December 2006 Archives
In April, as reported here, the Upper Deck sports trading card company started a new rewards program: Upper Deck Kids.
2006 Upper Deck cards contained a code that could be entered online for points, which could then be redeemed for a variety of prizes including iTunes downloads, sports-themed wallpapers, wall decals, or even an Xbox.
Both Upper Deck and their competitor Topps had initiatives this year to bring kids back into the hobby of collecting sports cards. (Topps partnered with SI for Kids to include cards in their magazines, and they provided cards in the packaging of several sports related video games.) Upper Deck hyped its rewards program through 10 weeks of ads on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon
Did it work? You betcha. According to a press release here, a market research study showed that 28% of 8-11 year old boys collected sports cards this year, versus just 9% last year. There was a similar increase in card collecting among 12-15 year old boys.
The press release says that Upper Deck Kids currently has 120,000 members, and that they've logged in codes from 12 million cards. Kerri Stockholm, Senior Sports Marketing Manager for Upper Deck: "We knew 2006 would be a pivotal year for our kids sports card marketing initiatives. We needed to build programs that would engage youngsters and keep them actively purchasing and collecting...we have hit our goals - but the work is not finished. Upper Deck is dedicated to keeping the momentum going and continuing to bring new collectors into the category."
Upper Deck Kids Rewards is open to all residents of the U.S. and Canada (except Quebec) -- parental consent is required for kids under 13.
I've gotten a couple of emails from members of the Visa Extras Rewards Program wanting to know what was up with the website. For a month or so now, account balances have been inaccessible online, though the site has continued to assure members that their balances continue to accrue points.
In this week's American Banker, Visa said that the problem was related to a software conversion. They said that they had at least partly fixed it this week, and they once again reassured members that they were continuing to earn points as per the program's rules.
Thanks to the East Bay Business Times for the info.
My friend Rebecca at the Ebates Blog made a great post last week that detailed the standard shipping deadlines for Christmas arrival for 16 popular online merchants. I wanted to supplement it for my readers here. Please note: you can still order online for Christmas delivery after the standard delivery deadline, but it will require additional charges for expedited delivery. Here are the deadlines for STANDARD shipping at some merchants you may be interested in:
Amazon: TODAY is the last day to order with standard shipping by Friday (too late for Free Super Saver Shipping on $25+ orders). Note that no rewards programs reward for Amazon. Your clickthrough to Amazon here
Avon: Order by TODAY at 12:30 ET for standard shipping ($5.95 per order). Earn 5% at Ebates or 5.3% at QuickRewards.net (no reward available at FatWallet or Jellyfish).
Barnes and Noble: TODAY (at midnight, ET) is the deadline for free standard shipping on $25 orders. Barnes and Noble members can take $10 off a $40 purchase with code: A8E4B7U. Earn 5% at FatWallet, 4.1% at QuickRewards.net, 4% at Ebates, or 3.7% at Jellyfish. Note: No rebate paid on video games or other Gamestop items.
BestBuy: Deadline is Tuesday at 11am ET. Earn 2.2% at Jellyfish, 1.1% at QuickRewards.net (on everything but computers, peripherals, photo, and imaging products which pay 0.6%), or 1% at Ebates (no reward at FatWallet). Note: No rebates paid on in-store pickup orders.
Buy.com: Deadline has passed for standard shipping. To help defray the cost of expedited shipping, use Google Checkout to save $10 on a $30 order, or $20 on a $50 order (the minimum order amounts must be met before shipping and taxes are added in). Some items can be ordered with expedited shipping as late as 12/20. Earn 2.2% at Jellyfish, 2.1% at QuickRewards.net, or 1% at FatWallet or Ebates.
DisneyShopping: Deadline is TODAY at 9pm PT (midnight ET) for standard shipping. Save 10% on your order with code: PLUTO10. Earn 4.1% at QuickRewards.net (including rebates on GCs!) or 4% at Ebates (no reward at FatWallet or Jellyfish).
KBToys: Deadline has passed for standard shipping. The latest you can order with expedited shipping is Tuesday at midnight PT (Wed. at 3am ET). New customers can take $5 off a $40 order with code ETNLTR. Earn 4% at FatWallet, 3% at Ebates, or 1.5% at QuickRewards.net (no reward at Jellyfish).
Overstock.com: Standard shipping deadline has passed but they're offering free expedited shipping on many items. Order as late as 11/20 at 11:59pm MT for Christmas delivery on certain items (some ship free, others require the shipping upgrade fees). There are coupon codes available for 10% off, or 12% off for new customers, but they are affiliate-specific (receive them at the rewards program through which you shop). Earn 6% at FatWallet, 4% at Ebates, or 3.6% (2.3% on media items) at QuickRewards.net (no reward at Jellyfish).
Target: Order by TODAY for standard shipping on items marked "usually ships in 24 hours" or "usually ships in 1-2 days". If it's marked "1-2 BUSINESS days" or "3-5 days" the deadline has already passed (although "1-2 BUSINESS days" items can be purchased through today by expedited 1 day shipping). Some items qualify for free standard shipping. Use TGTSAVE3 for 10% off! Earn 6.4% from FatWallet, 4.1% from QuickRewards.net, or 4% from Ebates (no reward at Jellyfish).
ToysRUs: Standard shipping deadline has passed. To help defray the cost of expedited shipping, use Google Checkout to save $10 on a $30 order (the $30 must be before shipping and taxes are added in). Latest you can order with expedited shipping is noon ET on 12/20. Earn 3.1% from QuickRewards.net, or 3% from Ebates (no reward at FatWallet or Jellyfish).
Walmart: Order by Monday, 12/18, for standard shipping. They have a good selection of items that ship for just 97 cents. Order as late as 12/20 at 11:30pm PT with expedited shipping. The only rewards programs that (legally) reward for Walmart purchases are the college savings programs Upromise and LittleGrad, which both pay 5%... or you could shop through the CompareRewards link here and help support the site. :)
...or save 10% if you're not a member! Here is a printable coupon good for 12% off any one item in select categories (not DVDs, CDs, or games, but many other items are included, see coupon for details) at Best Buy stores. The coupon expires tomorrow, 12/17.
The AdLibCorner message forum now has a new website to go with it! When you get a second, be sure to check out AdLibCorner.com for the answers to your rewards program paid trivia questions (click Newsletter), as well as suggestions on great paid email programs to join. You can also subscribe to a reminder service to let you know when the daily trivia answers have been posted! Be sure to bookmark it!
Yesterday QuickRewards.net sent out a long list of merchants that, through December 31 only (in most cases), will allow you to earn rewards on the purchase of their gift cards. Note: This is only confirmed to work at QuickRewards.net, not through any other rewards program (other program owners, if you can confirm that your program will also reward for the purchase of GCs at these merchants, please respond in the comments or send me an email; thanks)!
To see the list of merchants and how much you can earn at QuickRewards.net for buying their gift cards, please click Continue Reading!
Cyber Thursday is LIVE at Ebates.com! Some of the great deals available include:
24% cashback at Classic Closeouts -- plus FREE shipping with code 2DAYSHIP! Cute creepers/onesies for infants and toddlers marked down to $2.39-$2.99! Girls' knitted night dress for $3.99! Big and Little Kids' Striped Sleeve Lightweight Jackets for $3.99! Girls Plush Moccasin Slippers for $2.49! Lots of other items including diamond jewelry and home decor.
40% cashback at Magazines.com -- plus an extra $5 off with code holidaymags -- Get Field and Stream, Motor Trend, or Family Fun for $5 after the code, minus 40% off, or 3 bucks for a year!
21% cashback at Personalization Mall -- plus lots of coupon codes (too many to list; see Ebates' site), including $5 off a $15 purchase, 15% off any purchase, $10 off a $50 purchase, or free shipping on a $50 purchase!
20% cashback at BuyBeauty.com -- they have the ELF Hypershine Gloss Kit for $8, the ELF Collection for $12.50, JLO Glow or Live for $29.40, Buy 2 Get 1 Free Sunglasses, and much more... plus free 3-day shipping with code FREEPRIORITY
6% cashback from GiftCertificates.com! They charge a 95-cent service fee, but you'll still come out way ahead after your cashback! Buy a $100 Supercertificate and send it to yourself, then redeem it for a GC to a store you know you'll shop at anyway!
Lots of other great rebate deals and coupons available at Ebates today, but it's only until 6pm PST! Hurry!
In a message to members today, Ebates announced that it will be holding a repeat of its popular Cyber Monday promotion, this time titled Cyber Thursday! Tomorrow from 10am to 6pm (PST), you will receive "up to double cash back" at most of its stores, including Office Depot, Newegg, Drugstore.com, JCPenney, Overstock, BestBuy, Sephora, American Eagle Outfitters, and eLuxury.
Click here to join and get a $5 bonus when you make your first purchase!
Update, 11:45pm ET: It's over! Almost 11 hours of deals, including white gold .5K diamond earrings for 65.5% off, an Xbox 360 core system for 51.3% off, a Kitchen Aid Artisan Series 5-qt mixer for 46.6% off, a digital picture frame keychain for 68.4% off, a Braun Electric Shaver for 59.6% off... and I was THRILLED to win the Canon SD40 digital camcorder I've been wanting for 30.6% off ($425, compared to the lowest anywhere else at $550). Much fun was had by all! Tune in tomorrow at 1pm ET for their regular one-item, limited-quantities Smack Deal of the Day!
Jellyfish.com will be running its popular reverse auction, the Jellyfish Smack, all day today beginning at 1pm ET. This is a great opportunity to finish up your Christmas shopping with some great bargains after rebate. More information on how the Smack Deals work is here. Click here to join if you haven't already, so you won't miss out on today's shop-a-thon!
What's great about online rebates, shopping through a rewards program or rebate portal, as they're sometimes called, is that you don't have to mutilate the box the item came in to cut off the UPC code to send in for a rebate. No filling out forms, no wondering whether the forms were received... you just shop through a rebate site and wait the required period, then you get your cash back. Simple!
I'm seeing some new folks visiting the site, thanks to two nice mentions in Gregory Karp's Spending Smart columns, today and last Sunday, in the Tribune family of newspapers (the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, Hartford Courant, Stamford Advocate, and Allentown Morning Call). Just wanted to say hi, to welcome you to CompareRewards, and to thank you for stopping by. I've been using rewards (rebate) programs since '97 and I founded this site 5 years ago. If you have any questions about how these programs work, or if I can give you any recommendations or tips, please don't hesitate to ask -- my email address is comparerewards@yahoo.com.
To get directly to my three favorite sites I mentioned in last week's article, click here to go to Ebates, here to go to Jellyfish, and here to go to QuickRewards.net!
For assistance in comparing various rebate sites' shopping rates, you may want to see my shopping rebate analysis here. For reviews on the programs I compared, a summary of their features is here.
If you find the site useful, you can bookmark it by holding down the CTRL key and pressing D. And please pass the link on to any friends you think might benefit from it!
You can save serious money by shopping online through a rebate site (also known as a rewards program). There are lots of these sites out there, and I hope that you'll find the information here that you need in order to choose them and use them!
Best wishes and thanks for stopping by,
Becky Ford
QuickRewards.net has offered my site visitors an exclusive incentive to join: if you join here, you'll get a $1 bonus deposited into your account, just for signing up! If you join and make a purchase under $25, you'll get a $2 bonus instead. And if you join and make a purchase over $25, you'll get a $3 bonus instead. These bonuses are on top of their regular rebate rates.
This is a great opportunity for you to check out how fast these guys pay your rebate when you shop -- usually you're credited the same day or within 2 days, and you can immediately cash out for PayPal (or save up for a different emailed or snail-mailed gift card).
Be sure to join with my link above -- this promotion is only being offered to CompareRewards visitors -- and then email me at comparerewards@yahoo.com to receive your bonus!
According to an article at Brandweek.com, the BzzAgent.com word of mouth marketing program will be eliminating rewards for many of its campaigns in 2007. They found that only about 13% of the points issued were being redeemed, so they began testing some campaigns that didn't offer rewards, and according to BzzAgent rep Joe Chernov, they didn't find a significant drop in participation. They say they'll only be offering rewards for some campaigns in the coming years, and will be offering "social currency" instead -- public acknowledgement, invitations to special advisory boards, etc.
This has been a big year for rewards programs changing hands, and on Wednesday, Greenpoints became the latest. S&H Greenpoints, as the parent company is called, was bought for $100 million by a company called Pay By Touch. Sperry & Hutchison (S&H) started business in 1896 and was the first loyalty program in the U.S. -- you remember their Green Stamps program, I'm sure. They've been operating a digital version called Greenpoints.com since 2000.
Pay By Touch was founded in 2002 and is located in San Francisco (Greenpoints is in Delray Beach, FL). They have 700 employees. They specialize in fingerprint ID systems. Their founder and CEO, John Rogers, was quoted as saying, "S&H's unparalleled solutions and top-tier team make it the perfect strategic fit with Pay By Touch. We are extremely pleased to welcome the S&H team, and look forward to working together to help merchants deliver the right offer to the right shopper at the right time."
No word on how the sale will impact Greenpoints members.
Thanks to a nice mention in yesterday's KETV-7 ConsumerWatch segment by Mike Sigmond, I'm happy to see some new visitors from the Omaha area stopping by the site. Welcome! If you're new to rewards programs (rebate portals), you may want to start by reading the articles to your left, beginning with, "What's a Rebate Program?"
Then, to help you decide on one or more rebate sites to use, I put together a rebate rate comparison (it doesn't show EVERY rebate program and EVERY online store but enough to give you an idea of which rebate programs pay the most) and a "snapshot" summarizing the features of some of these rebate programs. I also have lots of news and in-depth reviews here on the site, which I update daily (or at least, as news becomes available).
Hope you find the information you need! I'm always happy to answer your questions by email at CompareRewards@yahoo.com. Thanks for stopping by!
QuickRewards.net has just announced its holiday shopping promo. Through 12/24, you can earn a bonus of up to 2% cash back on top of their regular rebates, when you spend over $10 per shopping order. The amount of the bonus depends on the number of orders you place -- the more you shop, the greater the bonus! Click "Continue reading..." to see the full bonus structure.
In chat today, Jellyfish.com announced that we could expect two big promotions coming up:
This Wednesday night at 7pm ET will be Smack Shopping After Hours, where all items for sale will be non-tech products. Tuesday of next week will be an all-day, all-night Smack Fest. The quantities of each product up for sale, and the speeds at which the rebates increase, will vary.
If you're not familiar with Jellyfish.com's Smack Deals, they are items put up for auction where the rebate increases as the seconds tick by...which lowers the price after rebate. See my Full Scoop on the Jellyfish Smack post for more info... and join Jellyfish here!
Update, 6/09: The trivia answers portion of AdlibCorner has been taken down, but there is a LOT of great content on the site on earning and saving money! Be sure to check it out!
Did you know that not only can you get paid for answering trivia questions, but you can get a list of the correct answers online in one location for free every day!
My friend and partner-in-crime ;) Ginger of AdLibCorner.com posts a daily newsletter with all of the trivia answers and contest code words you need to win daily, weekly, and monthly contests on these (and more!) rewards programs and other websites!:
- A-Better-Way Herb Monthly Trivia Answer!
- BaskinFixins Monthly Beanie Scramble Contest Answer!
- Bays Toast to Trivia Weekly Trivia Answer!
- CBS Sportsline Weekly Trivia Answers!
- Classics duJour Daily Trivia Answer!
- Concierge.com Monthly Mystery Location!
- CosmoGirl.com Daily Code Word!
- CreationsRewards.net Daily Trivia Answer!
- Days of Our Lives Trivia Answer!
- GolfChannel Daily Trivia Answers!
- Grab.com Daily Trivia Answers!
- History Channel Weekly Trivia Answers!
- HistoryNet Daily Trivia Answer!
- IGetItDaily.com Daily Secret Code Answer!
- LuckySurf, Memolink.com, and PCH Lotto Daily Trivia Answers!
- Maine Lobster Direct Monthly Trivia Answer!
- Milesource.com Trivia Answers!
- MySony Weekly Trivia Answer!
- NFLPlayers.com Daily Trivia Answer!
- PointPool Hidden Banners!
- Points & Prizes Code Words!
- QuickRewards.net Daily Trivia Answer!
- Quick and Simple Daily Code Word!
- RewardTV Trivia 2 Daily Trivia Answer!
- SearchCactus.com Search Words!
- Seventeen.com Daily Code Word!
- Slingo Daily Trivia Answer and Mystery Word!
- StartSampling Slogan and SampleSavvy Contest Answer!
- Wheel of Fortune Spin ID and Bonus Spin!
Click here to see the Trivia Answers, Code Words, and More at AdLibCorner.com!
