PlasticJungle Promotion: Sell $200 in Gift Cards, Get $20 in Credit

Have some unused or unwanted gift cards left over? Gift card exchange site PlasticJungle.com is having a promotion where if you sell them $200 in gift cards by midnight Friday, you’ll get $20 credit towards a future gift card purchase. When you go to the Sell gift card section, you should see this message:

The offer text:

Sell us $200 and get $20 off your next Purchase!
Sell us $200 or more worth of Gift Cards in a single transaction this week and we will give you a $20 credit off of your next Gift Card Purchase from Plastic Jungle! This promotion will run from now until 12:00am PST Saturday morning (1/19/13).

Remember, you can sell multiple different cards, but it has to be in one single transaction. A 10% rebate may get you back close to face value, given that you generally lose about 5-20% when selling your gift cards to these types of places. You can get paid via Amazon.com gift card, check, or deposit into a PayPal account. Many cards can be sold electronically with their unique numbers, while some of them you have to mail in.

You shouldn’t have too much of a problem finding a gift card to buy with your $20 credit, assuming you shop at any chain store (Wal-mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, CVS, Walgreens). I’ve mentioned before that I often buy Home Depot gift cards from PlasticJungle, at times via smartphone while still standing in the store. I just buy the “eCode” electronic gift card, have the cashier type it in, and I save another 7% on top of my other coupons or discounts.

GradSave.com: Contribute to 529 Plan with Credit Card

LivingSocial is currently offering a $50 Gradsave gift card for $24 (expired). The GradSave College Savings Gift Card can be redeemed for a $50 deposit into any national 529 college savings plan. So if you’re already meaning to contribute some money towards a 529 plan, it’s basically $26 in free money. I bought one and requested it to be transferred it to my daughter’s existing Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 plan. Limit 1 voucher per customer, beneficiary, account, savings plan, or 529 plan.

(Reminder, you can save a little extra on your LivingSocial deals with cashback shopping portals like eBates ($10 new customer bonus), Mr. Rebates ($5 bonus), and BigCrumbs.)

Additionally, GradSave.com is currently waiving all credit card processing fees on their gift cards as another start-up promotion. So, if you wanted to contribute say $1,000 towards your 529 plan, now you could earn cashback, points, or miles on your credit card for that amount (with no fees) instead of via check or bank account transfer. Also potentially handy towards spending hurdles on $500+ credit card bonuses.

A day later, credit card fees are no longer waived. The fees are rather high as well, even for bank transfers.

529 contributions can be taken out without penalty. If you withdraw any earnings for unqualified expenses, then you will be subject to income taxes as well as a 10% penalty. Still, it may be a lot of paperwork and/or headache unless you keep your records very clean and simple.

Free Credit for Amazon MP3 Downloads

Updated. Here’s another $2 in free Amazon MP3 credit up for grabs. Visit this link for the details – you’ll need a Facebook account for this one (real or spam account, you decide).

It should increase your gift card balance for music purchases only. Limit one promotional credit per customer, so my wife and I both jump on these to fill up the iPod. We download the files manually and combine them onto a shared iTunes library. Must be redeemed by 11:59 p.m. PST on January 10, 2013.

Backup Your Music Library For Free Into Google’s Cloud Service

Google has just announced on their Google Play page that you can now upload your music library to Google Play, and they will scan them and keep a copy in the cloud for free and let you stream to your devices as needed. This “digital music locker” is currently limited to 20,000 songs and US users. Microsoft and Apple offer similar services, but charge $25 every year. Tech site AllThingsD suggests that the other companies charge money as this effectively “launders” pirated music into officially paid-for music, and Google probably just paid a big flat fee to make this happen for everyone.

Our new music matching feature gets your songs into your online music library on Google Play much faster. We’ll scan your collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud – all for free. And we’ll stream your music back to you at up to 320 kbps.

I simply interpret this as a free way to back up all my music files online and not have to worry about a hard drive crash. I was able to upload all my songs overnight – sucked straight from iTUnes – and I can now see and stream them to my phone or computer (or download them). Pretty neat.

Free ShopRunner Membership

It may not work in time for Christmas anymore, but here’s another offer for a free 1-year Shoprunner membership. Enter offer code RUNNER. No credit card required, it is optional, just asks for an e-mail address. Shoprunner is similar to Amazon Prime in that it offers unlimited free 2-day shipping with no minimum order amount from a variety of online merchants. Via staff of FW.

After you get your free year, you can also get another free 90-day extension by going back to the home page and signing up for Shoprunner Central. This service scrapes your Gmail or Yahoo e-mail account to help keep track of receipts. You need to allow them access your personal information, which I was not cool with, so I just used my seldom-used @yahoo.com e-mail.

Free Experian Credit Monitoring from Credit Sesame

You may be familiar with Credit Sesame from my popular free credit scores with no trials post, as they offer you a free credit score based on your Experian credit report, updated once a month. They make money by presenting you with credit-related offers like mortgage refinances or auto loans. I’ve been happily getting my updates for years now… I don’t worry about the absolute number as much as the relative change each month to see if anything new has either hurt or boosted my creditworthiness significantly.

Per this press release, Credit Sesame is now offering free daily credit monitoring as well. No tricks, no trials, no credit card required. If you’re already a member, just log in and opt into the new feature. You can also get push alerts via their Android and iPhone apps. Here’s a screenshot with nothing exciting since it’s only been 5 minutes:

As opposed to the free monthly score, monitoring checks your Experian credit report daily and sends you an email alert if any activities have occurred – for example, if there was a credit pull by a lender or a new address added. This can provide early warning of attempted identity theft, reporting errors, or simply am overzealous lender checking your credit without permission. Many providers charge $10-$20 a month for similar monitoring, and while it’s potentially useful I’ve never recommended paying a hundred bucks a year for it. But hey, Credit Sesame already has my info, so I’ll definitely sign up for free.

(Note: You can get also free credit scores and similar monitoring alerts based on your TransUnion credit data at CreditKarma.com.)

From their FAQ, here’s a sample of events on your Experian credit report that may trigger an alert:
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Best Value in Smartphone Plans? T-Mobile $30/month Prepaid 4G with Unlimited Data

Even though I know you can get cheap, basic cell service for under $10, I do find value in having a smartphone with mobile data, for business reasons and mobile hotspot use if nothing else. My current contract is coming to an end, so I’ve been looking for the best current value in smartphone plans.

I kept hearing about a T-Mobile $30 a month prepaid plan that with a little “hacking”, you could turn into an unlimited minutes, text, and data plan for $30 a month with no contracts! Too good to be true? After many hours of research and tinkering around, I finally have it all set up and have been using it for a little over a week. Here’s a summary of what I discovered (ended up being a bit long):

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Target: Free $10 Gift Card with $50 Purchase

Back again… Target has a “Friends and Fans” promotion offering a $10 Target Gift card with $50+ purchase. Expires Saturday, 12/15/12. See all Target coupons here. If you are having trouble getting to print, the bar codes appear to be the same for everyone and Fatwallet member happysave shared a PDF version here.

Heavy Target shopper? Did you know that the Target REDcard debit card gives you 5% back on all Target purchases and sucks money directly out of your existing checking account?

Also: If you do cheap prepaid phone service, you can buy cards from many services at Target and lower your effective monthly rate.

Priceline Rewards Visa Card Review: 2% Flat Cash Back On All Purchases

The Priceline Rewards™ Visa® Card There’s a new 2% flat cash back card in town …although it’s somewhat hidden under some Priceline co-branding and William Shatner doing martial arts.

Here’s how it works. The Priceline Rewards Visa® Card earns 2 points per $1 spent on all purchases, with no limit, no cap, no category restrictions. 100 points = $1 in statement credit, so in other words that’s 2% flat cash back on everything.

Redemption involves “zapping” one of your existing purchases with your points. So let’s say you have 5,000 points ($50 worth). You’ll need to choose a purchase on your card within the last 90 days that’s between $25 and $50 to “zap”. Let’s say you spend $43.33 at the grocery store, and you pick that to zap. You’ll get a $43.33 statement credit and redeem 4,333 points. The remaining 667 points will be saved for the next time. Make sense? Not as nice as 2% back, but it’s not that bad once you understand the system. You can redeem online, there’s no need to call in.

You may redeem your points toward statement credits for any purchase(s) on your Account statement that are $25 or greater.

New cardholders also get a $50 bonus after first purchase (5,000 bonus points after your first purchase). No annual fee.

If you do use Priceline.com, you can redeem your points towards previous “Name Your Own Price” Priceline purchases at a higher rate. Depending on the size of the purchase, you can effectively get between 2.2% to 3% cash back on those purchases. Combine with a 4% or so rebate from a cashback shopping portal for hotels and care rentals, and that’s not a bad total discount.

For those interested, there is also a 0% balance transfer offer that isn’t the best, but definitely above-average. You get 0% introductory APR for the first fifteen billing cycles after the account is opened. The balance transfer fee is either $10 or 3% of each transfer, whichever is greater, during those first fifteen billing cycles. See terms and conditions for details.

In summary, this is a rewards card where you can get a baseline 2% cash back on all your purchases. I recommend combining this with a nice category-specific card like the 5% cash back rotating cards or the 6% back on groceries / 3% back on gas American Express. This card is issued by Barclays Bank which is a relatively new issuer in the US and thus won’t affect your existing Citi/Chase/AmEx relationships if you have other rewards cards.

1000 Free United Airlines Miles from Bckstgr.com

Social media something-or-other site Bckstgr.com is offering new users up to 1,000 United MileagePlus miles for registering and linking your Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts. 400 miles for sign-up, 200 miles for each link. You have to provide your United frequent flier number and PIN, but as you can see on this United.com page, the partnership is legit. Came in handy for me, as United miles expire after 18 months of inactivity. Screenshot below:

 

Amazon Facebook Promotion: $5 off $25 Coupon

Back again, quantities limited . Amazon is running a Facebook promotion with a $5 off $25 purchase credit if you connect a Facebook account and share about it (can just share with yourself and/or delete link afterward). You must spend $25 in one transaction, and the promotional expires 11:59 PM PST on Sunday 11/9/12. The promotional credit may only be applied to products “Ships and sold by Amazon.com” and may not be applied to digital downloads or gift card purchases.

Looking for a self-gifting idea? Consider the OBi110 VoIP bridge which lets you replace your monthly landline bill with Google Voice and NO monthly bills, which is now only $40.99 with free shipping = Under $36 with this coupon.

American Express Gift Card Fee Waiver Promo Code

american-express-gift-cardAmerican Express Gift Cards are a popular option for those last-minute or difficult holiday gifts. Here are the highlights:

  • Works wherever American Express is accepted.
  • No fees after purchase. Other cards may have inactivity fees or transaction fees.
  • Funds do not expire. If the date on the card expires, get a new card by calling Customer Service at 1-877-297-4438.
  • Replaceable if your card is stolen or lost.
  • Note: American Express does not ship Gift Cards to the states of HI and VT.

The standard drawback is that these cards usually have two separate fees: a $3.95 purchase fee and a $5.95 standard or $8.95 expedited shipping fee.

EXPIRED. Until 11:59 PM EST on Sunday 12/4/2016, you can get $0 purchase fee and free expedited shipping with promotion code CYBER16.

Some people also use these gift cards for meeting credit card spending hurdles as you can buy them with any major credit card (AmEx, Visa, Mastercard, or Discover card).