Black Friday Deals [Master Post w/ regular updates this week]

Black Friday is here and many great deals are now on. This post will serve as a Black Friday Master List of deals that may be of interest. Since many of the hottest deals will not last long, some of the Quick Deals today and this weekend will be very light on details in order to facilitate getting them out to readers as fast as possible. As we post them, we will link back to this post and add them to the top of the list (so you won’t have to scroll far to find newly-added deals if you’ve bookmarked this post). We will constantly add to this post in coming days, so check back for newly-added deals.

There are three types of deals we intend to post here this week:

1. Deals that would appeal to travelers. This might be hotel or flight related or travel-related products like noise-canceling headphones or luggage. We may also include discounted gift cards for restaurants, etc.
2. Deals that may be good for resale. Some readers generate points through the purchase and resale of products, so we’ll include some deals that may not seem directly relevant to readers but could be good ways to generate points if you have resale avenues. Keep in mind stacking opportunities like discounted gift cards, portal rewards, etc.
3. Deals that are so strong they can’t be ignored for one reason or another. Speaks for itself.

We’ll try to divide those up until categories below by Gift Cards, Merchandise, and Travel and let you decide for yourself whether they are things you want/need or want to resell. Note that there will likely be some cross-pollination in terms of deals that aren’t strictly Black Friday deals but will work in tandem with sales. For instance, if eBay lists a gift card sale for Lowe’s, we’ll include it here this week since you can likely stack that with Lowe’s Black Friday deals.

As always, keep in mind some basic shopping best practices:

• Shop in one browser, buy in another. When using shopping portals and coupon sites, it’s pretty easy to inadvertently click in the wrong place and have your click “stolen” by a portal you didn’t intend to use (i.e. you clicked through an airline portal to Macy’s, but then you clicked a button to reveal a coupon code from some other site that also led to Macy’s and it caused the airline portal to lose the tracking cookie). For this reason, I do my shopping around and coupon testing in one browser (for example, Firefox). When it’s time to buy, I open a brand new window in a different browser (Chrome) to make my purchase. I start at my chosen portal, click through to the site from which I’m buying, fill my cart, apply any coupons, and check out in one fluid sequence.
• Use the right credit card. We’ll always try to make a suggestion when one seems relevant — for example, we’ll probably mention the Chase Ink Cash card if the deal is at an office supply store. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind what you have in your wallet and which of those cards would be most advantageous for you from a points-earning perspective. See our Best Category Bonuses page for a reminder as to the best cards to use.
• Keep credit card purchase benefits in mind. This is truly part of using the right card. Keep in mind that many rewards credit cards have purchase benefits like extended warranty. Some offer purchase protections against damage, theft, or guaranteeing a minimum return period (that may be longer than the store would accept). Price protection has taken a hit on many cards (See: Price protection overview by issuer), but still exists on a number as well. While paying with discounted gift cards might yield more savings, you would forgo protections like these – so consider each when making those decisions.
• Buy first, think later? A popular mantra on deal sites like Slickdeals is “Buy first, think later”. That is to say that the hottest deals will be gone so quickly that you don’t really have time to consider them. Thanks to return policies, 24 hour free cancellation periods, etc, it can be pretty easy to live by that mantra in many cases. But be sure to check the fine print — is there a restocking fee? Does this travel agency charge a fee for refunds (saw this recently)? Do I really want/need this and/or am I going to take the effort to sell it? It might be a great deal, but that doesn’t make it great for you.

Finally, don’t forget any current shopping portal bonuses that can add to the deal.

With all that out of the way, here are some currently-available deals that might be of interest as per my reasons outlined above. As noted at the outset, I will add to this post throughout the rest of this week and into Cyber Monday, with the most recently-added deals to be added at the top of the list.

Gift Cards

• New Chase Offers for Staples, Olive Garden, Cinemark (10% back, low caps)
• $25 rebate on $200 in Mastercard Gift Cards at Bed Bath & Beyond [Starts 11/23]: Limit of 2 per household. Might be able to stack.
• 44% or more off Spa Finder GCs with big stack: If you’ve gotten Happy Lady cards at a better discount, you might save even more.
• $25 HBO GO gift card for $15 at BestBuy.com
• $100 Hotels.com gift card for $79.99 at BJ’s Wholesale (also 20% off Dunkin Donuts, Uber, and Red Robin. See this DoC post for more).
• 3-month Xbox Live code (Digital Delivery) for $10.50 If you’re a video game player, you should check out the discussion on the Slickdeals thread I’m linking to here as it seems like you can turn auto renew on and off to stack more time out of this deal.

Merchandise

• Kitchenaid Pro 600 for net $135 [Refurbed direct from Kitchenaid]
• iPads at Amazon for $200 w/ Amex 20% discount
• MileagePlus X App offering 10 miles per dollar on gift cards at select merchants
• Nice deal on new Sennheiser wireless earbuds
• Cheap Project Fi: $99 Moto G6, $149 Moto X4: Super cheap way to get into Project Fi.
• $25 off $100 or more at IKEA from 11/22-11/26 online or in-store via printable coupon.
• Target: Any app purchase to get 20% off coupon (11/23 only): Updated — must go to the store for this one.
• Straight Talk iPhone 6 32GB for $99
• Hot deal: Get Samsung Gear S3 Frontier for $130 net (great for mobile payments): Stack a high portal payout + Amex Offer for the best deal you’re likely to see on this watch for Black Friday. Great for mobile payments everywhere.
• $100 win at Amazon (20% off up to $500) w/ 1 Membership Rewards point: An amazing deal from Prime Day returns. Even works on 3rd party GCs.
• Stacking JCPenney Black Friday Gift Card Deal: Not positive this will work as written, but I think you could stack for about 28% off on JCP merchandise.
• $15 off $15 at Sears / $10 off $10 at Kmart w/ text coupons: Likely only available for in-store purchases, but free is free.
• Chase Offers: 10% back at Lowe’s, Starbucks, AutoZone, more: Make sure you update your app if you’re not seeing these offers yet. Could be some great stacks with Black Friday deals.
• 20% off select items/categories at Amazon Warehouse Deals. I’ve found many good resale opportunities at Warehouse Deals over the years.

Travel

• Save 15% on ParkWhiz parking w/ code BF15
• Get $2 back per Lyft ride (Fri 11/23 only?)
• 20% bonus on Fairmont Gift Cards [Available Friday, 11/23/18 from 2pm-5pm EST]. Max of $5K purchase eligible for the 20% bonus (i.e. Pay $5K for $6K in gift cards).
• Expedia’s Black Friday / Cyber Monday deals might be worthwhile: Chances are slim, but the “activities” coupons might have less competition and be pretty valuable if they truly come without exclusions.
• Singapore Business Class from $1988 / 133K points RT (NY to Frankfurt): Pay as little as a net 129K round trip with Membership Rewards.
• Disney Cruise Lines: 20-25% off on select sailings
• Avianca LifeMiles: Buy Miles With A 140% Bonus (Buy For 1.375cpp – Targeted?) A 140% bonus is one of the highest you can get, so worth considering if you can get good value from a LifeMiles redemption.
• Cathay Pacific Black Friday sale. Some decent fares included. I haven’t searched, but they claim San Francisco to Hong Kong premium economy from $773 RT and Seattle to Shanghai in business class from $2300 RT among others. They also list economy class deals.

Announced and coming soon

• Rite Aid “bonus cash” on select gift cards (including $6 back on 2 Vanilla Visas) from 11/25-12/1.

Expired deals previously posted

• Massive stack at Lowe’s: Up to 32% back on sale prices: This is a massive stack on already-discounted stuff.
• 30% cash back on Toys at Walmart via Samsung Pay (high percentages on other items as well, $120 stated max per purchase, but some reports indicate having received tracking for higher amounts. YMMV) Note that this Samsung Pay deal only works if you have a Samsung phone. Thanks to reader Harry for pointing out that this offer works like a shopping portal, so you don’t even need to check out with Samsung Pay, you just need to use the Samsung Pay app on a Samsung phone to access it.
• 30% cash back at BestBuy.com via Samsung Pay (see the Wiki on the Slickdeals post for exclusions. Samsung Pay doesn’t list exclusions, but people have discovered them through trial and error. .
• Thanks to reader Harry for pointing out that this offer works like a shopping portal, so you don’t even need to check out with Samsung Pay, you just need to use the Samsung Pay app on a Samsung phone to access it. Note that it should stack nicely with the current Amex Offers for Best Buy. This one expires 11/21/18.
• Samsung Galaxy S8 unlocked w/ free overnight shipping for $399. The price on this one is good, but not amazing. That said, it might be worth it with free overnight shipping if you’re able to get it on Wednesday and possibly use it for the Best Buy and Walmart cash back deals (not sure whether they expire at midnight or the end of the day on 11/21 – if anyone has a Samsung device and can confirm, let us know in the comments)
• Dropbox Plus (1 TB of Storage for 1 Year) with $50 Amazon Gift Card H/T: DoC). Don’t forget to use AT&T Access More for 3x at Amazon
• Get 12% back at Marriott via Ebates today (valid Tuesday, 11/20/18)

Bottom line

Remember that a deal is only a deal if it saves you money — if it causes you to spend money you ordinarily wouldn’t, it’s not a win. Keep checking back over the coming days as new deals will be added throughout the day each day.

Also be sure you’re using one of the Best credit cards for Black Friday deals.

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