Shopping Coupons and Deals

Looking for bargain or shopping discount? I realized many people don't know how to maximize their shopping discount and made this guide. Please note I will put some affiliate links at no cost to you. 

For United States

1. Use Rakuten or BeFrugal for Shopping

Just choose between Rakuten and BeFrugal before shopping. They paid you a cashback because of the referral Amazon or other sites paid them.

For Singapore

1. Shopback

If you haven't known, use Shopback on top of all your purchase. I already had over $600+ in cashback from it (min cash out is $10 and to your bank account). Most of my rebate came from hotel bookings, but they keep changing and sometimes have Grabfood, Qoo10, Lazada, Shopee.

For beginner,

  1. use the Shopback website or application
  2. Search your shopping places and buy through its links as per normal
  3. If you don't see the order being tracked in your Shopback cashback page, choose the "Report a Missing Cashback" button
  4. Install the Shopback Chrome Extension to prevent missing a deal (sometimes you just didn't know, example at Apple.com and it will popup to remind you)

2. Qoo10

Tip 1: You must visit Qoo10 Spin QLounge daily to maximize the savings!

  • Spin and get a chance to win $1 Quube which is 1 USD, $6 coupon, $3 coupon. Usually I get the coupon which is great. You can spin once daily, up to 3 times a day if you shop more.
  • Get 110 QPoints for each month (which is $1.10) not much but better than nothing
  • Scroll down to collect your monthly coupon reward based on your membership too (Reset on every 1st)
  • Scroll further down and get the available coupons at the moment

  • Furthermore, if you really want, you can scroll down and provide your email and hope someone can give you a free coupon.

Not For: Those who have no time. I did it since I can automate it.

Also: If you are QuuBe.xyz  app user, you can also spin it. I didn't since you need the app and I prefer to do everything on my computer.

Tip 2: In addition, get 2% discount with Qoo10 Gift Cards (min $100) or Q*Coin token.(min $100 USD). If you don't like USD, buy the Gift Card as the value of Quu.be token will fall or rise:

3. Shopee.SG

For a new user, be sure to check all the  available promotion as Shopee give the most when you are new! Sometimes, they give free items, sometimes it is $10 off $20. Do check the latest promotions and don't rush into buying your first item before checking it.

If you are an existing user, the maximum discount is via using Shopee Coin (from previous purchase) + Shop Voucher + Cart Voucher + Credit Card Promotion. 

Tip 1: Get daily voucher at Shopee Daily Voucher page. There is also several brand specific vouchers if you scroll down. Usually you will get Shopee Coin which can only for your next purchase. I think it is 30% and up to $10 (which is 1,000 coins) for each 24-hours (weird rule to use hours but no choice). Shopback offer a cashback on Shop voucher which might not be worthwhile if you can get free shop voucher. 

Tip 2: Get Free Shopee Coin daily at https://shopee.sg/shopee-coins. This isn't as good as Qoo10 so do it only if you got time. However, if you are buying something and didn't get any voucher from the above tips and need it urgently, you can considering redeeming your coin to get a discount voucher. Note that it cannot be stacked with the vouchers (e.g. it is a cart voucher)

Tip 3: Shop at Midnight for Credit Card Promotions as it is limited and always gone by the morning. Just choose the right card for the day and it will deduct automatically.

Tip 4: To promote ShopeePay, Shopee sometimes give you a lucky draw chance for top up. For example, you can get 2 chances during National Day so keep a look out too. The good thing of Shopee Pay is that it allows exact top up unlike Grab that forced you to top up whole number.

4. Free Samples

What is better than shopping? Getting free samples before buying it! Below are some samples we tried and works for all ages. As we are vegetarians, we excluded many milk powders that contained fish oil.

There are many others like Cetaphil too.

5. Staycations From Online Spending

This section is still in experiment and still being updated.

Personally, we loved Cashback > Staycation > Travel Card. But the theory might be Travel Card > Cashback > Staycation.

Too long do not read version of this section is I will probably try get

  • Platinum Charge + Reserve for the signup bonus to experience and using it as a general spend after
  • UOB One Card (5% and got other benefits on saving interest rates) and SC Manhatten (3.33%)
  • DBS Women Card for 96k miles or probably 2.8% rebate offsetting via points
  • Consider Citi Prestige or UOB Visa Infinite Card to get Discovery Black benefits (the early check-in of 9am and late check-out of 6pm is like 2 free breakfast already and we are okay with just Pan Pacific Singapore)

Update in Oct 2020: I failed to get the Platinum Charge as I don't meet the income requirements. I was only offered the reserve card which I didn't take up. 

Staycations From Cashback Cards

We loved cashback cards, and was using SC Unlimited + $saver to get 5% off fuzz-free. With the change of conditions in 2020, these are the cashback cards with a cashback cap above $60/month for online spending as we don't want too many cards (wasting time getting waiver):- 

* UOB One Card (5%, max $100/month) - $2k / month exactly to earn $300 cap / quarter with min 5 transactions

* SC Manhattan Card (3%, max $66.67/month) - $6666.67 exactly to earn $200 cap / quarter

* SC Spree (2%, max $60/month) - 3k monthly to earn $60/month

With the above, you probably can get a staycation monthly at a very high expenses though.

After that, you can get cashback of 1.6% from Citi Rewards+ (but need SMS redemption) and Maybank Barcelona cards or 1.5% for SC unlimited spending (we used it) or Amex TruCashback Card (better than Unlimited since it offset the current month expenses but we closed the account since too many banks)

Of course, there are also weird cards like Crypto MCO cards we never tried or Grab Card (~0.8% cashback only). Overall, I think there must be a better way so I explore Miles Cards.

Staycations From Miles Cards

The problem with miles card is that Miles are better for business travelers instead of cashback. 

Miles cards on its own is not worth using for hotel stays in SIA vRooms (seem to be consistently higher than rates in Google Hotel) or in Amex Travel.

Therefore, the only way is to sell your Miles or Points. We did once long ago at the rates of 1000 miles at 10 USD, minimum of 70k miles. Recently, I checked and they didn't want the miles though so I probably need to find another buyer.

This make a much higher cashback than usual. For example, DBS Women Cards (suitable for men too unlike UOB Lady card) earn a max of 96,000 miles a year. Selling them would be 960 USD and excluding the transfer fee of around $26.75 SGD, that would easily be worth around 5% cashback from a 24,000 spent (1,200 SGD from 24,000 SGD spent = 5%).

Other Interesting Benefits From Miles / Travel Cards

  • No Expiry and no transfer fee (I really hate the concept of expiry as I don't use miles that often)
    • Amex Platinum gives 2 Membership Reward Points (MR) for $1.6 spent usually or 10 MR (from 5X) when using AmexTravel. Each MR is considered 0.625 miles so that is slightly less than 4 miles. That's said, Shopback (e.g. Expedia, Booking, Agoda 6%) + Cashback Cards (3%) or other Miles Card (Altitude 6 mpd at Expedia) might offer even better rates for online booking. 
    • OCBC Voyage Card also provide the same benefits at a better mileage earn rate (1.3 or1.6 mpd if you put lots of money with OCBC)
    • DBS Altitude got no expiry but there is a transfer fee though.
    • Even KrisFlyer expires in 3 years so that is why Miles are so unforgiving compared to fuzz free cashback if unplanned
  • Hotel Membership Tier, Hotel Stays and Spa Voucher to Justify Annual Fee
    • Amex Platinum provide more benefits like Gold tier in Hotel (so you can just book a normal room and get free breakfast). They also give free stays and some spa vouchers if you paid the $1,700+ annual fees if you even meet the Charge Income Requirement.
    • That's said again, it is forced spending and don't feel that great unless you favor the benefits
  • Discovery Black Program
    • There is a selected few hotels (Capitol, Pan Pacifc, Park Royal and Capella) but the benefits feel good with 9am check-in and 6pm checkout and 1 interesting experience (Mostly food but include things like tailoring and other things you won't pay. Last time seem to have helicopter ride in Hong Kong but I don't see it anymore)
  • Home Assistance 2 times up to $100/day (e.g. plumber, lockpick etc)
    • As someone who used a plumber recently, I could see a use of this. UOB Visa Infinite provide the service but their annual fees are atrocious for the miles they give.
  • Limo Service
    • MileLion covered the Limo Service of Credit Cards well enough. One interesting point was OCBC Voyage allows pickup and dropoff at Harbourfront too, besides Airport. Perhaps can use this as an expensive Grab (but up to 4 seaters) for your shopping (though you need to spend 10k to get both way). It expires in 3 months.

Some considerations of hotel stays

* Finding the best dates to book a hotel (Use Google Hotels as they compare and show rates of individual hotel. Good if you already know which hotel you liked)

* Maximizing Hotel Membership tiers (Most hotels have free stay or suite upgrade when you reached the highest tier. You can also status match which they used to lure you to their hotel). 

* Accor Plus membership from HSBC spending that gave one night stay at some of their hotel (excludes Sofitel Sentosa and Raffles Singapore). A Australian blogger listed Sofitel City Centre (Tanjong Pagar) as 400+ night as one of the more worthwhile stay.

* KrisFlyer vRooms (using minimal KrisMiles to offset hotel costs) https://krisflyervrooms.com/hotel/search?currency=SGD&locale=en-US&flow=spend

* Kaligo to earn miles with stays

Hope you find these useful and contact us if you know of a good deal.