(ENDED) 17oz Mango Spot Camera 70-200mm F2.8 IS Lens Mug for $12

This lightning deal expired…

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Pay $85, Get $100 Sears Gift Card (email delivery; limit 5 per customer)

Sears sells camera gear on its own, but also featured a number of 3rd-party sellers on its website as well, a group of well-known camera retailers that you also see on eBay and Amazon and NewEgg and Worst Buy. If interested in Sears purchases (of any kind, not just cameras), to the eBay Deals we go…

… where PayPal’s Digital Gifts is offering $100 Sears Gift Cards (delivered by email) for $85 with free delivery. Limit five per customer while this promotion is running. The math is easy, it is a 15% off discount on the gift card, thus, a 15% off discount on everything you buy using the discounted gift cards 🙂 This is a limited time offer!

(ENDED) 12oz Mango Spot Lens-Shaped Coffee Cup for $8

This lightning deal expired…

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B&M: Get $10 store rewards on $50 Google Play Gift Card

If you live in the Android Google PLAY ecosystem, CVS B&M stores offer $10 back in CVS ExtraBucks when you purchase a $50 Google PLAY gift card until Saturday night (June 27, 2017). Limit one per customer for the week. Of interest if you buy camera and photo e-books or apps or photography documentaries (or any other content) from Google PLAY.

12oz Mango Spot Stainless Steel Lens Coffee Mug (Leica 180 f3.4 Homage) for $12

If you like lens-shaped coffee mugs, and like the Leica-style lenses, but don’t want to pay top bucks for the Leica-branded ones, the Mango Spot brand is offering the 12oz Stainless Steel Lens Coffee Mug, an homage to the Leica 180 f3.4 lens, for $12 by a 3rd-party seller with the orders fulfilled by Amazon, so free 2-day shipping for Prime members.

(ENDED) Mango Spot Lens-Shaped 12oz Stainless Steel Cup for $8

This lightning deal expired…

[Read more…]

Self-Stirring Lens-Shaped Coffee Mug for $12 + $2 S&H [AAA powered]

Lens-shaped coffee mugs are everywhere these days, but what if you want to take your coffee-lensing to the next level? How about a a self-stirring coffee-shaped lens-mug? It is currently on sale for $13 plus $2 flat shipping at Stacksocial. Don’t forget to use any coupons (eg new customer) or credits you may have. The self-stirring is not powered by your love of coffee, but by two AAA batteries.

This is listed as 11 ounces, so if you are buying coffee at coffee shops, it won’t match the standard 12/16/20/24 sizes. You can try to convince them to sell you the kids size (8 oz) if they have it 🙂 However, if the coffee shop has free refills (eg Starbucks Gold Rewards), then losing an extra ounce is no big deal. Then again, with some places, you don’t want to drink any more of their coffee, even with unlimited free refills 🙂

If you plan to use this regularly, this 4-pack of Eneloop AAA Pre-Charged NiMHs currently goes for $7.60 at Amazon. They are not Add-ON, so Prime members get them in 2~ days without the need to buy anything else. These AAA are 750 mAh minimum (800 mAh “type”), with up to 2100 recharges. They are also eligible for “Subscribe and Save” as well. Limit one set for each purchase option.

Speaking of Stacksocial, their Pay What You Want Photography Bundle continues. $1+ gets you two classes, while meeting/beating the average price of $12.84 gets you all nine items (seven classes, two assets (stock photos to be experimented upon for class learnings)). More Pay What You Want options at our previous post.

Today’s entertainment video, the self-stirring coffee mug:

20% back on $30 iTunes or Google Play Gift Cards (also 16% back on Netflix)

We are hitting two ecosystems with one blog stone 🙂 Good until Saturday night 4/15/17, at Rite Aid brick and mortar stores [check their Weekly Ad to verify your local stores are participating], by using the Plenti Rewards program (managed by American Express and free and easy to join in-store or online), you can get 20% back in Plenti points on the purchase of $30 Google Play or $30 iTunes Gift Cards. You earn the $6 spending equivalent (600 Plenti Points) to use in the future (as early as next day after purchase) at participating Plenti retailers (Rite Aid, Exxon-Mobil, Macy’s, etc). If you shop at any of these retailers regularly, this is as good as cash. I’ve done these a few times, they work like clockwork. Limit two per customer for this particular offer.

Of camera and photo interest is the purchase of photography and camera guide e-books (tablets and PCs are better suited than e-book readers and phones when reading e-books with diagrams, tables, and of course color pictures), along with the purchase of camera and photography apps, and the occasional photography-related movie or TV show.

Speaking of which, another similar deal is running at Rite Aid B&M for the same time period. Buy a $50 Netflix Gift card, and get 800 Plenti points back. That’s a 16% off virtual discount, assuming you have no problem spending the 800 Plenti points at participating retailers. Limit two per customer on this offer. You can load this card to your own Netflix account (you don’t have to gift it to someone else). These work like clockwork too, and it only takes about 60 seconds to scratch the code, logon to the Netflix website, and type in the goofy jumble of letters and numbers that is the gift card code. Netflix can sometimes take a couple of minutes to “digest” the gift card, so don’t panic if your balance does not refresh instantaneously [this word is a pain to type correctly!]

Of camera and photo interest, well, there are very few photo-related movies and docs on Netflix, but you can put the savings towards the purchase of your next camera and photo item 🙂 A 16% virtual discount on a $10 monthly plan would make it a virtual $8.40 per month. Assuming you can use the Plenti points on your everyday purchases.

I have done the above offers multiple times, they work like clockwork, and they are frictionless. All you have to do is show your Plenti rewards card when making the purchase at Rite Aid, or type in your phone number correctly. You pay full price at the cash register. You get the promotion in bonus points. You get instant verification on the bonus points on the cash register receipt, it shows the amount earned. The bonus points can be spend the next morning (after your purchase). You cannot roll the points (you cannot use them on gift cards anyway), so you must pay with “new money” (credit card, cash, debit card, check, gold bullion bars, live chickens, and all the other acceptable payment methods).

Pay $90, Get $100 Barnes and Noble plastic gift card [limit 3]

Back to the Trending eBay Deals, if you like to shop at Barnes and Noble and you don’t need instant delivery, you can PAY $90 and receive $100 Barnes and Noble plastic gift card. Free shipping. Limit three per customer. The seller is SVM Gift Cards (99.4%, ships from Illinois).

Strategically this is good if you are planning to buy books and other items B&N offers that have the same prices everywhere or rarely get discounted. This is today’s deal theme apparently with this and the Rakuten Masterpass offer.

eMailable Gift Cards: Pay $85, Get $100 iTunes; Pay $150, Get $165 Best Buy

To the eBay Deals where the PayPal Digital Gifts store is offering a couple of promotions on gift cards delivered by email:

+ Pay $85, Get $100 iTunes eGift Card (limit 4)

+ Pay $150, Get $150 + $15 Best Buy eGift Cards
+ the $15 eGift Card only works between April 1-14 in 2017
+ limit five per customer

+ all the gift cards offered by “PayPal Digital Gifts” are emailable gift cards. PayPal Digital Gifts does not sell plastic gift cards.

Pay $5, Get $10 Target eGift Card (YMMV maybe)

Groupon has a new doorbuster type of an offer, Pay $5, Get a $10 electronic Target Gift Card. You can also buy it as a gift for other people.

The page there says only those invited by email can get it. I checked my Groupon emails and I wasn’t invited but I can add to cart and go to the “Place Order” page, so maybe they opened up the offer to everyone. I don’t need a Tarjay gift card at the moment, and being a poor blogger, I can’t buy it just so I can test the offer 🙁

So, to cut a long story short, this may be YMMV.

YMMV Buy $50+ in Amazon Gift Cards, Get $10 promo code

Amazon has another gift card promotion, but this is YMMV. Typically these type of offers are once for the lifetime of an Amazon account, and they may be further targeted to a subset of customers based on whatever criteria their computers use (eg inactive customers, or customers who rarely buy gift cards, etc – who knows). You can tell if you are eligible for this offer if you are logged on to your Amazon account and visit the Promotional page. IF you are not eligible, the page will inform you so like this:

Gift Emergencies and/or Simplicity: Online Emailable or Printable Gift Cards

It is almost too late to buy physical gifts, you either have to fight last minute stressed out crowds at shopping centers, or hope PrimeNOW doesn’t screw up with a last minute order (Amazon delivery drivers on average are not as seasoned as UPS and FedEx drivers). At this point in time, the safer and least stressful solution is online gift cards delivered by email or printable with your own printer.

At Amazon’s Gift Cards, you can send them by e-mail (they usually arrive within a couple of minutes), or you can print them with your own printer (they offer a variety of designs including uploading your own photo, which would make it a personal gift), and for the younger generation, they even have delivery via a text message (because email and reading from paper is hard!). You can enter any amount from $1 to $2000. If you want to test the delivery speed, you can send yourself an email gift card and see how fast it arrives. You can even send it to the same email address. You can also select the delivery date (but not the delivery time). Amazon sends you emails after it is sent and after the email with the gift card is opened (or something like that, I forgot what’s the exact trigger point), so you’ll know it was not lost in the cybersphere.

At B&H Photo, you can send them via e-mail with a few premade templates to chose from. Amounts range from $20 to $250. For larger amounts, send multiple cards. TIP: if sending multiple e-gift cards to the same person, maybe send different amounts so they don’t get confused and think it’s a duplicate 🙂

At Adorama, you have preset options ranging from $10 to $1000, delivered by e-mail.

Various options for Physical Gift Cards with Free 1-Day Shipping

If you like to gift gift-cards but prefer to gift physical tangible gift cards, there are still a number of options available at Amazon with free 1-day shipping for all (they do that often for gift cards since they are featherweight).

Prime members have more options on free 1-day shipping or next-day delivery. However, some of these gift cards also offer free 1-day for non-Prime members. Regardless, the best way to tell for sure is to add the items of interest to your shopping cart and see what shipping fees and options the shopping cart shows you. It is the ultimate decider after all 🙂

+ Snow Flake Tin ($25 to $2000)
+ Holiday Teddy Bear ($200 or $250)
+ Merry Christmas Tin ($50 to $1000; preset amounts only)
+ Smiling Santa Tin ($50 to $200; preset amounts only)
+ Plaid Box with either Nativity Scene or Snow Globe option ($50 to $1000)
+ classic-looking Brown & Blue Tin ($25 to $2000)
+ Minimalist hippie/hipster Mini Amazon Shipping Cardboard ($50 to $2000)
+ Santa Tin [CAUTION: it says “Ho!” on the gift card which may be misinterpreted by prickly recipients!]
+ over 120 options available, some are tins, some are greeting cards, some are alternative approaches/designs (eg book bookmarks
+ some gift cards have preset amounts or you can enter an amount in the “Other” box up to $2000, others only have preset amounts
+ these are the Christmas Delivery Cut-Off Dates but the Shopping Cart estimate is the most accurate for each particular order at each particular point in time

The above are Amazon’s own gift cards, but they now also offer gift cards for other retailers, some of which are eligible for free 1-day shipping. Check the full list here (includes Whole Foods, Netflix, Starbucks, various restaurants and clothing stores, Spotify, etc)

TIP: if you are not going to be around to physically receive the gift cards, you also have the option to send them to a local Amazon Locker facility (eg 711, Safeway, etc – availability varies by region and zipcode).

(ENDED) Get $10 Amazon Credit if you buy $50 Amazon + $50 Starbucks Gift Cards together as a bundle

As of a 12/19/16 late PM re-check, this offer is not available for purchase. I do not know if it is temporarily gone or forever…

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Pay $85, Get $100 Overstock Gift Card via email

Overstock.com does not have a full inventory like a specialist camera dealer, but they have a lot of the popular/mainstream models, so if you are an Overstock fan, among the latest Trending eBay Deals, you can pay $85 and get a $100 Overstock gift card by email from PayPal’s Digital Gifts. Limit five gift cards per buyer.

Pay $90, Get $100 Sears gift card by email (limit 2)

More action at the Trending eBay Deals, PayPal Digital Gifts is offering a $100 Sears gift card by mail for $90. Limit two per customer.

Holiday Teddy Bears with Gift Cards for $150 or $200 or $250 (Prime Only)

They are back again, the Teddy Bear Amazon Gift Cards are now available in $150 or $200 or $250 denominations Amazon by Amazon itself. You get a free gift of the same value plus the holiday teddy bear included for free. They come with free 1-day delivery, or you can select a slower shipping method (“digital credits” may or may not be available, I’m not sure exactly how their shopping cart decides this; it may vary by supply and location and delivery options and such). Limit one denomination per customer, but you can buy all three individual ones, one of each.

This is promotion is currently limited to Prime members only.

$3 “Profit” with loading $30+ on 3-pack of Amazon Anytime Greeting Card Gift Cards

This promotion is a bit confusing. Here’s the TL;DR: you can make a $3 profit by loading $10+ each on three Amazon gift cards sold together as a 3-pack that includes three holiday greeting cards. You invest $33 and make a $3 profit. The profit is a promotional credit that must be spent by 3/31/17. So let’s start from the beginning…

… Amazon launched new awkwardly named Anytime Greeting Card Gift Cards, sold as a 3-pack with a current price of $3 per 3-pack. Despite the hints of the name, these are not reloadable gift cards. You can only load them once per the lifetime of the card. I have no clue why they call them “Anytime” which hints of reusability and reloadability. Just like regular Amazon gift cards, the “Anytime gift card” don’t expire and they don’t have inactivity or other fees.

Free shipping on the cards for Prime members or the usual $49+ (or $25+ in books). You could stack this offer with the Book Coupon offer to get free shipping with a smaller order total.

A promotion is running on these until 12/31/16 that gets you a $2 promotional credit when you load $10 or more on a single Anytime gift card. Since these are sold as a 3-pack, you have to load $10 on each of them, and you get $6 total in promotional credits. So you spend $30 (three $10 loads) plus $3 for the gift cards, and you receive a $6 promotional credit.

I should point out that these are not just physical gift cards, they also include printed holiday greeting cards. They have two designs, a blue general holiday theme and a red Christmas theme. So technically you make a $3 profit and you also get three free holiday greeting cards 🙂

PS: I haven’t done this offer yet, so I can’t tell you the Xs and Os, but there are currently 7 reviews and 6 answered questions about them on the gift card listing that may answer your potential questions.

(ENDED) Pay $175, Get $200 Sears e-gift card by email (and other gift card offers)

This offer ended…

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(ENDED) Friday Only: 1-YEAR of PRIME for $79 [New Members Only!]

This 1-day promotion expired… For Friday 11/18/16 only, new members can sign up for a 1-YEAR of AMAZON PRIME service for $79 instead of the usual price of $99. This promotion does not apply to existing Prime members. It is also not eligible for gift subscriptions. Offer ends by Saturday at 3am ET.

2% Bonus if you reload $100+ Amazon Gift Card Balance with Checking Account

If you like to pay for Amazon purchases with a checking account instead of a credit card, Amazon is currently running another reload promotion, reload $100+ to your default Amazon Gift Card Balance with a checking account, and receive 2% of that amount as a bonus. The details are over there.

NOTE however that if you like to use credit cards as well, for the 4th quarter of 2016 (until 12/31/16), Discover offers 5% cashback (on up to $1500 per account for the quarter) on Amazon purchases. You have to first activate the offer in your Discover account. There are also some other Amazon promotions, for example, if you apply and get approved for a new AMEX Blue Cash Preferred (the one with the annual fee) they give you 10% back on the first $2,000 in Amazon purchases made within six months of opening.

Buy $50 Best Buy Gift Card, Get $8 equivalent back in Plenti points (16% effective discount)

If you are a fan of Best Buy, and you are participating in the Plenti rewards program, and you have a Rite Aid store near you, we have good news for you. Until the close of business on Saturday 11/19/16, when you buy a $50 Best Buy plastic gift card at the Rite Aid brick and mortar stores, and show them your Plenti rewards card (or use your phone number to tag the purchase at the register), you will receive 800 Plenti points ($8 buying power to use in future purchases). You can spend your 800 points the morning after your purchase, so you don’t have to wait like a rebate. The points are good for 2+ years in your account, they don’t expire quickly. You also get instant confirmation on the cash register receipt that your purchase qualified. This offer is limit two during this particular week (Sunday AM to Saturday PM). Assuming you’ll have no problem spending the future Plenti points on things you want/need, this is a virtual 16% off discount on the gift cards.

bestbuy_riteaid

$5 Reward with $100+ Amazon Gift Card Balance Reload [Once lifetime Per Account]

While preparing Monday’s Lightning Deals schedule, the Amazon pages kept showing the gift card reload offer, so this is a good time to mention it again. NOTE however that this only works once for the lifetime of an Amazon account, so if you did this before, you can’t do it again. You can tell if you are eligible if you are logged on to your Amazon account and visit the Reload Promotional page. The offer is this: reload $100 or more to your Amazon Gift Card Balance, and get a $5 Amazon store bonus to use in future purchase. So it’s like a 5% discount (on a $100 reload).

Here are two screenshots of what you’ll see:

If you are eligible

amzn_reload_yes

If you are NOT eligible

amzn_reload_not

YMMV $5 Bonus on $100+ Amazon Gift Card Reload (once per customer)

This is a YMMV and from what I can tell, this only works once per Amazon account for the lifetime of that account. If you reload $100 or more on an Amazon Gift Card (including the virtual “default” gift card on your Amazon account), you will receive a $5 bonus. Details and terms and conditions of the promotion can be found at the promotional page. To figure out if you are eligible, visit the page while being logged on with your Amazon account. If you just want to read the terms and conditions, you don’t need to be logged in.

This offer may also be promoted on product pages, but just because you see it there, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are eligible. The “Learn More” link in the screenshot below is the page linked-to in the first paragraph above:

amzn_reload_giftcard

Pay $100, Get 1-Year Of NewEgg Premier and a $100 Promo Credit (NEW MEMBERS ONLY)

If you are a frequent NewEgg shopper, or don’t object to shopping there, Groupon Goods is offering a NewEgg Premier Membership and Gift Card Bundle with two options:

+ Pay $50, And Get a 6-month NewEgg Premier Membership AND a $50 NewEgg Promo Credit
+ Pay $100, And Get a 6-month NewEgg Premier Membership AND a $100 NewEgg Promo Credit
+ NewEgg Premier is their Prime-equivalent membership, but only for shipping related matters (no music/video/ebooks/etc)
+ NEW MEMBERS ONLY (does not work with existing Premier memberships)
+ the $50/$100 Promo Credit expires in 90 days
+ limit one for you and one to buy as a gift for another person

Buy $100 Best Buy Gift Card, Get $10 Promo Code (or $150/$15)

More eBay Deals action, if you are a fan of Best Buy, the PayPal digital e-gift cards store on eBay is offering this promotion: Buy $100 Best Buy Gift Card, Get $10 Promo Credit. Both are email delivery. The $10 bonus card MUST be redeemed by 10/12/16. The $100 gift card follows the gift card expiration laws in your State. Usage instructions at the bottom of the listing. Limit 5 sets per customer.

Assuming you will use the promo code before it expires, this is a virtual 9% or 10% discount (depending on how you do the math).

UPDATE: if you are a big Best Buy fan and need moar moar moar gift cards, the promotion is also available for the $150 Best Buy Gift Card, buy the $150 e-gift card and receive a $15 promo code that must be used by 10/12/16. This is a parallel offer from PayPal’s Digital Gifts.

$5 off purchases of $50+ in Gift Cards (800+ options including Best Buy, Sears, eBay, Staples, REI, Groupon, etc)

eBay Gone Wild! For a limited time, they have a promotion that gets you $5 off in the shopping cart (no coupon needed) if you place a gift card order of $50+. A total of 848 gift cards are eligible for this promotion, including eBay’s own gift cards (on page #2 of the results), Best Buy, Worst Buy, Google Play, Staples, the softer and harder side of Sears (K-Mart and Sears actual), Groupon, Overstock, REI, Office Max-Depot, Art.com, “Make a Photo Case”, and many more. An expiration date is not mentioned.

PS: I haven’t done this offer yet, so I don’t know if it works multiple times or once per account. I have to check my gift card inventory 🙂

Load Amazon Gift Card Balance with $100+, Get $5 Bonus [First Time Users Only]

This promotion is only good once per Amazon account, so if you previously took advantage of it, you will not be eligible. If you are eligible, you will see the offer at the promotional Amazon page. If you are not eligible, you will see a message like “Unfortunately, you are not eligible for this offer”. The offer is this: you load $100 or more in your own Amazon Gift Card Balance account, and you receive a $5 bonus for it. I did this in the past, so I can’t do it again, I saw the above message.

Pay $85, Get $100 iTunes Gift Card by email

Speaking of the eBay Deals, if you happen to need an iTunes gift card yesterday, the PaYPal Digital Gifts offer is back, Pay $85, Get $100 iTunes Gift Card by E-Mail. Limit four per customer. Think camera and photo apps, photography and camera guide ebooks (some are iBooks-exclusives or have special editions for iPads), photography documentaries, and so forth.

This is not the lowest percentage, but it’s available right now. If you don’t need it immediately, you can wait for better iTunes offers, online or at brick and mortar.

Speaking of eBay and Gift Cards, this is a pre-filled search query that shows the eBay Daily Deal Gift Cards.