Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
I don’t know about you, but I find the whole Black Friday / Cyber Monday thing to be a bit overwhelming. There are so many “hot” deals to wade through that I sometimes end up buying nothing at all. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing: the only way to ensure saving the most is to not buy at all. That said, a number of deals out today are compelling. I absolutely refuse to go to any big box stores today (crowds… shudder), but many deals are available online.
As a reminder, Nick has been compiling all of the Black Friday deals into this Master post. Please visit that post for a complete and up to date list of deals.
Here are the deals that caught my eye…
44% or more off Spa Finder GCs with big stack
There’s a local spa in my town that accepts Spa Finder gift cards and they often have gift card deals of their own. I plan to stack the 30% off with 10.5% portal rewards, but I won’t bother with the Happy gift card part of the deal. Once I have the Spa Finder gift cards, I’ll wait for the local spa to offer their own deals. They often do things like, “buy $100 gift card and get a $20 bonus gift card for free”. When they do that, I’ll buy their gift card with the Spa Finder gift card for payment.
$100 Hotels.com gift card for $79.99 at BJ’s Wholesale (also 20% off Dunkin Donuts, Uber, and Red Robin.
I could always use more Uber or Hotels.com gift cards at a big discount. I’m not sure if you have to be a BJ club member to buy at these prices though? If so, I’ll skip this one.
Nice deal on new Sennheiser wireless earbuds
Hmmm. I wasn’t specifically looking for wireless earbuds, but these get fantastic reviews. Should I give myself an early Christmas present? These earbuds retail everywhere for $299.95, but Nick shows how to get them for a net cost of $214.96.
Cheap Project Fi: $99 Moto G6, $149 Moto X4
I already have the Moto G6 and I like it a lot (See: My Google Fi experience so far). So, why would I even consider this deal? On a recent trip abroad I found that the Moto G6, combined with Google’s Project Fi, was an awesome wireless hotspot. I plan to write up my findings soon, but not in time for this deal unfortunately. The key piece of info I discovered: this Fi compatible phone worked as a hotspot even when using a free secondary SIM on my Fi plan. So, I’d consider getting this $99 phone to hand to a family member when traveling abroad so that they can also enjoy high speed internet. If you decide to buy, keep in mind that you must pay for at least 1 month of Project Fi service (minimum $20), but you can offset that by signing up through a friend referral link and getting $20 credit (here’s mine). The phone comes unlocked.
Truthfully, I probably won’t buy this because I already have one, but it’s still somehow compelling.
Hot deal: Get Samsung Gear S3 Frontier for $130 net (great for mobile payments)
The Samsung Gear S3 is the only watch that offers Samsung Pay at all credit card terminals even if those terminals don’t offer contact-less payments. I don’t like to wear bulky watches, but I do like to earn 3X with my Altitude Reserve card. I’m extremely tempted by this one.
$100 win at Amazon (20% off up to $500) w/ 1 Membership Rewards point
I still need to check the link to see if any family member’s Amazon accounts qualify. If so, this one is a no-brainer!
20% bonus on Fairmont Gift Cards [Available Friday, 11/23/18 from 2pm-5pm EST]
I’m not planning to buy, but I definitely would if I knew that I would have a Fairmont stay within the next year or so.
Nick says…
Nick read my post before publication and gave me this advice:
I’d say buy yourself those Sennheiser headphones because I’ve owned Sennheisers and they make great quality headphones…but if you have to pick, I’d say you need a Gear S3 for the Altitude Reserve. You’ll make enough on that over the next year to pay for a set of Sennheisers :-).
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Almost forgot to mention: Both my wife and I got the Amazon 20% off deal! I haven’t made use of it yet, but definitely will. Worst case, we’ll buy 3rd party gift cards at 20% off.
Update: So far the only deal I’ve bought is the Spa Finder gift cards. The Sennheiser earbuds deal is still alive as of this morning, so I may still go for that. The Samsung Gear S3 watch is temporarily out of stock. I have a feeling we’re going to see plenty of deals on these, though, between now and the end of the year.
[…] Black Friday deals that caught my eye […]
Not buying here too! Except $30 bonus on $100 sweet tomatoes gift cards cuz that’s a good healthy restaurant deal. I buy $300 and use em all year. Good in Orlando Houston Las Vegas and California…everywhere I go. Then we use with a coupon in store.
The Spafinder website can’t do split transactions so your spafinder gift card must be at least $70 to trigger the discount. My Staples only sells $25 Happy gift cards so no luck for me.
Bummer. IMO it’s still a good deal when paying with a credit card.
$100 Hotels.com gift card for $79.99 at BJ’s Wholesale.
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You need membership to make the purchase. The cheapest membership is $10, which gives you online access to the deal.
Good to know. Thanks!
“There are so many “hot” deals to wade through that I sometimes end up buying nothing at all.”
Ditto.