[Expired] Free Beats Solo3 or $200 in GCs with $600 booking

Upside has run some really intriguing promotions lately offering rewards for new customers booking business trips with them. They are back with two new promotions today. Both require a $600 booking (which could be a flight booking or a hotel package booking — note that flight prices at Upside seem to mostly match everywhere else). One promotion offers you a free pair of Beats Solo3 wireless headphones (Amazon sells these for $219). The other promotion offers $200 in gift cards. Details follow.

Promotion #1: Free Beats Solo3

The Deal

• Book your first business trip of $600 or more by 9/28/17 through a special referral link from an existing user and you will receive a free pair of Beats Solo3 wireless headphones
• The person who refers you will also get a free pair of Beats headphones if two people use their referral link

Referral links:

Click here for Greg’s referral link for this promo
Click here for Nick’s referral link for this promo

If you have a referral link for this promotion, please head over to our Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook group to share your link with the group. Links posted in response to this post will get caught in our spam filter and won’t post — head over to Facebook to post your link instantly. If you’re new to the group, don’t forget to answer the anti-spammer question after clicking “join”. Thanks!

Is it a good deal?

In short, yes. As we’ve shown before, Upside’s pricing on flights seems to more or less match what we see at Google Flights for the airlines that they list. For example, here’s Washington DC to Amsterdam from October 23-31st through Google:

Upside shows the same exact United flight shown above:

However, you’ll notice that the WOW Air flight isn’t there. In fact, not all destinations or airlines are available. For example, low-cost carriers are completely absent. In this case, that’s probably not a big deal — if you’re taking a business trip to Amsterdam, you’re probably going to be checking bags. After the cost of checking your bags and selecting your seat on WOW, you’re at least north of $550, making the Upside deal better all things considered. However, it’s not just WOW that’s missing –the KLM and Aer Lingus flights aren’t there. Delta flights do not appear on Upside, nor do Southwest/Spirit/Frontier/etc. You can’t book one-way or multi-city itineraries. However, it’s still a great tool for simple round-trips or for hotel + Uber packages when you consider the value of the bonus. Speaking of the bonus, Upside is billing the headphones as a “$300 value”. That’s a bit generous as Amazon is selling this pair for $219. However, with tax, these headphones would come to more than $236 where I live.– and that’s still a heck of a rebate on a $600 flight ($618 in the example above, but maybe you’ll get closer to $600).

Hotels are more variable in price. While you can book a flight only, a hotel must be booked in a package deal. That could be flight + hotel, or hotel + Uber credit. See our previous post for more information on bundles.

Promotion #2: $200 in gift cards

Another strong offer from Upside right now does not depend on a referral link. Only through today, September 14th, new users can book their first business trip of $600 or more and receive $200 in gift cards.

The Deal

• Book your first business trip of $600 or more by 9/14/17 and get $200 in gift cards of your choice after your trip
• Click here for a direct link (promo code BACKTOWORK)

Is it a good deal?

As noted above, flight prices through Upside are on par with flight prices elsewhere. If you have a booking to make that is around $600, getting a $200 rebate in the form of gift cards of your choice (from the selection in the picture above) is a great deal. Even if your chosen flights are a bit less — say $550 — you can add an Uber credit to reach $600. For example, you could add 2 Uber credits worth up to $25 each for $50. You may not get that much value out of the Uber credits, but if you get any value out of the Uber credits plus you get the $200 in gift cards, it will more than make up for overpaying by $50 for your flight. See my previous post on this deal (which only required a $400 booking, since expired) for more information on how it works.

Bottom line

Both deals are solid if you happen to need a flight or hotel that rings in around the magic number — in this case, $600. Again, if you’ve got referrals to share, head over to Facebook and share with the group.

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