How I saved $3,296 with Bigcrumbs, A Credit Card and Comparing Prices Online

Well, firstly, the purchase I made isn’t for everyone, but it is a good story about how shopping around, using coupons and leveraging the cashback website Bigcrumbs saved me thousands on a large purchase recently.

I have a thing for Panerai watches, they are one of my vices, and whilst many people will tell you that buying an expensive watch is a bad idea if you want to become wealthy (I agree for the most part with this) the way I did it I actually have an asset, because I can resell the watch for more than what I paid for it.  Here is my watch:

Panerai is a very distinct brand in the watch world, it holds one of the best resale values and they are notorious for not discounting their products, so you will pay a lot of money for the luxury of having this on your wrist.  The model is the PAM352, A 1950 Luminor Marina style watch with a retail price tag of $10,100.

I’ve wanted another Panerai for a while now, after parting with my last one and trying for cheaper alternatives they never quite felt the same, but $10K for a watch without any kickbacks wasn’t going to work.  Once I set my mind (or more accurately heart) on this model I had to go and get that price reduced.

Step 1 Find an Online Retailer for the produce who offered the lowest price – it happened to be worldofwatches.com, they were offering the watch for $7995 a whopping $2,105 discount already, and I was getting excited.  However, I wasn’t ready to stop there and checked out Amazon.com who had a watch section, reading carefully they showed the watch was sold by worldofwatches.com and they had a special Amazon offer for $7,600 using a coupon code – the discount is getting better again!

So I get the watch I want, made by Panerai, shipped by worldofwatches.com sold by Amazon.com for $7,600 – there are two more steps to get full Saverocity Value.

I checked Bigcrumbs for cashback – this is a referral portal that gives you cash for online shopping, they mail it to your Paypal account online on a monthly basis and all you do is get more money. I love this site.

Bigcrumbs and saw they were offering 7% Cashback for worldofwatches.com, but nothing for Amazon.com..

I clicked through Bigcrumbs to worldofwatches.com looked up my PAM352 and checked out, at the checkout page I got the price of $7995 but noticed a section for discount codes- and I looked at the code on the Amazon page and copied it into box (nothing ventured, nothing gained) it worked! Final price was $7600 plus I get 7% cashback from Bigcrumbs on that, another $532 back via paypal in a month.

Now my price is down to $7,068, saving over $3,000 on a product that gets no discount in the Panerai boutique.  The last decision, how to pay for it.  They have a lot of options, I can do a wire transfer (with a $25 fee from my Checking Account) pay by Debit or Credit.  $7,068 miles sounds good to me and I picked my American Express Starwoods card for this, as I value the Starwood points highest of all points in non category spend (those that don’t have multipliers for categories like Groceries, Dining etc).

The value of a Starwood point varies on how you use them, but I put the price of about 4 cents each 1.5  cents, so that 7086 is worth another $$106.30 (more if used wisely for flights).  Alternatively, you can use a 2% cash back card like the Fidelity Amex for $141 back in real money.

Adding up all those savings, I get a watch for $6,804, saving a whopping $3,296, never pay with cash when you can buy things online, through portals, with creditcards!

Check below for a link for Bigcrumbs, you can use it to sign up and I get a referral bonus, so if you liked the post please use the link and start saving as much as I do online.