voucher

Ask the Readers: Do You Buy Vouchers?

Ashley Jacobs — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 10:36:33 +0000

Editor's Note: Congratulations to MG, Monica, and Chintan for winning this week's contest!

Buying vouchers from sites like Groupon, Living Social, and Restaurant.com can be a great way to save on new experiences, from dining to vacations to auto services. Then again, the lure of a deal can also get people to spend more than they can afford.

Do you buy vouchers? What types of experiences or services do you usually look for, and what sites do you use to find them? How do you decide if a voucher is worth buying?

Tell us whether you buy vouchers and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

Win 1 of 3 $20 Amazon Gift Cards

We're doing three giveaways — here's how you can win!

Mandatory Entry:

Post your answer in the comments below. One commenter will win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

For extra entries:

You can tweet about our giveaway for an extra entry. Also, our Facebook fans can get an extra entry too! Use our Rafflecopter widget for your chance to win one of the other two Amazon Gift Cards:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you're inspired to write a whole blog post OR you have a photo on flickr to share, please link to it in the comments or tweet it.

Giveaway Rules:

Contest ends Monday, August 19th at 11:59 pm Pacific. Winners will be announced after August 19th on the original post. Winners will also be contacted via email.
You can enter all three drawings — once by leaving a comment, once by liking our Facebook update, and once by tweeting.
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered, or associated with Facebook.
You must be 18 and US resident to enter. Void where prohibited.

Good Luck!

Tell us whether you buy vouchers and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!

This article is from Ashley Jacobs of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Are Groupon Getaways a Good Idea?

Linsey Knerl — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:36:08 +0000

I just returned from a mini-vacay, compliments of a voucher I bought on a daily deal site similar to Groupon. I’ll admit to having let at least one of their local deals expire after purchase, so I was determined to get the biggest bang for my buck on the hotel deal. While I’m not completely sold on doing it again, here are the pros and cons to such offers, as well as tips to keep the excursion well under budget. (See also: The 5 Best Travel Reward Credit Cards)

Offers Are Valid Longer

I had an entire year to use the hotel voucher I purchased, so you would think I would have no problem redeeming it prior to expiration. I found myself hustling at the last minute, however, and I used it literally on the last possible day it was valid for.

Lesson Learned: Even with increasingly longer valid dates, your personality may determine if it’s long enough. If you have a crazy, busy lifestyle, or procrastinate (like me), no amount of time may be long enough to warrant a travel deal. Book early and leave a little “wiggle room” at the end, just in case!

The Same Rules of Reservation Apply

Before I could ultimately use my hotel deal, I had to cancel and reschedule at least once. Most travel destinations will be OK with this, but you should be aware — if they have a cancellation or change policy in place, it will apply to your voucher, as well. (Some vouchers impose even tougher rules for changing plans.)

Lesson Learned: Even if you can’t use a voucher and are content to let it expire, don’t forget to call the destination back to cancel any standing reservations. You don’t want to be hit with the cost of an unused voucher AND a cancellation fee or first-night’s stay!

Perks Can Be Pricey

Our particular package came with two nights at a family suite, one meal, snacks, and some tokens for the local arcade. While this seemed like a great way to stretch the family dollar, keep in mind that these deals are designed to get you to spend more once you are at your destination. Our “free” drinks and appetizers at the local bar, for example, didn’t include tax or gratuity. The free arcade tokens barely allowed the kids to play one game each and didn’t account for the no-refund policy on broken game machines.

Lesson Learned: You may need to get crafty with ways to avoid paying ridiculous additional charges. We were able to take our free appetizers to go, for example, allowing us to pay just $.54 in tax and skip gratuity altogether. (It also limited the urge to pay for pricey soft drinks at the restaurant.) We also brought along our own gaming systems for the kids to play during “quiet time” in the hotel room; this kept the begging for quarters at the “arcade” down to a minimum.

Not All Trips Are Worth It

When we bought our voucher over a year ago, we thought it was a good deal at the time. After all, how often would we get the chance to get all five kids into a nice suite within a hotel with a water park for under $250 for three days? As it turns out, this trip kept adding on the costs: our van had troubles, so we rented one for the week; bad weather forced us to return home one night early; and the kids hardly spent any time in the water due to exhaustion. Had we stayed home or just attended the local water park for one day, we would have saved $300, even with the cost of the unused voucher.

Lesson Learned: Look at all the costs involved with redeeming an offer. Sometimes, not using a deal you purchased can be more affordable than seeing it through. Put a value on the experience of going on your trip; for some, any amount of money is a small price for the chance to get away!

Nothing feels worse than buying something you can’t use. The guilt of letting a purchased voucher expire is what gets many of us on the road to spending even more money on a daily deal. If you’ve purchased a voucher but are on the fence as to whether you want to use it, check the deal site terms to see if a refund or credit can be granted. Otherwise, gifting it to a friend may be an option. If all else fails, limit your expenses to keep your trip enjoyable without the additional burden to your budget — and strongly ponder your situation the next time a travel deal catches your eye!

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This article is from Linsey Knerl of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Junk Mail revenge part 1 - Make fast cash reselling junk mail.

Paul Michael — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:13:14 +0000

If you're anything like me, you hate opening your mailbox to see a whole pile of junk mail waiting for you. Credit Card offers (more on those in part 2 of this series ), fake checks from mortgage firms, endless reams of useless coupons and, of course, the trusty 1lb envelope of garbage from ValPak. But a friend recently told me of a hidden gem inside the ValPak envelope. A gem that's worth at least $20.

The voucher that's like Wonka's golden ticket.
Inside ValPak envelopes (depending on your zip code) is a voucher from Northwest Airlines. It looks something like the picture below (I apologize for the poor quality, it's the best pic I could find anywhere on the web).

Now, what this voucher does is give the redeemer anywhere from $25 to $100 off of a Northwest Airlines flight. Great, if you happen to be in the market for a flight. If you're not, which is probably the case, you'll trash it. But using the mighty reach of eBay you can find hundreds of people who desperately want to save cash on a flight. And that means quick money for the smart eBayer.

Making the quick buck(s).
All you have to do is list your Northwest Airlines voucher on eBay. As you can see, completed listings (for eBay novices, those green prices are the final SOLD price for the item) are averaging $20-$25.

That's cold, hard cash for a voucher that was sent to you free in the mail. List the item for a starting price of around $18.99 and give FREE shipping (it's just the cost of a stamp anyway). You may also want to do a Buy It Now option for $19.99. It's all up to you.

Get vouchers from friends, make even more money.
Most people will be more than happy to give you their ValPak envelopes, if they haven't already dumped them in the garbage. You could get 5 or 6 NWA vouchers and sell them in seperate auctions, or list them as "5 available" in one auction. Either way, that's at least $100 lovely dollars from something that used to be a pain in your butt.

Now, prepare for something you've never experienced before in your life. Get ready to be happy to see junk mail in your mail box. Next time, starting the Junk Mail war.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: