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Daily Feats

Earn US Bank FlexPerks via DailyFeats and Plastic Jungle

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Daily Feats

This week I received a mailer from the US Bank FlexPerks program discussing some of the new promotions that have been added to the lineup of offers. Some of the benefits include Lounge Access via Regus as well as some of the free point offers that we discussed for email signups and photo contests. However, there are two programs that I am excited to introduce.

The first of which is a partnership with DailyFeats. The idea is simple. Create tasks that lead to a healthier lifestyle and upon completion, they reward you with points that can later be converted into FlexPerks. So I decided to give it a try.

To begin, I recommend visiting flexperkspromos.usbank.com. After signing into your account, you should see an offer to join the DailyFeat program.

You will then need to create a new account with DailyFeat. After you enter your name and email address, you will notice there is a promo code field. After a little bit of research, I found a code on Southern Savers that offered up to 202 free points by entering in promo code southernsavers100.

You will notice your account starts out with 100 free points. Additional points can then be earned by completing a special challenge.

Within minutes, I was up and running, and by clicking around through the hundreds of little feats, I was able to either instantly earn free points, or set up tasks that will earn me more points once completed.

So what is all of this really worth?

Well looking at the reward program, there are lots of options for everything from gift cards to FlexPerks, and the ratio seems pretty favorable.

Daily Feats Rewards

The FlexPerks redemptions are pretty stellar in my opinion. For only 50 points you will earn 250 FlexPerks, and 90 points earns you 500 FlexPerks. The only poor thing is that the redemption is only limited to once every three (3) months.

I am really falling in love with the charmingness of the DailyFeats program. Cute little tasks that can easily be accomplished, and furnish a thought process that should help you lead to a more productive lifestyle. At the same time, you will be earning rewards that will help you earn free FlexPerks that can be used towards travel.

Plastic Jungle FlexPerks

Plastic Jungle Conversion to FlexPerks

I foresee some great potential out of the new partnership between Plastic Jungle and FlexPerks. Before I get into more details of this promotion, lets come to a basic understanding of the FlexPerks program. Just the other day I promoted the US Bank FlexPerks credit card, and highlighted how points earned are valued at $0.02 per point. Why is this important?

When you earn 20,000 FlexPerks, you can then redeem them for a trip up to $400 in value. Where you need to be careful is that if you try to book a flight between $400.01-600 (via Travelocity), the program will require 30,000 points. One cent makes a big difference.

By opening both a personal and business version of the US Bank FlexPerks credit cards last year, our family is sitting on a pile of 43,000+ points, which means we have $800 in travel rewards coming to us. It is pretty undeniable the value and potential of the program.

So now back to the Plastic Jungle promotion. I was curious to see how lucrative the offer was for the consumer, so I tested out a couple of our gift cards.

$25 Regal Cinemas – 1063 FlexPerks
$25 Home Depot – 1100 FlexPerks
$25 JCPenney – 750 FlexPerks

So lets take the most lucrative of these offers, Home Depot, valued at 1100 FlexPerks. We want to get to the magic 20,000 FlexPerks number to get a $400 travel valuation. Using the $25 Home Depot gift cards, we would need to shell out:

20,000 FlexPerks / 1100 FlexPerks = 18 * $25 = $450

With the above example, if you put all 18 Home Depot $25 gift cards on your US Bank FlexPerks card, you would earn 450 FlexPerks + 19,800 FlexPerks via Plastic Jungle, plenty to get to the 20,000 redemption level. The problem is that this experiment results in spending more than the value of the travel redemption (i.e. it would cost you $450 to earn $400 in travel rewards). Obviously, this example does not work. However, quite possibly higher value gift cards and/or those sold with a higher resale value may make the math work out.

Lets take a quick look at the breakeven point.

20,000 FlexPerks / 1250 FlexPerks = 16 * $25 = $400

As you can see, we are not too far off. I can not guarantee there is a valuation that makes this work in our favor, but there very well could be with some experimentation.

One way this could possibly work in our favor is to use Discover Cashback to purchase gift cards at a discount. For example, one could redeem $80 in cashback for a $100 Banana Republic, Brooks Brothers, Gap, Lands’ End, L.L. Bean, Old Navy, or The Limited cards. Then it would depend how many FlexPerks we would be given, plus figuring out the best way to acquire $80 in Discover cashback with the least amount of out-of-pocket spend. This could take some more investigation, plus an evaluation of time versus money to actually make the FlexPerks/Plastic Jungle promotion lucrative. Not as good as I initially thought, but there could be promise.

US Bank FlexPerks Referral

Interested in opening a US Bank FlexPerks card? As an existing card holder, I am able to refer guests to the best current offer that I am aware of at this time. Our refer a friend program is offering 17,500 FlexPerks for opening the card and spending $2,500 or more within five months from account opening.

When completing the application, at the top there is a field labeled “Referring Friend’s FlexPoints #.” Please enter in account number 400003689876. We will earn 5,000 points as a referral bonus, and you will be on the way to earning FlexPerks. We thank you!

If you have any questions, please let us know.

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AMEX Twitter Sync

Purchase an American Express $25 Gift Card for $15 via Twitter Sync

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AMEX Twitter Sync

[Expired] I became a big fan of the American Express Sync Facebook program late last year, specifically around the holidays when everyone was clambering for our business. As a result, I scored a great deal on a discounted Costco membership purchase, as well as several other offers.

Now, American Express is linked up with exclusive offers via Twitter. As a result, there is a great offer to get a $25 American Express gift card for $15 shipped.

If you want to get in on this offer, stick with us on the instructions, as they can be a tad bit confusing.

1) Tweet #BuyAmexGiftCard25 to get started. You’ll be prompted by @AmexSync to sync your Card for purchases, if you have not already.

2) Look for a response from @AmexSync with the confirmation #hashtag. Tweet this #hashtag within 15 minutes of the response from @AmexSync to confirm your purchase.

3) Once your purchase is confirmed, your product will be shipped via free 2-day shipping.

The provided gift card comes with no fees, and even if you lose the card, they will refund you the remaining balance.

This promotion is extremely limited quantities and is set to expire by March 3, 2013. However, I do not anticipate the offer lasting that long.

If for any reason you want to unsync your card later, just follow the instructions on the American Express site.

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AMEX Blue Cash Preferred

Giant Eagle Discontinued FoodPerks Program & How That Impacts You

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What happens when you take the perfect combination of grocery purchases and fuel purchases, pair them with a circular reward program, double coupons, and then are able to maximize the reward program on your credit card? You get the Giant Eagle grocery store chain.

Giant Eagle is definitely not the cheapest guy in the market for gasoline or food purchases. However, once you learn to maximize the reward program, staying loyal to the brand pays itself back in dividends and convenience, breeding loyalty from the consumer.

Giant Eagle FoodPerks Discontinued

Giant Eagle (GE) is a regional grocery chain servicing the Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland districts. In addition, GE offers gasoline via their GetGo stations. Introduced a few years ago, GE offers both a FuelPerks and FoodPerks reward program to the customers. The business model acted circular in that your gasoline purchases “fueled” your grocery discounts and your grocery purchases earned discounts off of gas. It was a smart planned that spurred loyalty in a tough and competitive grocery market.

Our family learned to exclusively fill up two vehicles at the various GetGo stations in the district. For every 10 gallons of gasoline we purchased, we would earn 1% back on food purchases. The percentage continued to build up in your account, and expired 2 months after the last day of the month they were earned.

Likewise, for every $50 spent at Giant Eagle locations, you earned $0.10 off per gallon of gasoline. So spending at one or the other always created a discount to use at the opposite. We used the program mostly for the benefit of discounted grocery purchases, and whatever discount we earned on gas was a bonus.

The great thing about purchases at Giant Eagle was that gift cards were allowed to earn rewards, and GE stocked practically every gift card imaginable. So if you had a gift of $50 and purchased a gift card for someone, you could also earn FuelPerks in addition to any benefits of purchasing with your selected credit card. With some creativity, you can start to see some of the benefits.

However, there were some downsides to the promotion.

1) Discounts had to be used in their entirety. So if you have $1.00 off per gallon saved up in FuelPerks, you had to apply the entire discount to your selected purchase and could not break it up into two transactions. The same thing went for FoodPerks. Where that became a problem was rewards earned in a month that were about to expire also caused you to use up any rewards that were recently earned.

2) While one could earn unlimited FoodPerks on your account, you could only redeem 20% on up to $300 in purchases. So if one purchased $400 in groceries, only the first $300 would be eligible for the 20% max discount.

So our family tended to have a pretty well oiled machine when it came to gas and grocery purchases. We only shopped for groceries at GE when our FoodPerks reached 20%, and only tended to buy stuff that was on sale and had double coupons. We could typically take a $400 grocery purchase and get it down to under $300 after applying double coupons first, and then FoodPerks discounts. Then we could usually earn around 5% off by using our credit card (or 6% if you had the American Express Blue Cash Preferred card).

For Giant Eagle, the combination of programs meant maximum savings for our family and low margins for them. However, GE also made a premium on us for gas purchases as well as the occasional splurge item. In addition, we were probably the exception rather than the rule for maximum savings.

However, this week our long-term game plan came with a drastic change. Via a friend, Giant Eagle grocery stores will be eliminating the FoodPerks program in its entirety on February 13, 2013.

So why do I bring any of this up? This offer is mostly regional and does not impact the overwhelming majority of our audience. However, what this represents is a classic example of having to constantly reevaluate how not only our family spends on groceries and gas, but also our spending habits and credit card spend.

With this change in the Giant Eagle rewards program, we have zero reason to ever purchase gas at their stations again, and therefore, we have no need to buy their groceries. Since GE prices are typically substantially higher, we can now continue to focus on buying in bulk at Costco, or some other local grocers.

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