Wow, it’s been nearly a year since chronicling our travel adventures.  It’s amazing that time has gotten so far away from us.  The school year really is a rough time, especially when dealing with two children with learning disabilities.  So much time goes into making them get their work done as if they’re “normal”, when they’re pretty far from it.  Teachers and administrators don’t seem to want the hassle.  The kids don’t feel like the system is really aligned to provide meaningful value to them.  That leaves us to fill the gaps between, and it really takes its toll.

Now that we’re a few weeks into the summer, it feels like we can actually breathe a little again and work our travel plans.  With all of this new found extra time I’ve been getting back into the swing of deals, rather than working at the client site, eating, sleeping, working out, repeat.   All those meals I scarfed down to maximize my daily allotment and cash back left me with a little extra tummy roll I needed to burn off.  Now, I’m running half-marathons (my first ever was just a few weeks ago), a few pounds away from my target weight with keto and exercise, and in the best shape I’ve been in my life.

Next week, we’ll be enjoying the cool weather of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont.  I booked a few days using Hotels.com, and then I discovered (a few days too late…) this awesome deal, I’m kicking myself for not being able to fully take advantage of.

22% savings on Hotels.com!

Hotels.com GC’s are often available for around 10% off, when purchased through a GC discounting portal such as Cardpool. However, they’re currently out of stock, probably because of the summer travel season. Right now $100 Hotels.com Gift Cards are on sale at BJ’s Wholesale for $85 + shipping.  It seems that if you order 3 of them, they waive the shipping fee, or maybe I got the shipping fee waived because my fulfillment location.  PointsChaser reported being charged $5 shipping, so YMMV — let me know how it worked for you.  I’m waiting to take advantage of this deal until my new AmEx Platinum arrives, so I can put it toward my $3k spend = 100,000 bonus points.

Please note! There’s a maximum of 3 of these Gift Cards that you can buy at a time – even though the shipping cart lets you select more than 3 at the item selection screen.

When I saw this deal, my first thought was “Oh crap… like I need another warehouse club membership… I already have one at Costco, and there isn’t really a convenient BJ’s Wholesale Club anywhere I usually go.”  However, after going through the motions to see how good the deal would be,  I learned that you can get an online-only membership for a mere $10 a year.  Sure that tacks on $10 to the price, but even with that, this deal ends up saving quite a bit. (assuming you can keep track of your gift cards!)

How it Stacks Up

So, here’s the angle on this deal —

1. TopCashback is offering 3% cash back on the “All other purchases” category from BJ’s Wholesale.  Sorry, there’s no signup bonus at TopCashback.
2. On top of that,  BJ’s has $100 gift cards on sale for $84.99.
3. Buy them on a card that gives you miles/points/cashback
4. Book your Hotels.com stay using the BeFrugal portal cashback discount (up to 11% cash back depending on if you collect Hotels.com rewards) by using the BeFrugal portal when booking.

At a minimum, you can turn around and flip these on a Gift Card discounting portal and get most (or maybe even more than) your money back, or just enjoy the fact that you’ve knocked ~19% off of your next Hotels.com purchase.

Savings, Computed…

If you use them, here’s how the savings stack:

•  $100 value (generally really good rates on hotels as well)
• -$15.01 due to $84.99 purchase price
• -$  2.55 with 3% cash back when buying the card through TopCashback portal
• -$  0.85 with 1% cash back (conservative estimate) credit card used for purchase
• -$  3.66 cash back (conservative estimate) when making Hotels.com booking through BeFrugal portal
• =$77.93 Final Cost for $100 worth of hotel stay (22% savings!)

Now, while hotels have a tendency to not credit points or elite credits when booking through Hotels.com, I have finagled them on more than one occasion to “just double check and make sure I got my rewards number on the stay”, and ended up getting credit.  It requires a little bit of wetware hacking and social engineering, but if you are nice enough and find the right desk person, they will often do this for you with no hassle whatsoever.

Update:  My Platinum AmEx card arrived yesterday, and Princess Muffins relayed the information to me over the phone so I could activate the card and use it in time for this deal.  I’m now just a smidge closer to the minimum spend for my 100,000 extra Membership Rewards points, which will be used to fund further travel happiness.   Hooray!