Deal Stacking Archives - Working On Happy

Kick off the Summer with BJ’s Wholesale deal on Hotels.com gift cards (updated: 27 Jun 18)

By Happy Camper | June 26, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

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 —

TopCashback is offering 3% cash back on the “All other purchases” category from BJ’s Wholesale. Sorry, there’s no signup bonus at TopCashback.
On top of that, BJ’s has $100 gift cards on sale for $84.99.
Buy them on a card that gives you miles/points/cashback
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!

Going Greek for Miles (and cash back)

By Happy Camper | August 2, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Athena Kouzzina – Frugal Vegetarian Takeout Review

Overall Rating: Most Excellent

As a reminder, the chief criteria of this challenge are to:

Stack as many discounts/points as possible
Pay as little as possible for as much food as possible
- thus takeout, to avoid drinks, desserts, and tip and “atmosphere”
- thus vegetarian, as meat-free food should be less costly
Find decent places to eat on the company per diem and take home as much money and points as possible

Vegetarian Friendly: Quite so

There were quite a few items available to pick from including Angel Hair Pomodora, Feta Ravioli, and Basil fettucini. I chose a few of my favorite items from the menu and thought I’d try a new one. Nearly every pasta dish on the menu with a “before meat” price, so meatless was a cheaper and obvious option in all cases.

Take Out Friendly: Pretty good

Had to place the order over the phone. No web or app-based ordering. I walked in, said I was there to pick up my order, paid for my food, and walked out, without any hassle whatsoever. Napkins and tableware were included.

Accuracy: Perfect

When asking for vegetarian preparation, or extra sauce in this case, there’s always a chance something will go wrong. When ordering over the phone, there’s one more chance that something will go wrong with the order. Not a thing went wrong.

Value: Pretty Good

The amount of food and prices charged weren’t quite the same value as eating at home, but for restaurant food, the prices were pretty good, and the portions were far from stingy.

Timeliness: Great

I was told the food would be ready in 15-20 minutes. I got there in 20 minutes and the food was already bagged and ready. The cashier immediately saw me and was out of there in mere minutes. When I got it back home, it was still plenty warm.

Service: Excellent

The phone was answered quickly to place the order. The order was taken accurately and politely. The wait time was nearly zero.

Food Quality: Pretty darn good

I ordered a few things, because some of the sides/starters were pretty affordable, and I had to get $30 worth in order to get my Delta bonus points. (which I failed to do at Tilted Kilt)

Greek Salad – Crisp iceberg lettuce, tomato, onion, pepperoncinis, kalamata olives, Feta and our exclusive Athens dressing.
Greek Eggplant Dip – Roasted eggplant, fresh garlic, mayonnaise, lemon juice, olive oil and salt.
Spanakopita – Phyllo dough filled with spinach and cheese with Yia Yia’s [do I know this person?] syrup on the side.
Eggplant Parmigiana – Kouzzina-style eggplant Agnanti [what’s that??] served with linguine and tomato sauce.

The Greek salad was exactly as advertised and generally as expected. The lettuce was quite crisp, the tomato (though sparse) was ripe and delicious. However, pretty much everything other than the dressing, iceberg lettuce, and cheese was pretty sparse. I actually had to dig through to figure out where/if the onions were. The dressing was so-so: a whole lot of olive oil, and generally light in flavor. The freshly grated feta cheese was so fresh, it was actually hard to believe it was feta. This didn’t taste like your store bought feta, that’s for sure.

The Greek Eggplant Dip was pretty thin and mayonnaisey. I really couldn’t taste much else over the overpowering mayonnaise. I would have expected a bit more grilled eggplant or garlicky flavor. It was decent, but mostly seemed like mayonnaise with eggplant seeds in it. The accompanying pita wedges, however, were fresh and light and tasty.

The spanakopita, or spinach pie, was where things really turned in Athen’s favor. The phyllo was crisp and flaky. The filling of spinach and onion was so flavorful, rich, and savory. Combined with the accompany honey sauce (made by Yia Yia, I guess)… it seemed, at the time to embody the perfect food. The only flavor “missing” was sour, but all of my taste buds were dancing with delight with each bite. I’d never had a spanakopita served with a honey sauce, so I was eager to see what they had in mind, and I was delighted to have gone to visit Yia Yia. I recommend you do the same.

The Eggplant Parmigiana was a great finish to the meal. The breading on the eggplant was light and occasionally crisp, despite being soaked in the tomato sauce (of which I asked for extra). The pasta was to al dente perfection, and the sauce, itself was flavorful and intense with a bit of a kick to it that you could only feel in the aftertaste. The only thing wrong was a bit or two of eggplant that were slightly under-cooked.

The Discounts and Deals

I expect to receive a stacked deal of:

7% cash back from Mogl (got an immediate acknowledgement when the transaction hit the clearinghouse – just like last time)
Since I spent over $30, a bonus of 500 Delta SkyMiles as part of their Delta Dining bonus
3 miles per dollar from the Delta SkyMiles Dining program from Rewards Network, since I’m an “online member” (getting their spam)
- now up to 2:12 required restaurant visits to count toward 5 miles per dollar VIP status
1 mile per dollar from my Delta American Express card

The Experience

Overall, the vegetarian items were plentiful. The pricing to leave off meat was obvious and fair. The ordering process was easy. The food was delicious. What else can you say really? I’d absolutely go again [on the company’s dime].