BigHabitat
Level 2 Member
Ok, many of you are taking advantage of the Sears 9x bonus at Alaska Airlines and the now-dead 9x Sears bonus through the Southwest portal. Many of you bought the gift cards to get the 9x (the easy part) and now are trying to spend them down to get the additional 9x (the harder part).
And I’ll be the first to admit the deals right now aren’t that fantastic. My ideal pick for these heavy portal bonuses are points rolling deals, i.e., where you buy stuff/crap you don’t really need and get all or nearly all back in points. Prime example – the free TV stands from a couple of days ago. For these you basically get a free portal bonus, and typically get the points when the order ships, e.g., the same day, and then can actually respend them.
Pro-Tip: You don’t need to spend all the gift cards during this promotion… Sears runs portal bonuses all the time. When the 9x expires, you can likely still get 5x through Chase Ultimate rewards. 14-15x on a good deal is better than 18x on a really bad deal, so don’t panic! If you find stuff you are comfortable with, great, if not wait.
But let’s go through items I would buy if I had a clean slate to spend down a bunch of gift cards and was in a hurry:
I have one item which I won’t disclose for times like this where I have exhausted the main offers. I don’t mind telling you the items above, they are usually limited deals and while you could try multiple accounts you probably won’t kill the deal. I won’t tell you my current go-to item, but I will tell you to keep your eyes open for competitively priced items which Amazon doesn’t carry directly. These often sell for a slight premium on Amazon
An example of this from a year or two back was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 red edition. For some reason, Amazon didn’t carry this and it was able to be listed as new. Other stores like Sears, OfficeMax, and even Costco carried this item and at times it was possible to buy it for $179 and sell on Amazon for $260.
One past Sears deal that was long dead was buying Skylander Starter sets for Wii, PS3, and Xbox for $29.99 when it was selling for $69 on Amazon. This lasted months, all the while being able to order 3 from each platform every day, applying coupons, etc.
Another “deal” was the Nexus 7 before Amazon started carrying them, often these would have a $20-$30 premium on a $200 tablet. When you combined a portal bonus with buying Sears gift cards at 15% off through Lifetime fitness it was easy to generate points at a profit.
My current go-to item isn’t nearly as lucrative as that, but it is a slight profit with a very low return rate and perfect for times like this, especially if the Alaska deal can eek out a couple more days.
Do you have any defunct holy grails you care to share?
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And I’ll be the first to admit the deals right now aren’t that fantastic. My ideal pick for these heavy portal bonuses are points rolling deals, i.e., where you buy stuff/crap you don’t really need and get all or nearly all back in points. Prime example – the free TV stands from a couple of days ago. For these you basically get a free portal bonus, and typically get the points when the order ships, e.g., the same day, and then can actually respend them.
Pro-Tip: You don’t need to spend all the gift cards during this promotion… Sears runs portal bonuses all the time. When the 9x expires, you can likely still get 5x through Chase Ultimate rewards. 14-15x on a good deal is better than 18x on a really bad deal, so don’t panic! If you find stuff you are comfortable with, great, if not wait.
But let’s go through items I would buy if I had a clean slate to spend down a bunch of gift cards and was in a hurry:
- Samsung tablets. The big caveat is that these can’t be sold as new on Amazon The upside is that some, like the Samsung Galaxy tab s 10.5 inch, are offering a bonus 100,000 in points (about ~110k total with the normal points), but has a two item limit. First choice to sell down due to high value (two tablets = $1000 = 18k points and you should about break even after fees)
- Free TV stands: Search for the alphaline stands offering $100 back on stands costing less than $100. The trick is 1) to find them in your area, and 2) you actually need to pick them up. But $200 for 2, a free 3600 points plus you get to keep them and maybe make a few bucks
- Nintendo Wii U – at Amazon’s price with $46 in SYW points points, limit 2
- Nintendo 3DS XL – at Amazon’s price with $30ish in SYW points, limit 2
- Nintendo 2DS – at Amazon’s price with $20 in SYW points, limit 2
- TomTom 1605 GPS – at Amazon’s price with $50 in SYW points back, limit 2
- Amazon Kindle HD – the cheaper one for $129.99 with $40 in points back, will have to sell on ebay but prices seemed ok
- Secret deal for the very daring: there is a speaker at about $252 with $165 back in points but is ~#67,000 in electronics at Amazon (current price around $142 on Amazon). If it sells for anywhere near it’s price you would do very well. However, even that price is likely overpriced and the demand is so anemic I wouldn’t want to name it here. Which brings us to…
I have one item which I won’t disclose for times like this where I have exhausted the main offers. I don’t mind telling you the items above, they are usually limited deals and while you could try multiple accounts you probably won’t kill the deal. I won’t tell you my current go-to item, but I will tell you to keep your eyes open for competitively priced items which Amazon doesn’t carry directly. These often sell for a slight premium on Amazon
An example of this from a year or two back was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 red edition. For some reason, Amazon didn’t carry this and it was able to be listed as new. Other stores like Sears, OfficeMax, and even Costco carried this item and at times it was possible to buy it for $179 and sell on Amazon for $260.
One past Sears deal that was long dead was buying Skylander Starter sets for Wii, PS3, and Xbox for $29.99 when it was selling for $69 on Amazon. This lasted months, all the while being able to order 3 from each platform every day, applying coupons, etc.
Another “deal” was the Nexus 7 before Amazon started carrying them, often these would have a $20-$30 premium on a $200 tablet. When you combined a portal bonus with buying Sears gift cards at 15% off through Lifetime fitness it was easy to generate points at a profit.
My current go-to item isn’t nearly as lucrative as that, but it is a slight profit with a very low return rate and perfect for times like this, especially if the Alaska deal can eek out a couple more days.
Do you have any defunct holy grails you care to share?
Continue reading...