promotions

Right on the heels of Skybus’s $10 deal, Spirit Airlines is offering a $0.01 airfare promotion with a lot more destinations (than Skybus) available.The only problem: the promotion ends today at 11:59 pm ET. So, if you have been generally looking for some airline tickets, hurry up to Spirit Airlines and see if you get lucky.

The image above shows an example airfare for travel between Detroit and New York.

Of course, like all promotions, “limited seats”, “limited dates”, and other blah blah applies, so read the fine print carefully.

Here is some information on extremely cheap airline tickets. The newly launched Skybus Airlines is offering $10 one-way deals for flying between Columbus, OH and a few other cities across the country. Your flight has to either originate from, or terminate at Columbus (you can’t fly between City A and City B without stopping at Columbus).Nice deal. But first check out the quirky requirements.

Outside food and drink are prohibited (good luck enforcing that one. I’m sorry sir, we’re going to have to turn this plane around if you don’t dispose of your sandwich).

Customer service: “We don’t have a phone number. Seriously. We’d love to chat, but those phone banks are expensive. And a good website like skybus.com is even more convenient.”

Hmm. Interesting. Check out the full list of Skybus Airline’s “Rules of Flying“.

Just for kicks, I tried booking a Skybus roundtrip ticket between Seattle, WA and Columbus, OH and here is what I got:

Now that’s called a “cheap ticket”. On Expedia, for the same dates, the minimum airfare is currently $242 between the two cities. In fact, notice that Skybus actually operates from Bellingham, WA near Seattle (@ 90 miles from it)….from Bellingham to Columbus, Expedia is currently $402!Yeah…I can live without eating on the flight if it’s going to save me at least $200.

Here are two Sharebuilder promo codes, for a $50 bonus, that seemed to be active when I checked yesterday:

• ym50 (or try this link)

• share50

While I was browsing around the Sharebuilder website, during my attempts to find/verify promo codes, I also found other offers that may interest some of you. For example, here is an offer for a $49.95 “Premium Investor Start Kit“. What comes with the kit essentially makes it free:

The $50 account bonus will in itself pay for the cost of the product. That makes the rest of the goodies free.

There are other versions of the “Investor Starter Kit”, and all of them include an account bonus worth the cost of the product…so basically you can choose any of them and still get some free stuff.

I haven’t made up my mind about getting one of these kits, but the *premium* kit offer looks attractive to me. Some months ago, I mentioned that after successfully receiving multiple account bonuses, Sharebuilder became wiser and stopped me from opening more accounts with promo codes. So, before I jump in for any other product I need to do some homework….and check if I can use those promo codes in spite of my history with Sharebuilder.

If you have recently opened a Sharebuilder account with a promo code, I suggest you take it easy on these promo codes and offers for a while. Allow some space (may be a couple of weeks or more) before opening the next account with a promo code.

PCMagCast (a service of PC Magazine) is offering a free web-seminar (webinar) by Carmine Gallo titled “Top 10 Communication Secrets of the Pros”. The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, February 8th, 2006 at 2pm Eastern/11am Pacific. Click here to read more about it and to register. It’s bang in the middle of office hours, so I am not sure how many would make it, but if you can, it might be worth the time. The duration of the webinar is 45 mintues.

Here is what PCMagCast says in it’s introduction:

Attend this complimentary PCMagCast and hear communications coach Carmine Gallo review the simple secrets and techniques he learned from interviewing more than two dozen well-known business leaders. This program is a must for professionals who conduct presentations online or in front of a live audience.

Get practical advice and real-world examples on:

• How to get people to care about your message
• How to tell a business story that is clear, concise and compelling
• How to make an emotional connection with your audience
• How to sound like a leader

If you don’t know who is Carmine Gallo, click here to read more by him.

I would especially encourage the students amongst us to go for it. Did I mention it is free?

Winkflash is currently running the following promotions:

100 free photo prints (4×6); shipping 99¢ - offer code: VP32WE54

50 free photo prints (4×6); shipping 99¢ - offer code: WF23EA73

Keep an eye on whether you are being charged $3.49 for the 100 photo offer; some people have reported that happening (it is still a good deal).

Thanks NKu for sending this information.

Below is a quick review of some major players for cell phone deals in the market. When compared to brick-and-mortar retail shops, these online shops provide better phones for much lower prices and a large variety of choices when it comes to free phones. Most deals are not just “free”; they also make you some money through mail-in rebates. However, like for every other online transaction, one needs to read the fine print carefully. I have highlighted some important points that warrant consideration, towards the end of this post.Wirefly.com

This is owned and operated by Inphonic Inc. According to Wiki:
“The company’s central online storefront, Wirefly.com, has received a number of Internet awards, including Forbes magazine’s “Best of the Web” for 2004 and Keynote System’s “Best In Overall Customer Experience” in 2005.”

Apparently they know their business well. Like all other websites in this category, Wirefly.com offers large mail-in rebates with many nice phones. However, watch out for a $9 “processing fee” when you checkout. 2nd day shipping is free.

Letstalk.com

I like these guys the best. You can make your cell phone deals sweeter using a combination of Ebates.com and Letstalk.com. Ebates.com is offering a $30 discount if you go through them to Letstalk.com to sign a new contract. In addition, Letstalk.com usually offers great deals on cell phones when you sign a new contract with any of the listed service providers. It is not unusual to find some nice free phones with $100 mail-in rebate after activation. The website doesn’t charge any processing fees. Also offers 2nd day free shipping.

Cellularchoices.net

These guys act like agents (I think) for Letstalk.com and Wirefly.com. However, the deals found on Cellularchoices.net are not the same as those found on the two websites. Also, currently it’s running a $25 Mastercard gift card promotion till Jan 31st on all it’s phones. Surprisingly, even though it places the orders through the Wirefly.com (Inphonic Inc) infrastructure, it does not charge the $9 processing fee that Wirefly.com charges. Free 2nd day shipping.

Amazon.comIt used to offer some very good cell-phone deals about a few years ago, but now-a-days I don’t find anything worth mentioning here. However, like other websites, there are a lot of free phone choices available….phones that you wouldn’t get through retail outlets. Shipping is free here too.There is a jungle of websites that offer similar deals ….but if you look closely, they are just different portals (or agents) of one (or more) parent source company (companies).:) Here are some examples:

Cellularchoices.net orders are fulfilled by Letstalk.com or Wirefly.com/Inphonic;

Easycellphones.com orders are fulfilled by Letstalk.com;

Younevercall.com orders are fulfilled by Wirefly.com/Inphonic;

Freecellularphonedeals.net orders are fulfilled by Wirefly.com/Inphonic;

There are some things you should remember before you get into this:

1. There is mail-in rebate involved.
2. Usually with these deals, activation fee is charged (approx. $30~$35), so some part of your free money is lost. Make sure you account for that.
3. Read your terms and conditions carefully if you want your rebate. For example, here is an excerpt from the “Rebates Terms and Conditions” on On Letstalk.com:
   

   NOTE: Your rebate submission must be postmarked between Dec 1, 2006 and Feb 1, 2007 or we will be unable to process your rebate request.

   …and an excerpt from Amazon.com:

   Your price paid includes an equipment discount of $250 that has been provided to you by Amazon.com for activating a new line of service with T-Mobile and maintaining this new line of service with the selected rate plan in good standing for a minimum of 181 consecutive days. If these conditions are not met, you herein agree to a $250 reimbursement to be paid to Amazon.com.

4. Also, you might have to wait for quite some time for the rebates to get in your bank. ALL websites will have clauses like these:
   Letstalk.com

   Your rebate submission will be processed and any check mailed by the later of 150 days after your order activation / ship date OR ten weeks after receipt of a properly completed rebate form.

5. Usually for maximum mail-in rebates, 2-year contracts are common. The rebates are lesser for 1-year contracts. At times, it helps to call them and persuade them to give you maximum mail-in rebates on 1-year contracts…if you are lucky they might just agree.
6. During checkout, watch out for those default “Yes” to options like “Add a charger for $19.99″. You need to switch them to “No” before you confirm the transaction. Not many of those listed above will do that, but watch out just in case.
7. Read #1 again.

My personal experience

I recently ordered phones through Letstalk.com and it worked well for me. I usually don’t go for mail-in rebates (why?), but this deal was one of the few exceptions that I allow every once in a while. We went with a T-mobile family plan (two phones) and the total distribution was like this: Mail-in Rebate(+$200); Ebates discount (+$30); Activation fee(-$70); Total 200+30-70=+$160. Not bad :).

I should also mention here that I also had a very good experience with Letstalk.com as far as their customer service is concerned. Initially, I got two Motorola phones (I think they were both V195 models) and both had trashy reception. Sent those back and got two Samsung phones in return. All this was made really easy by Letstalk.com. They were not like those PITA-customer-service guys I usually encounter….and no sir, this is not pay-per-post ..or any such thing.

Those happy days of free money from Sharebuilder promo codes are over for me. After opening three accounts in the last two months, my fourth account got busted by Sharebuilder. That also means no more Sharebuilder accounts for me in future.

Earlier, while opening the fourth account, Sharebuilder accepted the promo code and everything went smooth. I also set up an automatic investment plan and scheduled a trade for the following Tuesday. However, the trading Tuesday went by and a quick glance at my Sharebuilder summary in Yodlee told me that the trade was not placed. I logged in to check what was going on and saw this message:

Well that’s not the end of it. When I clicked on the “Click here” link in the above message, I was greeted by this:

Fortunately, all other accounts are in working order and I have already received a total of $150 for my three earlier accounts.

I have also confirmed that you cannot remove such a restriction from an account so that damn thing is going to stay there for ever…and remind me whenever I get tempted by another Sharebuilder code.

So to all the aspiring Sharebuilder bonus gatherers: beware ! Sharebuilder might be getting smarter If you already have more than one Sharebuilder account, I would suggest you wait a while before opening another account.

Finally got my Sharebuilder bonuses for the first two accounts that I opened on August 24th, each worth $50. The whole transaction took about 6 weeks.

I had used these promo codes : HH50LOGIN and ENTERTAIN50

For more $50 promotion codes read this post and this post.

It should be noted here that opening two accounts at once (within 5 minutes of each other) did not cause any problems with respect to the bonus. However, be discreet on how you interpret this; don’t go overboard.

Currently I hold three Sharebuilder accounts and I am contemplating having a few more.

These are some more $50 promo codes for Sharebuilder. They seem like valid codes for now; I tried and Sharebuilder accepted them through the initial few steps on opening an account. However I stopped after a few steps… didn’t have the heart to open any new accounts…..already have 3 accounts opened with 3 other codes.

SMEAUG50

CAMPUS50

FOLLETT50

The earlier codes I used (successfully) are listed here.

Check out Fatwallet Forums for more Sharebuilder promo codes.