Bank of America Museums On Us - This Saturday and Sunday

Bank of America Museums on Us program gives Bank of America card holders free access to select museums on the first Saturday and Sunday of the month.  March 1st and 2nd are the dates for this month so that means this Saturday and Sunday are the free days this month.


You need to have a credit or debit card in the name of each person so you still have to pay for kids, unless you get a credit card for you child, like I did.

Sign up for email or text alerts to remind yourself of the dates here.



Here is a list of the museums in the New York/New Jersey area:

• NJ
• Liberty Science Center (Jersey City)
• Montclair Art Museum (Montclair)
• Morris Museum (Morristown)
• Newark Museum (Newark)
• NY
• Suffolk county Vanderbilt Museum (Centerport)
• Long Island Children's Museum (Garden City)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (Manhattan)
• Staten Island Children's Museum (Staten Island)
• New York Historical Society (NYC)
• Whitney Museum of American Art (Manhattan)
• Brooklyn's Children Museum (Brooklyn)
• Queen's Museum of Art (Queens)
• Guggenheim Museum (Manhattan)
• Old Westbury Gardens (Old Westbury)
• Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carraiges

$5 for $10 at Whole Foods - Groupon

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site:  Groupon and Top Cashback 

$5 for $10 at Whole Foods - Limit 1 per account.  The deal expires at midnight tonight.

Don't have a groupon account?  Sign up here for free


Start your purchase from Top Cashback and get up to 15% cash back as well!  

Don't have Top Cashback?  Sign up here for free. 

Disney The Incredibles - Free

Connect your Disney account to iTunes and you can download a digital copy of The Incredibles for free.

It took me about 3 minutes to connect the account and start downloading the movie.

Hyatt Points and Free Nights Promotion

Register now for Hyatt's Endless Possibilities Promotion.


You can register either for the Bonus Points Promotion or the Free Nights Promotion.  Registration ends at the end of March.  Promotions are for travel from now until the end of April.


Here are the details of both promotions:





1) Earn one free night at a Category 1-4 Hotel for every 5 nights you stay.  Maximum 4 free nights.

2) Earn 5,000 points after the first 5 nights you stay.  Earn 10,000 more points after 10 nights.  Earn 15,000 more points after 15 nights and earn 20,000 more points after 20 nights.  A total of 50,000 bonus points.

Turbotax - Save up to $20

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: TurboTax

Until 2/21, you can save up to $20 on TurboTax.

$10 off Deluxe - Final price is $19.99
$15 off Premier - Final price is $34.99
$20 off Home and Business - Final price is $54.99


Filing for state returns are additional.

Top Cashback and American Express Gift Cards - Paid, Finally!

I ordered most of my American Express gift cards in mid-December when Top Cashback was offering 3% cashback.  Since then, you can buy them with no purchase fees, but the cashback rate has gone back down to 2%, still a good deal in my book. 


The money from Top Cashback was stubbornly at "confirmed" status until yesterday, almost 3 months. I thought it might not show up, but yesterday was a beautiful payday!  If you ordered gift cards like me about 3 months ago, it's time to check to see if your money is available to you.

HP Laptop Accessory Bundle $2.66 from Living Social and Staples!

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Living Social

I would hurry on this one!

HP Laptop Accessory Bundle $2.66 from Staples and Living Social - Normally over $100!

Includes a Laptop 15.6 inch sleeve, wireless mouse, Noise canceling headphones and a 16GB flashdrive!



In the end, you will spend $23.99 for a $30 Staples gift card.  Then you can use $2.66 of that for the HP bundle worth over $100.


Here is how to pull some moves.


Buy this Living Social deal.  You will get a $30 Staples gift card for $30 and you will get a coupon code that will take $80 off the price of the laptop accessories kit.

Use coupon code 2014PRESDAY for another $6 off the deal (you are actually going to make money after the deal is all said and done if you consider a Staples gift card to be like cash as it can be used on a Visa Gift Card)

Go back to Staples to the page for the kit.  The price will be $109.99.  Don't put the product in your cart unless you see something that says "Save an extra $27 off your order in the next 20 minutes."  If you don't see it, keep refreshing your browser until it comes up.  Here is a picture of what it looks like except this one is for $14 off.

Once you see that deal, add it to your card.  The $80 living social coupon code will still work and your final price will be $2.66 after tax.  You can partially use the eGift card you just got or you can use whatever form of payment you want.





Enjoy!

Travel Pony - $85 off $200 Hotel

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Travel Pony


Travel Pony is a new travel booking site that is offering some serious discounts to get going.

You get a $25 credit for signing up, but if you use someone's referral link, like mine, you will get an additional $10 credit for a total of a $35 credit.

In addition, use coupon code KATE50 for another $50 off a $200 booking so $85 off a $200 booking when you combine all the savings and credits!


Here is a picture of a dummy booking I made.

I have not done a tremendous amount of price comparison between Travel Pony and other sites, but they seem to be on par with other site and then the credits and coupon code make it a nice one time booking.

Make Money with Bloomindale's Gift Cards and American Express

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Discover, Top Cashback, Cardpool, Bloomingdale's


As I have mentioned numerous times, American Express often runs promotions through their online site.  Just go to the bottom of the main site to the section that says "Offers for You" to see which offers you are eligible for.

Right now, I have the following offer on a number of my cards.

$50 off a $250 purchase from Bloomingdales.  This offer can be used to make a little bit of money and some extra miles/cashback on the side as well.

Buying the Gift Cards

Here's how to do it, but please finish reading all the directions before you start because there are a few tricks I mention later that are important for the beginning:

1) Add the Offer to your eligible American Express card
2) Buy a $250 Physical Gift Card for $255 from Bloomingdale's.  I already did this and got the credit.
3) You will get an email from American Express within a few hours stating that you will get the $50 credit
4) Sell your gift card to Cardpool.  Currently, they are paying $207.50 for a $250 Bloomingdales gift card, but this may change depending on availability.  You will need to mail the gift card to them.

Even More Enticing and Fewer Headaches

1) Start your purchase of the gift card from Shop Discover (requires a Discover it®  card) and you might get another 5% cashback.  I don't think it will work because I haven't gotten any confirmation from them, but it can't hurt to try.  If it works, you will get an extra $12.50 so that would be nice, but don't bet on it.


2) Before you sell the gift card to Cardpool, go to Top Cashback first and you will get an additional 4% cashback on the value of the gift card you are selling.  A $250 gift card will get you another $10 into your Top Cashback account.


3) Normally, one you click on the offer from American Express it will be added to that card and every card connected to that account is no longer eligible even though the offer was available on multiple cards before you added it to any of them.
There is a trick for this:  Log in to your American Express account from multiple tabs and open the "Offers for You" from each tab on every card the offer is eligible for before you add the offer to any of them. You can now add the offer to each card.

I don't think this is worth it for one card, but I was able to buy 7 of them between my various accounts and that made it worthwhile.

4) I had trouble checking out if I signed in to my Bloomingdale's account.  I kept getting an error that my payment was incorrect, but it worked fine if I checkout out as a guest.  In addition, they had to call me for the first order to verify that it was me.

The Math

The final math:

Fees:
$255 from Bloomingdales

Credits:
$207.50 from Cardpool
$50 from American Express
$10 from Top Cashback
Whatever rewards you normally get from your credit card - Let's call it 1% or $2.05

= $14.55 per card, + you might get another $12.50 from Discover, but not likely.


HT - Frequent Miler for this method

Free Quest Bar

Free Quest Bar sample - I don't know if it is Kosher or not.

HT - Hey It's Free

$1 Amazon MP3 credit for Free

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Amazon

Rent a Movie - Get $1 MP3 Credit


You can rent Season 24 Preview [HD] for free and you will get a $1 Amazon MP3 credit for free.

You have to redeem the credit by January 31, 2015.

It takes about 10 minutes before your email notifying you of the credit comes.

Check Your Amazon MP3 Balance Here


You can download Jewish themed music like Miami Boys Choir, Mordechai Ben David, Moshav Band, Dveykus and many others

Every couple of months Amazon gives away some MP3 credits so make a list of songs you want to download eventually and download them over time.

American Express - $5 off $25 at NYC Restaurants

Use your registered American Express credit card at a restaurant in NYC from February 17th to Mar 7th, spend $25 and you will get a $5 statement credit.

List of participating restaurants - I have not found any kosher restaurants and it doesn't seem like it works unless they are on the list, but who knows maybe it will work on any restaurant in NYC.

Register your card here

- You can only register one card, but you will receive a $5 statement credit each time you spend $25 or more.

- Online purchases are not eligible.

- Gift cards should be eligible as long as they are purchased directly from the restaurant.



American Express frequently runs these types of promotions so it is very useful to have American Express cards, especially ones that have no annual fees.  Usually, the promotion is one for each card you have.  This promotion is unlimited for one card so you don't need more than one.



Full Terms and Conditions:

To be eligible for this offer, you must register an eligible American Express Card at amexnetwork.com/nycrestaurantweek between 12am ET on February 9, 2014 and 12am ET on March 7, 2014. You may register only one Card for this offer. Using the same registered Card, each time spend a total of at least $25 at a participating restaurant during the NYC Restaurant Week campaign, February 17 to March 7, 2014, you will receive a $5 statement credit. For a list of participating restaurants, visithttp://www.nycgo.com/eatup. Registration is limited and must be completed prior to your transactions. All prepaid card products and Corporate Cards are not eligible. Offer not valid for online purchases. Statement credit will appear on your billing statement within 8 weeks after American Express receives information from the merchant about your qualifying purchase. If American Express does not receive information that identifies your transaction as qualifying for the offer, you will not receive a statement credit. For example, your transaction will not qualify if it is not made directly with the merchant. In addition, in most cases, you will not receive a statement credit if your transaction is made with an electronic wallet or through a third party or if the merchant uses a mobile or wireless card reader to process it. If your registered Card is replaced during the promotional period, please call the customer service number on the back of your Card for assistance. Additional terms apply; see Registration Terms and Conditions. POID: AYAB:0001.

Using the Final Balance of your Visa Gift Cards

Manufactured Spending with Vanilla Reloads

The point of Manufactured Spending is to artificially create spending on your credit card for little to no fees and still get points or cashback.  A perfect example is using your Citi Dividend at CVS for the first quarter of the year.  The dividend card is offering 5% cashback on up to $6,000 in purchases at drugstores until the end of March.  You can buy Vanilla Reload cards that get 5% cashback with only 1% in fees.  After fees, I am able to get about $252 without actually spending any money.

Manufactured Spending with Visa Gift Cards

One of the usual methods of Manufactured Spending when Vanilla Reloads aren't available is to use Visa Gift Cards.  It is quite simple to extract the money from a Vanilla Reload card back into your bank account online without any extra fees.

Visa Gift Cards, however, while they are getting easier to liquidate with methods that treat them as true Debit Cards (see Evolve, for example), are still more difficult to unload without fees.  You can always bring them to Walmart to load to Bluebird for free, but that is time consuming and can be a pain especially if Walmart isn't close to you.  You also have to deal with the People of Walmart.


One method to unload them is to spend them, Heaven forbid.  The obvious drawback is that you aren't using your other credit cards so you aren't generating any new points.  That being said, this method keeps things simple and some people aren't quite ready for that level of complexity yet (Your day will come, JF, we just aren't there yet).

Spending the Final Balance

The problem is what do you do with that final $1.37 when you keep getting rejected for insufficient balance?  Such a pain.  You can try to ask the store to split up the transaction, but sometimes it's hard to remember which card has $1.37 and which one has $0.52 on it.


Here's what I do: After I am rejected, the Visa Gift Card goes into a pile of cards that don't have much money on them.  I keep a few of them in my wallet at all times.

There are stores that will automatically remove the balance from that card and you don't have to know your exact balance.  If my purchase is $4.50 and my balance is $1.25, I swipe and the price goes down to $3.25 automatically.  This is not an exhaustive list.  I just know that these three work.

Dunkin' Donuts
Walgreens
7-11
Starbucks
Ralph's


Walgreen's is perfect for me because I can spend $4 on prescriptions every month and spend down my gift cards.

Do you know of others that work too?  Leave a comment and help everyone out!

5% off Sitewide at Raise.com

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Top Cashback, Raise

Update: Coupon code is expired

Take 5% off already reduced Gift Cards from Raise.com with promo code HAPPY1YEAR - this sale ends 2/7 (Friday)


The promo code works on every gift card they sell.

Here are some examples  that are available right now (inventory and prices are constantly changing, check raise's site for up to date prices.)  Add 5% off from these prices.

Target - 4.1% off - I would buy it at this price except I already have too many Target gift cards
JC Penny - 15.6% off
Home Depot - 8%
Starbucks - 20% off
Coffee Bean - 20% off
Dunkin' Donuts - 7% off



Start your shopping from Top Cashback and you'll get 1-3% additional cashback into your account, depending on the type of gift card you buy.  I have been use Top cashback since November of 2012 and I already have over $1,000 in my account.


After the promo code and Top Cashback, a $25 coffee bean gift card comes out to $18.43, a savings of 26.28% without including Credit Card cashback.




The following gift cards give you 3% cashback from Top Cashback:
Includes; The Limited, Loft Merchandise Credit, iSkin, Rite Aid, Belk, Lane Bryant, Papa John's Pizza, Justice, Build A Bear Workshop, AutoZone, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Sur La Table and Ross.'

The following gift cards give you 1% cashback from Top Cashback:
Includes: Target, Starbucks, Walmart, Lowe's Instore, Amazon, Best Buy, Bloomingdale, Home Depot, Lowe's and Macy's.

The rest give you 2%

Ally Money Market Account - No ATM Fees with Interest!

Ally Bank has a Money Market Account which givens an impressive 0.85% interest rate (I can't believe I called that impressive) and has free checks so it acts as a checking account as well. In addition, they have some other features that make it one of the best accounts available right now.

Here is the breakdown:

- 0.85% interest rate - This is variable so the rate can change with time.
- Free checks
- No ATM Fees and they reimburse any ATM fees that other institutions place on you.  You can go to any ATM for free.
- No account minimums and no monthly fees.





If you are paying ATM fees you should seriously think about switching for this convenience.  I don't pay ATM fees through Charles Schwab High Yield Investor Checking (lower interest rate) and I love not needing to plan going to the ATM.


Thank you MK for the tip!


Anyone else have a checking account they think is better?  Post a comment.

American Express No Fee Gift Cards Are Back - 3% Top Cashback with No Fees!

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s) and I greatly appreciate supporting the site: Top Cashback 


Update 2:  Top Cashback cashback is now at 2%

Update 1: If you don't log in to your AMEX account you will only be able to purchase $200 gift cards which means you will end up with a lot of cards if you get $5,000 worth.  If, however, you log in you can buy a $3,000 gift card and a $2,000 gift card and you will only have 2 cards.
In addition, my cashback already posted as pending from Top Cashback!

American Express Gift Cards can now be bought without any purchase fees.  This saves you $3.95 for every $500 card.  You need to use promo code FPVALAF and pay with an American Express credit card.

You still need to pay $8.95 shipping fee for the entire order, but that is $8.95 even if you order $5,000 of gift cards.

In addition, Top Cashback will give you 3% back for buying the gift cards if you start there first.  This deal should run through 2/15/2013.

Here is the math for what this deal can do for you:

Scenario 1: Fidelity American Express (2% back on every purchase).

Let's say you max it out at $5000 in gift cards.  Your total charges will come to $5008.95.

- $150 will come to you from Top Cashback

- $100 will come to you from Fidelity American Express

- $8.95 fee for buying the cards

Bottom Line - $241.05 net after fees or 4.8% on your purchases with the gift cards.  Not too shabby!

Scenario 2: American Express Starwoods (Let's say you're a miles man)

Same thing: Max out at $5000.  Total charge is $5008.95

- $150 will come to you from Top Cashback

- 5,009 starpoints from American Express Starwoods

- $8.95 fee for buying the cards

Bottom Line - $141.05 net after fees + 5009 starpoints  If you do this 4 times you will have $560 and 20,000 starpoints which can be redeemed for 25,000 miles on many airlines.

More advanced tools so that you don't have to actually spend the money (manufactured spending):
Amazon Payments - You can send up to $1,000 a month to a friend with a credit card, including American Express gift cards.
Buy Vanilla Reloads/Visa Gift Cards - You should be able to use these cards to buy Vanilla Reload cards or Visa gift cards which can be loaded onto Bluebird online for Vanilla Reloads and at Walmart for Visa Gift Cards.  Add 1% in fees for this option.
Google Wallet - if you have a Google Wallet account, you can send money via email with a credit card to anyone and that person can withdraw to a checking account.  The problem is that the fee is a whopping 2.9%, which negates most of your cashback.
That being said, you will still net over $100 with the Fidelity American Express without having to spend any money.  With a points card, you end up getting 5,000 points for just about nothing.

Warning! Don't use a Citibank Credit card as they may code it as a Cash Advance so you will get a fee and no points.  American Express and Chase cards are safe.  

Fresh Direct and American Express - 53.33% off

Fresh Direct is an online supermarket that will deliver food directly to your door.  In general, you are paying a high premium for convenience so my family has never actually used their services before.

That being said, right now there is an opportunity to save 53.33% off Fresh Direct with an American Express card.

Here's how to do it:

1) Log in to your American Express online account and check out the "Offers For You" section to see if you are eligible for $30 off a $100 purchase from Fresh Direct.

2) Use coupon code DM2FK8 for $50 of a $125 purchase for new customers.  The price will drop to under $100 unless you spend $150 so you won't be able to combine the two offers unless you spend $150 before the promo code.

Your final price will be $70 for $150 of Fresh Direct or a savings of $80 which is 53.33% off!

Before you order make sure it is cheaper than your local supermarket, but I imagine it will be.

Museums On Us - This Saturday and Sunday

Bank of America Museums on Us program gives Bank of America credit card holders free access to select museums on the first Saturday and Sunday of the month.  February 1st and 2nd are the dates for this month so that means this Saturday and Sunday are the free days this month.


You need to have a credit card in the name of each person so you still have to pay for kids, unless you get a credit card for you child as well.

Sign up for email or text alerts to remind yourself of the dates here.

We normally go to Liberty Science Center.  I would not recommend that this Sunday due to the Super Bowl.  Enjoy everyone!


Here is a list of the museums in the New York/New Jersey area:

• NJ
• Liberty Science Center (Jersey City)
• Montclair Art Museum (Montclair)
• Morris Museum (Morristown)
• Newark Museum (Newark)
• NY
• Suffolk county Vanderbilt Museum (Centerport)
• Long Island Children's Museum (Garden City)
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (Manhattan)
• Staten Island Children's Museum (Staten Island)
• New York Historical Society (NYC)
• Whitney Museum of American Art (Manhattan)
• Brooklyn's Children Museum (Brooklyn)
• Queen's Museum of Art (Queens)
• Guggenheim Museum (Manhattan)
• Old Westbury Gardens (Old Westbury)
• Long Island Museum of American Art, History & Carraiges