared to their  canadian counterparts but have exorbitant shipping rates to canada. other sites don't even ship to canada. 24/7 parcels gives you an american shipping address in exchange for a $3 charge per parcel (and $0.50-$1.00/day beyond 7 days). there are no membership fees. it effectively cuts your shipping costs to $3 a shipment, provided you're heading en route to seattle anyway. it's best to lump this in with a weekend trip stateside so that you can avoid paying duty charges.

there are lots of shipping services in blaine. lots. they all charge roughly the same amount. some charge a yearly membership fee. most are open during regular banking business hours (9-5 m-f, 9-12 saturday). what i like about 24/7 parcels is that like the name suggests, you can pick up your parcels at any time. they text you a code that you enter to get into the building. you use that same code on a keypad inside that will then electronically open a storage locker. it then debits your account the amount owed.

the last time i did my mattress run, my friend had her package sent to blaine enterprises. i arrived on easter monday (not a federal holiday) at 4pm, thinking that they normally close at 5pm. but, to my irritation, i found that they decided that it was a holiday. they closed at 1pm that day and my trip was wasted. 24/7 eliminates that problem, and i think i will use them again.

links from the web -- april 9, 2013

1) remember checkout 51? next thursday, according to smart canucks, will have new offers. apparently, the glade plugins scented oil starter kits will have a 5$ rebate. but wait! i had coupons from websaver.ca delivered to my house a few weeks ago, which also included a 5$ off coupon for the same product. i looked at walmart.com, and these starter kits are going for 4.88$ in the states. so there's probably a good chance that i'm gonna make money off of this deal. it's too bad that i don't actually use these products ...

2) from the same site except posted here, you can get a mail-in rebate for a free finish quantum 20-ct of dishwashing detergent. just purchase and print off the mail-in rebate for up to 8.49$ on any quantum product.

3) tucked away and not broadly advertised on their site, uxb on flyertalk had posted a new starwood promo: stay 3 nights and get a 50$ ticketmaster cash code. stay one night, and check in on foursquare while you're a registered guest, and you'll get a 10$ ticketmaster cash code. stays have to be between apr 5 and may 5. sadly, my upcoming stays all fall just outside of that range.

4) starwood also recently released details about their second quarter promo on flyertalk. double points on eligible stays from may 1 - jul 31. (registration required, but not yet released).  furthermore, if you book on their iphone app, you get 500 extra points per booking.

• for a 100$ hotel night, you get 300 points for base spendings as a gold member
• you receive a ~250 points or more for a gold check-in (i think?)
• you receive an extra 200 bonus points from this promotion
• you receive 500 points a night since you're booking on the app (booking separate nights can be more lucrative).

so for a 100$ hotel night stay, you can receive up to 1250 points, which i value at 25$. if you choose to convert those starpoints to air canada's aeroplan, you will receive up to a 25% bonus, or 1,563 aeroplan points. not bad!

10-50$ off of your domestic airfare from flight centre

flight centre is a full service travel agency with both an online presence and multiple retail locations. their agents are not super advanced, no more so than what expedia.ca can pull up in terms of deals. in fact, some of their agents can be pretty unhelpful. for example, during the days of HST in BC, they were unaware that if you booked a BC to AB flight as two separate one-way tickets, you'd save the HST on your AB-BC segment. if you booked it as a roundtrip, you were charged the HST on both segments.

but if you do your homework, know what flights you want and how you want to book things, then flight centre may actually present you with some cost savings for your airfares. the warning, however, is that this is only applicable to domestic round trip airfares. flight centre does not charge booking fees for domestic travel. they do, however, charge an additional 65$ for transborder or international itineraries. also, the two discounts i mention below only work for retail locations and not online. finally, if you need to change anything in your itinerary, they will charge you another 50-60$ above and beyond the airline change fees.

1) 10$ savings -- student price card
with the student price card, you will receive a 10$ off domestic round trip airfare coupon. there are higher discounts available for transborder and international flights, however they are both less than the 65$ booking fees. therefore, those discounts will actually cost you money if you were originally planning on booking online anyway. as a UBC resident, you get a library card which looks identical to a student identification card. alternatively, you just need to find someone who is able to book that flight for you.

2) 50$ savings -- taxi game
quite frequently, flight centre advertises a game in taxi cabs. i've only played it in vancouver, but i suspect it's in other major cities as well. in vancouver, the blacktop cab and yellow checker cab brand have in-seat entertainment on the passenger side headrest. flight centre has a world trivia game currently running. you don't have to actually play the game. there is an option to skip the game and enter your e-mail address for a chance to win a sweepstakes. but in even doing that, they will e-mail you a 50$ coupon for any roundtrip domestic airfare.

but wait -- there's more! in the e-mail, there is no unique code. there are no unique links. there are no identifiers. there are no names. you can print off that coupon as many times as you want and present over and over to physical flight center locations. if blogspot had a server that i could link to, i'd scan it and host it right here. all the agent has to do is enter the code FCTAXICONTEST1012. and to top it off ... the coupon had a broad expiration policy. i played the game back in january 2013, and the coupon expires june 30, 2013. if you're a point-seeker, you pay the full amount on your credit card first, and flight centre then writes you a 50$ refund cheque. bonus points for nothing.

go out ... and ride those taxis!

walmart's internet-to-go: cheap cellular data in america

i have become addicted to my iphone over the years, and one of the things that i've learned that i can't live without these days is my cellular data. it's easy enough to find in canada, but i learned a few years back how expensive it was to roam when i'm in america. most of my leisure destinations, after all, is in america.

my wireless carrier, rogers, would offer me a 60$ package that would give me 50MB of roaming data while in the states. i don't actually need text or voice, as i can do both of those now with data (iphone apps: talkatone for gmail chat's telephone service, whatsapp / imessage for texting). if i was going to use more than 50MB, there was a 10$ monthly option where they'd charge just 1$ for every MB. one week in hawaii a few years ago set me back 80$. i asked rogers for the ability to upgrade the data portion of my cell phone plan so that it would be usable in the states as well. that option is available to all new subscribers for 10$ more a month. they refused to do so. i'm glad they did -- it made me research my options.

roam mobility came by and offered its own mifi (mobile wifi hotspot) device which gave you a small device that you could carry that would grab signal in america and let your various wireless devices latch onto it for a fee. roam mobility's data-only option started at a base price of 29.95 for 500MB that would expire after a month. alternatively, you could do the talk-text-data version for 3.95$ a day, or 11.95$ for 3 days, or 27.95$ for a week. still very, very expensive! and even if you had an unlocked iphone, the signal that they use is not compatible with the iphone. not ideal at all.

t-mobile and verizon offered their own mifi devices and rates. they have great coverage, 3 to 4G speeds, and are reliable. i'm not going to cover them here because i think that they're still a really bad deal -- you put in money (no contract) and you can buy data, but that data still expires. however, by accident, i had stumbled upon "internet to go," sold at walmart in america. and it is my go-to device for all my travels. (if you use a rebate site like bigcrumbs to access walmart, you will get an additional 2.8% back).

internet-to-go is a 3G device that works off of the sprint network. to be honest, it probably isn't as fast as 3G, but i still get the majority of what i want to get done done. it is reliable, and covers the major metropolitan centers. if you're expecting to get good service while camping in the middle of nowhere, well, you have been warned. it is small, easily fits in your pocket. i used a starbucks gift card below as a size comparator. the speed in seattle was 0.92Mbps for downloads. in comparison, my wifi at home gets me 15.80Mbps. but it still works well, even with youtube videos.

there are two payment options, both pay-as-you-go, both only available for purchase at walmart. 10$ gives you 500MB, and 45$ gives you 4GB. that works out to just 1.1 cents per MB. but here's the best part of the deal: the value does not expire as long as you use the device at least once a year. so if you use 10 MB a day, and you go to the states one or two days a month, you would not have to reload for years. if you used verizon, t-mobile, or roam mobility, you'd have to fork over more money each month you use it. that is very expensive. the actual unit itself is quite affordable compared to the others as well. walmart recently reduced the price to 79.99$. i bought mine at 99.99$.

other specifications: it comes with a password located on the back so that not just anyone can use it. you can change the ssid and password to whatever you want. it supports 5 devices at any one time. while it doesn't specify a range, i've left the device in one corner of my hotel room, and was able to use it in a completely different room (20 feet or so). it takes 4 hours to load, and can withstand ~2-3 hours of continuous use, and maybe 5 hours of standby. it can only be charged using a wall plug though, not usb.

this is how i get affordable internet in the states. it would be a poor choice as someone's primary internet source (e.g., if you were living there), but it's perfect for the occasional traveler like myself.

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)