This week Papa Bird, Baby Bird and I headed to our hometown to visit our family. We also took a side trip with said family down to the States for a weekend getaway. So, as I blog, I am sitting in a quiet hotel room, watching Baby Bird sleep soundly after a crazy day of driving, shopping and playing with her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. She had a great time, and so did we.
I had some time to ponder some thoughts I’ve had floating around in my head, and I took the drive (two provinces worth) to think about ‘rewards’.
Many companies out there offer rewards to use their products and/or services. Rewards are great tools for saving money — if used correctly.
Two types of rewards come to my mind right off and I am going to explain how I use them to get deals faster.
1) Gasoline – Filling up your car these days is a scary ordeal. The prices just keep climbing. What once (not so long ago) took me $20 to fill up my car, now takes $40 and up, and I drive a small car. Yikes! So if you own a car and you can’t make the change to carpool, take the bus, or bike to work to escape the always rising prices, you may as well get some bang for your buck.
Papa Bird and I have been going to Canadian Tire to fill up on gas for 2 years now. Why? Because we get money back and it is money we will use! Last year, we made $112 in Canadian Tire money by filling our tanks at the Canadian Tire Gas Bar and it went toward purchasing a pergola for our back deck. This year, we have saved just over $100 so far and it is going toward a new BBQ (as soon as a good one goes on sale).
2) Hotels – I overheard two girls (okay, I was eavesdropping) talking behind the desk at the hotel I stayed at last night. One was explaining to the other when to give a discount off the quoted price. They base it on your loyalty to them. Even the hotel we are in tonight has a Priority Club Rewards where you can stay so many nights and then get the next one free.
Whether you travel a lot or not, you should say yes to these free membership offers because you never know when you will use them (can you say for 100% certainty that you won’t be staying at a hotel in the next couple of months — stuff always comes up when you least expect it.) One other thing about hotel rewards, always check online to see if the hotel main page offers a better deal for your rewards than the city hotel.
Tip for Rewards – Although I say collect as many as you are offered, don’t try to use them all at once. This will cause you to spread yourself to thinly across all rewards and you won’t notice your accumulated investment in any of them for a long time. Instead, focus on 1 – 2 per product/service. Pick the one reward/membership program per product/service that will benefit you the greatest and focus on it as much as you can. The other rewards you signed up for can be used as a backup in case your primary company is unavailable to you.
In addition to gas and hotels, there are also clothing, restaurant and theatre rewards to name a few. Cheapnik has a great post on theatre rewards by clicking HERE.
* Although I list some rewards by name, I am not recommending them over any other rewards. Everyone is different and you need to find the rewards/memberships that will work for you.
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