gift cards Archive

Alright deal hunters of any level, here’s a deal you will want to jump on asap. Group buying service LivingSocial is offering a nationwide deal on an Amazon gift card. The deal offers a $20 Amazon gift card for $10. What makes this deal even better is that you can use any “deal bucks” you have in your account towards the purchase. Most buyers (including myself) have purchased the deal for $5 instead of $10.

Update 7am Eastern: The deal counter is now nearing 110,000 gift certificates sold.

Update 9am Eastern: The deal counter is now over 175,000 gift certificates sold for a total value of $3.5 million although many are reporting purchasing tens of deals which LS may very well cancel. It’s also important to note that LS has changed the terms of the deal after the start by removing the ability to use “deal bucks” – I hope this does not impact my transaction from early this morning.

Update 9:30am Eastern: Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed Venture Partners calls today’s deal, “the first step of operational integration from that investment.” He’s referring to the investment Amazon made in LS late last year.

Update 10:30am Eastern: We are now up to over 300,000 gift cards ordered. I can absolutely confirm that it’s not 300,000 customers that have ordered as many are reporting ordering up to 100 (!) cards.

Update 1:30pm Eastern: We are now over 550,000 gift cards ordered which is over $10 million in total gift cards.

Update 3:00pm Eastern: We are up to 700,000 gift cards for $12 million in total gift card value.

Update 6:00pm Eastern: We are now over 900,000 gift cards worth $18 million in card value.

Update 8:00pm Eastern: Just hit 1 MILLION GIFT CARDS SOLD!

As of 5:30AM Eastern, LivingSocial shows their purchased counter reaching nearly 100,000. I am unsure of what the maximum number of gift cards they will sell so that’s why I am suggesting you act fast if you want in on this deal.

My question with this deal is just how much is LivingSocial losing on the deal?

• LS clearly notes that Amazon is not a sponsor of this promotion so how much did LS purchase the gift cards for? As Chris points out in the comments, Amazon is a major investor in LivingSocial.
• Most LS customers will have some amount of “deal bucks” in their account so the average purchase amount will be much closer to $5 than $10
• There’s a lot of talk about how to get more than one deal per person – basically you create multiple email addresses and use multiple credit cards. Most times this isn’t an issue as people don’t want 10 (or 100) massages or ribeye steaks but for deals like this there will be more people looking to buy multiple offers – and remember, each email is forwarding the deal on so they are getting “deal bucks” as they refer themselves over and over.

Wondering if this is considered big in deal land? The SlickDeals thread discussing the deal has 150 pages with over 2,250 replies since 12AM this morning!

Here’s a link to the deal – ignore whatever city is listed since the deal is nationwide. (note: if you use the link in this last sentence, I get a referral credit towards my purchase which is appreciated.)

Today is Cyber Monday here in the U.S. This is the day when online retailers and merchants offer extra-special deals for their online customers. In the past today has been a great day to shop online although this year the deals were hot on Black Friday so I am not sure that the deals will be as hot this year as they have been for past year’s Cyber Monday sales.

One method I use to save additional money is to buy discounted gift cards. My favorite deal this Cyber Monday (actually it runs until December 5th) is from HEB supermarkets. They are running a promotion which provides the following discounts for purchasing gift cards at their stores:

• $5 off $50
• $15 off $100
• $50 off $300

Last night I purchased $300 in Southwest gift cards and saved $50 on my next flight. I also purchased a $100 Amazon gift card for $85– it’s so rare to save extra dollars on top of Amazon’s deals so this is hot. HEB supermarkets are found mostly in the south. They have gift cards from over 200 retailers and I think the best deals for gadgets and apps are the gift cards from iTunes, Best Buy and Amazon.

It appears many merchants are offering discounted iTunes gift cards so be on the lookout if you are planning to buy any music or apps for your iPod Touch, iPad or iPhone.

There are other gift card deals out there so before you click “buy now” on any items today and for the holiday season, do a search to see if there are any deals that can save you additional money by finding a deal on a gift card for the specific merchant.

Continue reading “Cyber Monday – Use Gift Card Deals to Maximize Savings” »