free stuff

A few months ago I got an offer from Chase which said this:

I think I was “chosen” for the offer because I rarely use my Chase card anymore (just a few bucks every month or so to keep it active). Anyways, this offer caught our attention and so we (me and my wife) stopped using our respective Citi Diamond Preferred Cards (that were giving us ThankYou points) and started using my Chase credit card for all our purchases..in the hopes of getting that free companion ticket. $500 was no big deal because our regular credit card expenses average about $800 per month (all of which is paid off).

And finally it came…the free ticket voucher that we were eagerly waiting for. Below are a couple of scans from the voucher. Have a look and let me know what you think about this. The voucher basically divides all of the US into different zones (first image) and there is a price table for zone-to-zone travel (last image).

Essential fine print: There is a $9.95 processing fee for each ticket and taxes and fees are not included in the above rate chart. I will not disclose the rest of the fine print at this time.

So what do you think of this free airline ticket offer from Chase? Is this a teaching moment about free stuff?

Man this Ebates thing is for real :). I had signed up for a Sharebuilder account about 3 months ago through Ebates and it had promised me $20 at the time. Honestly, I was not really expecting to see anything from Ebates…well just because I had never heard of the name before that. Yesterday, I was surprised to see a “Big Fat Check” from Ebates in the mail…..ok it wasn’t really big or fat or anything, but hey $20 is $20….even sweeter because I didn’t have to do anything for it and also got a $50 Sharebuilder bonus in the process.

Now, that I have “verified” that this stuff works, I don’t have any qualms about recommending it. In fact, you can get yourself a head start of $5 (and I will get a $5 bonus too) if you click on this referral link and sign up:

Update: There is a $10 referral bonus offer (you get $10 and I get $10) valid till March 15th, 2007:

This is the referral link for getting $10 bonus (till March 15th) 

This is the regular referral link ($5 bonus) - does not expire.

For those who don’t know what Ebates.com is: It’s a program similar to something like Upromise.com, you buy stuff from major retailers by going through their website , and in return they give you some cashback, or bonus or discount coupons. Always read the fine print before signing up for anything. To make it a bit easier, I am copy-pasting an important excerpt from Ebates’ terms and conditions:

Every three months Ebates sends to its members the Cash Back that they have earned, provided that the member has earned at least $5.01 in Cash Back Rewards. If the member has earned less than $5.01 Cash Back, Ebates will carry the member’s money over to the next check.

So this is a pretty lame entry, but I just want to mention this before I forget.

We were cleaning out our workplace and churned out huge piles of stuff that needed to be moved to different sections of our department. In all, we required about a dozen large sized boxes. If we had bought them, it would have been like ..what..$1 a box?

But, we got them for free at Walmart!

This is how you do it.

Go to your local Walmart center at around 11:00pm, when they are just starting to unpack the new stuff. Next, hover around associates who are pretty busy folding up empty boxes into neat piles and dumping them into a cart. Then, ask them politely if you can have some of those boxes for yourself. They will be very happy to offer them to you, saves them the folding and dumping time. In case an associates refuses to give any, go to the next aisle! You can get them in all sizes, shapes and colors!

And now (this is important), when you have collected enough boxes for you and all your moving friends, carry them in your hand and walk past the office supplies aisle. Look at those similar boxes for sale, each worth about a $1 and pat yourself on the back for saving a few bucks.

Btw, this probably works with other retail chain stores like Target, etc.

…don’t buy packing boxes, get them at Walmart or a liquor store or any other retail stores.