November 2007 Archives

As you probably already know, BondRewards has had the highest shopping rebate rates for two years in a row now in my annual Shopping Rebate Comparison. They've just announced that, through 12/26, they will be DOUBLING their already high rates for a handful of their popular merchants.

Kohls: 13.6% BondRewards (equal to 6.8%)
BestBuy: 3.4% BondRewards (equal to 1.7%)
Overstock: 10.2% BondRewards (equal to 5.1%)

Not a member of BondRewards yet? Please join here.

QuickRewards is upping their cashback rates at almost 100 of their members' favorite merchants today only for Cyber Monday! A full list of the higher-rate merchants is located on their blog.

What I like about QuickRewards is that they credit your account for shopping VERY fast, and they don't hold your cash back in a pending status for 6 to 8 weeks or more like other programs do -- you can cash out as soon as your shopping credits to your account, usually within 2 to 3 days. I generally cash out for PayPal or Amazon credit, but they also offer mailable gift cards (for an extra 50 cents to cover postage). After cashing out, I get paid (usually) within 24 hours.

The way I see it is, they may not have the #1 highest rebates, but they're still very competitive, plus if I shop there today, I'll have my cash back in PayPal by the weekend to re-spend! ;)

If you'd like to join QuickRewards.net, please do so with my affiliate link here. Thanks!

Ebates says to tune in for a "CyberMonday celebration like no other," starting at 10am PST (1pm ET) today! Last year they raised rebate rates tremendously for the vast majority of their merchants. If you're not a member of Ebates and would like to join, they'll give you $10 when you make your first purchase -- please join here!

Black Friday on Jellyfish was a lot of fun, and the excitement continues through Cyber Monday! Here's the scoop on what's coming up: Outwit pots will continue to be bumped up by $20 each game. The price drops in the reverse auction will continue to be sped up. And between 7am Monday and midnight (central time), all items offered will be random. It's not clear if there will be multiples offered on each item or if it's just one item per auction.

If you're not familiar with Jellyfish.com -- they came in second in my 2007 Shopping Rebates Comparison (they offered the highest shopping rates of any site that offered cash back, versus savings bonds or points). You can win free cash just by playing the Outwit the Smack game in-between auctions. More info on how Smack reverse auctions work is located here, or go ahead and sign up for Jellyfish here!

CreationsRewards is giving members a chance to earn a bonus in addition to their regular rebate rates -- if you make at least 4 orders of $25 (after discounts and before shipping, handling, and tax), you'll receive an additional points bonus depending on the number of $25+ orders between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. Bonus points will be awarded on 12/26.

At least 4 orders: 500 bonus points ($2.50)
11 to 20 orders: 1500 bonus points ($7.50)
21 to 30 orders: 3000 bonus points ($15.00)
31 to 40 orders: 5000 bonus points ($25.00)
Over 40 orders: 10,000 bonus points ($50.00)

Remember, each order must be over $25 and your shopping session must be started through CreationsRewards.net's shopping section. If you're not a member and would like to join CR, please click here (aff).

Upromise has a new member promotion going on through December 31: when you join and make a purchase through the site, in addition to your shopping rebate, they'll deposit an extra $25 into your account! Yes, Upromise is set up as a college savings site, but what you may not know is that you can instead request that your rebates be paid directly to you in the form of a check. It's pretty hard to pass up a free $25. Please click the banner for more info if you're interested!

Craig Cassata of MrRebates was interviewed on NBC6 (South Florida) yesterday in a very nice report about his rewards program. It explains how MrRebates works and how much money you can save by shopping through it. He says that one of his members has earned $50,000 in rebates! Sweet!

Here's the link to the video. My review of MrRebates is here, and if you're not a member, please join here! (aff)

Recently I had the opportunity to talk with Mitch Wander, founder and CEO of MyTroops.com. MyTroops is a fairly new rewards program, just launched in January of this year. Thanks for taking the time to take my questions, Mitch!

First of all, what's your background? Did you use rewards programs before starting one of your own?

I'm a proud veteran who has been in the Army Reserves and National Guard for 12 years, including a deployment to Iraq on a Military Transition Team in 2005-2006. My buddies in Iraq and I talked a lot about all the wonderful support we received from our unit's Family Readiness Group and friends. We thought about all the innovative ways that people were helping us out. One loyal supporter even sent us a $150 Amazon.com gift certificate. We used that to buy a loud horn for our Up-Armored Humvee and some comfort items. Anyway, after talking to my buddies, I thought about whether a rewards site could be another way to support the troops. My wife, who has a background in online retail, and I launched MyTroops and haven't looked back.

Prior to launching MyTroops, I used Upromise and FatWallet. I think they're both wonderful sites - very easy to use.

How does MyTroops work? Do I have to donate my earnings to a military person or can I keep them for myself? What if I want to support a troop but I don't know anyone -- can I adopt one?

Anyone in the military can sign up for a free rewards account. Friends and supporters can only sign up for a free shopper account to earn rewards for the troops. However, anyone can benefit from coupons on the site. The site is designed to earn rewards for troops from anyone's shopping even for themselves. Troops can use the store gift certificates to buy gear for themselves, flowers for their spouse, toys for their kids, or almost anything. We automatically suggest a Featured Troop who earns rewards if you don't know a specific troop. That's extra points for the troops. Or, feel free to look through the troops with rewards accounts and adopt one. That works too!

If a military person wanted to sign up to be supported on the site, how do they go about doing that? How often do you find someone signing up to MyTroops that picks a random troop to support?

It takes a minute or two for a troop to sign up for a free rewards account. If a troop wants to do so, he or she can also upload a picture and write a brief message to everyone.

Our rough estimate right now is that probably 3/4 of the shopping is for the Featured Troop and the remainder is for a troop who they know personally.

Do you send out any newsletters or occasional emails to remind members about the site?

We send out an occasional newsletter to troops and shoppers ranging from one to three times a week depending on whether we have anything really interesting to write. We offer one-click opt out of the newsletter for members who prefer not to receive emails from us. Most of our updates are published in the MyTroops Blog.

I like that MyTroops provides coupon codes for many of the merchants in the program -- how often do you update the codes? What if I find a coupon code on another website that's not on MyTroops, can I still use it?

We update the codes a few times per week. If something comes in that is really hot, we'll post it same day. We try to focus on the coupons that are really a great value, especially when a merchant who doesn't offer many promotions has a compelling coupon.

Per our agreements with all of our merchants, if you use a coupon code from another site on MyTroops, the merchant may decide not to pay us. And then we're not able to reward the selected troop. If you see a special offer on another site that we don't have, please drop us a line. We can often get the merchant to provide us with a similar offer.

What if the merchant where I want to shop isn't listed on MyTroops?

Please drop us a line. We add new merchants on a regular basis. For our first couple months, we had 60 to 80 merchants. Now, we have over 400 top stores.

We appreciate all feedback from our troops and shoppers. That makes the site better for everyone.

How long does it take for my shopping points to get credited? How long after that do I have to wait to cash out?

We try to credit points within three to five days of them being reported to us by the merchant. Sometimes we're a bit faster and sometimes a bit slower.

We currently have no limitations on cashing out, though if there were a single large transaction could - although we never have - decide to wait until after the merchant's return period if we were concerned about that possibility. Our emphasis is on getting rewards to the troops as quickly as we can.

You're approaching the site's first anniversary of going live -- are you where you wanted to be at this point? What changes do you have in store for the program in year two?

Has it been a year? Wow! We've completely redesigned and relaunched our site based on user feedback. We didn't expect that there was so much we could do to make it better. Although it was a lot of work, we're happy that so many troops and shoppers made suggestions how to make it better. We wanted to have 400 stores by the end of our first year and are very happy about that. As we build up sales volume and credibility with the merchants, we hope to be able to attract even more merchant coupons. Also, we'd like to obtain better commission terms from our key stores so that we can increase the rewards for the troops.

What would you say to someone considering joining MyTroops? What sets you apart from other rewards programs? Who would be the ideal member?

We hope that all Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen setup a free account. It's an easy way to earn rewards that troops can use for themselves and their families. We've got many of the coupons and discounts that other sites have... except that we're combining discounts with reward for the troops.

We try to set ourselves apart by having a great respect for our troops. We have a very strict privacy policy and we're a HackerSafe site to protect information relating to our member accounts. The military community is rightfully very concerned about privacy and we want to set a great example by honoring that expectation. We also seek out coupons from merchants where troops like to shop.

We're here to serve our military community. One troop who had earned enough points for a reward deployed to Iraq for a third time before he had a chance to redeem his reward. He emailed me and I made sure the anniversary flowers for his wife were purchased using his points and delivered to his wife. We're willing to go the extra mile for our fellow troops when a special situation arises.

One type of member who has earned lots of rewards for the troops has been small business owners. They buy large amounts of office supplies and computers for their companies. MyTroops gives them a great selection so they can shop at their favorite stores and earn rewards for the troops, too.

We certainly appreciate any members who want to support our troops. I have great respect for other rewards programs and would encourage shoppers to consider any highly-rated rewards program. MyTroops is one great option for those shoppers who want to earn rewards for the troops.

Those are all the questions I have for you today. Thanks so much for your time!

Folks, at this time of year many of us start thinking about making donations to charitable causes and helping out our fellow man. Our soldiers are out there working hard, often risking their lives, to help keep the U.S. safe. Please consider making at least one purchase through MyTroops this holiday season and donating your rebate earnings to the Featured Troop or to a troop you know personally. You can sign up for a free MyTroops account here.

Updated Daily!
QuickRewards.net (aff) has a pre-holiday promo today where, through Thanksgiving, they'll feature one merchant to offer increased shopping rebates and they'll post available coupons we can combine with the rebate to maxixmize our savings.

Last Day! QuickRewards' Merchant of the Day for today (Wednesday, November 21) is EddieBauer.com for 5.8% cash back! Free shipping on $100 orders!

Want to see who the upcoming Merchants of the Day will be so you can plan your purchases around the promotion? Click Continue Reading for the schedule!

My bank formerly had a debit rewards program offered through Visa Extras Rewards, but this year it switched over to a program run by Affinity Solutions. Affinity provides debit rewards programs to several banks including Regions and US Bank. The new program is very different from Visa Extras -- on the minus side, you don't earn from every purchase in-store or online, and online purchases must be made through their own shopping portal, where only certain merchants are listed as participating. On the plus side, however, the program pays in real cash back instead of points, at a much higher rate of earning, and there are still some merchants that reward for in-store purchases, which can now be made either via PIN or signature.

Regions Bank calls their program CheckCard Rewards, and US Bank's program is called Cash Bonus Rewards. Both programs are free to join and offer cash back of up to 25% when shopping through their rewards portal. US Bank's program offers many more merchants than Regions, and the cash back rates offered between the two programs vary (for instance, Regions offers 7% cash back for Sharper Image, versus 5% at US Bank).

How do these rates compare to other online shopping rewards programs?

In my 2007 Shopping Rebates Comparison, I found the best reward for shopping at Avon.com was 8% (through QuizPoints). Both Regions and US Bank's debit rewards programs offer 12%.

The results weren't always so favorable for the debit rewards programs, though. Both programs pay 4% cash back for Barnes and Noble purchases made through their portal, compared to 7.7% if you shop through MyPoints.

I went through all of the merchants that Regions or US Bank reward for that were included in my 2007 shopping comparison and found that you were twice as likely to get a better reward by shopping through a rewards program...however, sometimes the rewards program didn't beat out the debit rewards portal by much.

When should you go through a debit rewards program's portal? When you're shopping at one of these merchants online: Avon, CompUSA, eBay, FragranceNet, Lane Bryant, Lids, One Hanes Place, Perfumania, Red Envelope, Samsonite, Snapfish, Sunglass Hut, Toys R Us, Urban Outfitters, Walmart, or Yves Rocher. Since you'd be tied for the highest rate elsewhere, you might also prefer to use the debit rewards portal when shopping at Gap, JosABank, Kmart, Kohls, Lamps Plus, NASCAR, Office Max, Spiegel, Starbucks, Tupperware, VitaminShoppe, or Wine.com.

The debit rewards rewards program can also come in handy for purchases in-store at: Advance Auto, Avis, Blockbuster, Budget Rent-a-Car, Chevron/Texaco, Dunkin's Diamonds, 1800Flowers, Harry and David, Hollywood Video, Home Depot, Illuminations, Pier 1, Rite Aid, Samsonite, TGIFridays, or ToysRUs. Check the fine print in whichever debit rewards program you use -- sometimes one of the programs pays for in-store purchases but the other doesn't, and sometimes there's a minimum purchase required before you're eligible for cash back.

Bottom line: the Affinity Solutions-powered debit rewards programs at Regions and US Bank offer the potential for a serious amount of cash back, provided you sign up for the free membership, use their shopping portal for certain merchants (using alternate rewards programs for others), and also use your debit card for in-store purchases at participating merchants. It's a vast improvement over the Visa Extras Rewards progam, IMHO.

For a breakdown of how all the merchants compared, click Continue Reading. And note that next year, I will be including Regions and US Bank's debit rewards programs in my annual rebate analysis.

Finally, Jellyfish is giving us word on what to expect in terms of their Black Friday Smack Shopping promotion!

They announced by email today that there will be "Best of" themed shows around the clock from midnight on 11/23 'til midnight on 11/24, during which there will be multiple quantities of all items up for sale on Smack Shopping (their reverse auction). Also during that time, the Outwit pot will increase by $20 each time the pot isn't won.

Jellyfish promises more details next week. Stay tuned! Not a member of Jellyfish yet? Good! More deals for me! (Just kidding -- join Jellyfish here if you're not a member already! -- aff)

Last night's chat was a huge success and I want to thank everyone, program owners and members alike, who spent their Saturday night with me and Ginger of AdlibCorner!

For a recap of the evening's highlights, please Continue Reading!

In mid-August, United Online announced that it was spinning off its Media segment, which consists of Classmates.com and MyPoints, into their own independent company with their own stock. United Online will keep controlling interest, but they'll be allowing investors to buy into the company (an IPO).

Classmates makes money by selling premium subscriptions, which allow members to contact former classmates. Only problem is, Facebook and MySpace do this for free. At the moment, Classmates is making money -- their financials released in October showed a 37% growth in income... but how long can this be sustained with other free sites providing similar services? And with MyPoints lumped in with Classmates in this new company, what will happen to MyPoints when (notice I don't say "if") Classmates tanks?

Here's what some analysts and investors have to say about Classmates Media's future:

"[Classmates] is fundamentally a joke now due to Facebook and Myspace. It has competitors that have a superior product, yet do not charge any money and the consumers know this." The author goes on, "Classmates billing and email practices are a bit shady...many people are upset that were automatically rebilled when they did not wish to do so. This method of making money will only work so long, and will likely result in chargebacks." Source: ClassmatesSucks.net (an investor blog)

"Classmates IPO Least Likely to Succeed," is the title of an article by a stock analyst on TheStreet.com. Some of his rationale is that, again, Classmates charges for what can be found for free on other sites, that MyPoints' profits are helping to boost the group's bottom line while it's not clear how they are otherwise any kind of strategic fit with one another, and that web analytics show Classmates.com's traffic is down while Facebook is up over 100%.

Another analyst, this time at SeekingAlpha.com, writes, "United Online's Classmates.com To Go Public, Then Implode." He says, "...I predict, a large portion of the current paid subscriber base will fall away as people over the age of 30 discover/migrate to Facebook. Once you’ve found someone it is easy to keep them, and there’s no need to continue with a Classmates account." He continues, "Try as they might, Classmates.com just isn’t Facebook or MySpace. They had their chance and missed the opportunity."

So, the experts aren't enthused about the success of the new Classmates Media. Where does that leave members of MyPoints?

In the SEC filing for the Classmates Media spinoff, United Online talks about MyPoints: "Our MyPoints loyalty marketing business faces competition for members from several other loyalty programs that offer competitive online products and services, including Ebates, Upromise and ThankYou Network. We also face competition from offline loyalty rewards programs that have a significant online presence, such as those operated by credit card, airline and hotel companies."

United Online should be worried, very worried, about that competition. As my 2007 Shopping Rebates Comparison analysis showed, MyPoints was DEAD LAST in comparison to 20 other rewards programs' shopping rates. How the site is even still in business is beyond me.

MyPoints members, the program has dodged a bullet many times over its rocky history, but this may really be the beginning of the end.

If you're a member of the Best Buy RewardZone program, and you were planning to buy a nice new HDTV for Christmas, you may want to go ahead and beat the rush and pick it up this weekend instead. Best Buy's RewardZone rewards program is doubling points "11/2 to 11/5" (I don't know if that means through 11/5 or that it ends on 11/4). If you use their RewardZone Mastercard, they'll triple the points.

Double points means 2 points per dollar spent, and 250 points will get you a $5 Best Buy GC. A $1,250 TV would get you 2500 points, or $50 in Best Buy GCs, which works out to 4%. Triple points, if you use a RewardZone Mastercard for your purchase, would be worth 6%.

RewardZone is free to join -- join online here (scan down the page to "Sign me up!").

Through December 31st, FatWallet is increasing cashback rebates at around 125 of its merchants, most by 1 or 2%. This isn't a bad deal, since FatWallet has pretty competitive rates to begin with (they came in around 7th out of the 21 merchants in my 2007 Shopping Rebates Comparison analysis). If you haven't read it already, my review of FatWallet's FatCash program is here.

It was a year ago today that Jellyfish.com launched their Smack Shopping reverse auction feature. Initially, it featured an unknown quantity of one item per day, starting at noon central time. The first item ever "smacked" was a 2GB silver iPod Nano. Because of a technical glitch with the site, Jellyfish ended up giving them all away for free. (Smack Daddy's middle name is "Fair.")

Over the past year, Smack Shopping has evolved dramatically. On Black Friday 2006, Smack Shopping offered its first 24-hour reverse auction Smack-a-Thon, with new deals going up every two hours. Cyber Monday 2006 was Speed Smack day, six hours of one item after another and prices dropping super-fast on each. The first guru points contest was in November, but it wasn't an ongoing feature of the Smack.

By December, Smack Shopping offered more than one item per day (an unknown quantity of each), but still started at noon. Smack Shopping went on vacation from 12/22 through 1/2 to give Jellyfish employees a little family time during the holidays. When they returned, we saw the introduction of the Smack Wheel (where the person with the closest guess to the best winning percentage-off got to spin the wheel for a prize) and user voting on the first product to be Smacked each day (phased out in May when Smack Shopping went 24/7). The Guru Points leaderboard was begun.

February saw our first sponsored Smacks, and in March Jellyfish started hosting a Wednesday night Smack Show for those who couldn't make the noontime show. A new version of the Smack interface went live in late April -- this introduced Shopping Buddies, individual pages, and personal Living (chat) Rooms. Thus, the Cave was born. ;) (inside reference, sorry) Also in April was the introduction of the Smack Hero of the Day (Noctis has the distinction of being the first).

On May 16, the first Outwit game was played (Travel50 won), and on May 23rd, Smack Shopping became a 24/7 feature of Jellyfish. Shows that were hosted, on Wednesday nights and the weekday shows at noon, had cashback dropping at a faster rate than non-hosted shows. On June 28th, waiting for a cashback rebate for Smack purchases was eliminated -- the ending price was what you paid.

Captchas were required to opt-in for guru guessing in July, to help weed out bots suspected of cheating the system in order to win the prizes offered for the top guru leaderboard spots. SmackDaddy's Quest started (and Quest Points were introduced). I got chosen as Smack Hero in July, too, which was pretty cool. :)

In August, Quest Pot Bonuses were added to Outwit, for those participating in SmackDaddy's Quest (which was really basically a referral contest). And the Quest culminated in a big event: Smacking a car on September 5th! September 28th was SmackFest, a Jellyfish user meeting in Madison, Wisconsin hosted by Jellyfish themselves. Attendees were among the first to be told that Jellyfish had been purchased by Microsoft, which everyone else found out about on October 2nd.

October whizzed by, with many concerns about the future of not just Smack Shopping but Jellyfish.com in general (though Jellyfish management has assured us they plan to be around for a while). And here we are again, November 1st, the first anniversary of Jellyfish Smack Shopping.

It's been a wild year, with a lot of changes in the format of the Smack, as well as ups and downs in the relationships of the Smack Talkers. Ask a rabid Jellyfish Smacker about "Hot Nuts," "Rubber Chickens," "Sporks," "Smackbot," "Dilli Double," "Sam Beckett," "Smack of Shame," or "Moosing," and they'll tell you all about the inside jokes, the camaraderie, and yes, sometimes the feuding, that have all become a part of our little community. Smack Talkers are very, VERY loyal to Jellyfish. If you haven't joined Jellyfish yet, you are really missing out on something...join today!

MrRebates.com had a fine showing in my 2007 shopping rebates comparison analysis this year, with a ranking of fourth out of 21 programs reviewed. President of MrRebates, Craig Cassata, responded to the results here:

"Mr. Rebates is excited to be published in the top 5 reward programs on CompareRewards.com. We continually strive to add value to all of our customers by saving them as much money as possible on their online shopping. We are looking forward to a money-saving holiday shopping season for all of our members!"

Updated Daily!
Through Christmas, Sunshine Rewards will be increasing their rebates every day on several of their participating merchants. Today (Friday, November 2) their spotlight merchants are: Lucky Brand Jeans (3%) and Emitations (9%).

Sunshine Rewards offers cashouts to PayPal with a $20 minimum balance in your account, or gift cards starting at $25. Please click here to join. (aff)

MrRebates.com is offering additional rebates on purchases made at around 125 of their merchants, from now through the end of the year. Rebates for these merchants are increased for the most part by 1 to 2%. When you consider the fact that MrRebates already offers some of the highest cashback rates out there (they had the highest rate of the merchants on my 2007 shopping rebate comparison chart for 32 out of 169 merchants BEFORE the rate bump), this really is a great promotion.

MrRebates pays by check when your balance exceeds $25. If you're not a member and would like to join, please click here. (aff)