How to Get Great Deals on the Internet

LCD and Plasma HDTVs, an iTouch or new iMac, or a new big external hard drive, a Blu-ray player, an Xbox 360 Premium. These are fun things to buy. They really are. And there are ways to use the internet to get them at low, low prices. Here are my top five internet shopping resources for on-line electronic purchases:

1) The 'Hot Deals' section of Fatwallet.com This forum has been around for a long time. It is the granddaddy, in my mind, of the 'Great Deal' website forums. The idea is that members will post the deals that they find around the internet and, sometimes, in B&M stores (Brick and Mortar - physical stores).
The members seem to focus on electronic items and, many times it takes work to make a deal happen. Other users will reply to the original post and comment on how good the deal is. When many people are commenting, the post is labeled as 'Hot'. If the thing you are looking for is posted in a 'Hot Topic' on Fatwallet, you're gonna get a great deal. Often, in order to get the best deal, you will need to combine coupons with rebates and other discounts.
But, the deals are amazing. In one case, about 9 months ago, a post described a way to get a laptop for free - you just had to buy a bunch of software with it and fill out about 80 rebates. A lot of work, but it did WORK.

2) PriceGrabber.com and/or Froogle.com Everyone should have one of these two sites bookmarked on their mobile phones. When you're at a store (or on-line) looking at products, do a quick check at one of these two sites. They will tell you what price the item is selling for at many different on-line retailers. It gives you a quick idea if the price you are looking at is a good one. (Of course, these won't tell you what rebates or other discounts are available, like Fatwallet.)
BTW, I usually really like what Google does - Froogle, as you may have guessed, is part of froogle - but in this case, I like PriceGrabber best.

3) Dubli.com and BiddingTracker.com Dubli has a unique way of selling things, Just like Costco, you have to pay to see the price of items sold on the Dubli Xpress Auction. (There are two other ways to buy things on Dubli, more about those later.). In this case, you pay $0.80 to see the current price. If you like the price, you can buy it. Here's the thing, though. Every time you, or someone else, takes a look at the current price, the price goes DOWN by $0.25. So, if you don't like the price, come back and try later. And, no matter what price you buy, Dubli guarantees that it will be the lowest anywhere - if you find the item lower after you buy it, they'll refund the difference plus 10% of the difference.
BiddingTracker.com is a site that tracks the prices that other people see at Dubli. So, before you spend the $0.80 at Dubli, go to Biddingtracker and see if someone has already checked the price. And, bonus, Biddingtracker gives new registrants free credits to use at Dubli

4) Woot.com Woot.com sells one item a day. And they sell that one product at a great price. Each night at midnight (Eastern Time) Woot.com puts the next day's product on the site. Its there until it sells out (or until the next day at midnight.) The site is really fun because of the great writing that you can find there - they describe the products they sell very uniquely. But what makes woot.com a really great site, is what they call woot-offs. About once a month, woot.com has a woot-off. On these days after the first product of the day sells out, they immediately put another product up for sale. Some of the items are sold for amazing prices. And you need to try for the "Bag-of-Crap" if/when you see it.

5) Amazon.com If you need something, anything, and you just don't want to shop around, just go to Amazon.com and buy it there. You are assured of a really decent price. You will almost always get free shipping and a great price. Amazon is the biggest name in e-commerce for a reason - they've earned it.

First, you need a Hotel. For most places, here's the best thing you can do to get a great hotel for a great price:

Best Hotel Websites: BiddingForTravel.com with Priceline.com

Priceline really is a useful site. you can get really amazing deals there. BUT, you have to know what you are doing.

As you probably know, Priceline is a site that allows you to name your own price on hotels and airfares. (I only use it for Hotels because the flights you get are often redeyes and you have no control over the time of departure.) I once got the Hyatt regency near Disneyland for $39/night for 6 nights. I ended up getting 6 nights for lower than the posted price for one night. You have no control over the Hotel you get - just the quality and the area. So, you can bid on a 3 star hotel in the Disneyland area but not on the Hyatt in Garden Grove.

Normally, Priceline only allows you to 'name your price' once in a 24 hour period. If the price is too low you have to wait 24 hours to make it higher. This means you are really limited on the number of different prices you can try. But, and this get's a little complicated, you can add an area to your search and then 'name your price' again immediately. So, if you want a 3 star hotel in the Disneyland area and priceline did not accept your bid of $39, you add an area that does not have a 3 star or higher hotel in that area and then try again. If you specify that you want a 3 star and one of the areas you bid in does not have a 3 star, then, obviously, if you get your price accepted, it will be in the area you want (Disneyland.)

I know, confusing. There is a whole website devoted to understanding Priceline. It's BiddingForTravel.com. If you follow the instructions there closely, the administrators will tell you exactly how to bid at Priceline to get the best prices.

OK, now for Airfare.

I use Travelocity or Orbitz for airfare. I always compare the prices I get there to those found on Southwest.com and Jetblue.com. (Both of those discount airlines do not have fares listed at Travelocity or Orbitz.)

And then there is Travelzoo.com If you want to travel, you should sign up for the 'Top 20' deals that they send out via e-mail every Wednesday. They list the top 20 deals in travel. Most of the time, you will not see anything that interests you aor that you can do. But, when a deal comes along for a destination that you've been thinking about, you'll be happy you've subscribed. Back in 2000, my wife an I went to Paris on a whim because Travelzoo notified us of a tremendous deal on airfare from our city. They have 17 million subscribers. they're doing something right.

There are so many ways to get even better deals. Here's an example:

Example: back in July, there was a thread on Fatwallet, Hot Deals that talked about a great deal on an Sony DCR-HC52 Camcorder .at Target. The price is $129.99 which is really an amazing deal on a decent camcorder. To check, you can go to Pricegrabber and see that the lowest price on the internet (as of this moment) is $229

But Wait! At the same time a $500 Gift Certificate was selling for less than $500 on Dubli. We know it was going to be less because the price starts at $500 and goes down from there as people check the price.

So, if you check Biddingtracker, you can see that at the same time as the above fatwallet deal, someone bought a $500 Target Gift Card is $426.50. That's more than a 14% savings.

So, you could buy the $500 gift card from Dubli for 14% off, so, in effect, you could then buy the really well priced Camcorder with it and save an additional 14% off the already very good price. (Dubli often has $100 Target gift cards, so you could get a smaller giftcard, if you check at the right time.)

It takes some work, but it worth it to save some money.

Using this method, we bought a $100 Footlocker gift card for $71 at Dubli (including shipping) and then used a 30% off coupon we found on Fatwallet and got a pair of shoes form my very tall son that normally costs $100 plus a pair of 440 basketball shorts and some socks all for just a bit more than the $71 we paid for the giftcard.

Recently, Dubli began selling pre-loaded Visa, Mastercard and American Express gift cards on dubli's reverse auction, This means that they start the auctions at the listed price (anywhere from $50 to $1,000) and then as people check the current price, the price goes down.

Remember, Dubli.com is a lot like Costco - you pay to see the price. At dubli, it costs $0.80 to check the current price of any item. There are ways to get free credits, however. Here's a site that works: DubliVoucher.com

But, no matter what the price, Dubli guarantees that you will get the best price anywhere, if you buy there. And really, where else can you get Visa and Mastercard gift cards for less than face value? Nowhere, that's where.

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