Who wants super cheap summer cocktails?

Over the last few weeks in Chicago (and elsewhere, I’m sure) there have been coupons stuffed in the newspaper circulars for $5 off 2 bottles of Diageo products. Looking through circulars at shoplocal.com for any particular deals on Diageo (owner of Smirnoff) products, I also noticed Smirnoff on sale for $10 at Jewel and CVS.  OK, good start: 2 bottles for $15.

It gets better with the entrance of this $50 mail-in rebate valid on 8+ bottles.  Yes, 8+ bottles.

Further, many stores in Chicago (Jewel, for instance) will give you 10% off with a minimum bottle purchase (usually at least 4-6 bottles).

The math (party time is temporarily over) is that you get 8 bottles at $10 each, for a total of $80; minus 10% off so now you’re at $72; plus with $5 off every 2 bottles you’re at $52 and then there’s $50 back via rebate.  So you’re literally paying $2 for 8 bottles.  Add $6-$8 in tax to the pre-rebate price, though. Regardless, you’re paying roughly $1 per bottle!

Of note: the rebate is valid on ALL Diageo products including Ketel One, Captain Morgan’s, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray and more.  Also, the rebate expires 7/17.

And if mixed drinks aren’t your thing, we just found the best deal ever on the BeerTender, which accepts a Heineken mini-keg.  It has dropped from $129 to $65 after a coupon code.  Either way, it will make for the cheapest party you’ve thrown since college.

This is a reminder that if you have a Starwood American Express Card and have a decent amount of points, you may want to transfer them today.  The Starpoints Transfer Process has always given a 5,000 bonus on 20,000 point transfers.  Now, American is giving an additional 35% bonus for transfers into their American AAdvantage program that results in over 20,001 miles, or a 25% bonus for lesser transfers.  That means that 20,000 Starpoints turn into 25,000 American Miles and then AA gives you a 35% bonus of 8,750 so you end up with 33,750 in your account.  It’s a fantastic deal and the only one of its kind in some time.

Any transfer that is initiated by 6/30 will receive the bonus.  The offer is actually for any kind of Hotel to AA transfer (“eligible AAdvantage program hotel participants”)  but Starwood is the most attractive.  Starwood has a transfer cap of 60,000 miles per day so that is all you can transfer today.  A 60,000 point transfer will net you 101,250 miles.  There is no limit otherwise and you can transfer Starpoints to other family members and then transfer those to their AA accounts.  To maximize miles, try and transfer in increments of 20,000 miles.  Starwood to AA transfer generally post on Mondays and then the 35% AA bonus will appear in the next 7 days.  Here are the full terms and conditions.

I’ve tried this and it worked!

Starwood American Express Card

I’m a credit card junkie. No, not for the debt (a terrible idea) but for the million ways you can use them to your advantage. It’s a big game and you can be the winner if you make the right choices.

Many of you have talked with me about what are the best credit cards. Ultimately, the answer depends on your uses and goals. That said, more often than not it is the American Express Starwood Card.  It is by far the best pure rewards card.

If you’re not using one, here’s why you’re missing out:

1. Starpoints are the New Gold

Airline cards get you 1 mile, maybe 1.25 if you’re lucky.  Cash back cards get you 1% back, maybe 1.5% or 2% if you’re really lucky (the 5% back offers are narrow hype).  Regardless, call it 1 or 2 cents of value per dollar spent on the card.  Starpoints are super flexible and can be turned into 3 or 4 cents easily and 8 or 10 or 20 cents when you get creative! Bottom-line: 1 Starpoint > 1 Airline Mile > 1 Cent.

2. Airline Cards Don’t Compete

You earn 1 Starpoint per dollar spent but can transfer Starpoints to over 30 airlines, most at a 1:1.25 ratio, meaning 20,000 Starpoints equals 25,000 miles on, say, American or US Air.  Most airlines cards are 1:1 so you have to spend $5,000 more for the same reward. Also, you’re stuck with one airline whereas with Starwood you can transfer to over 30. If you have an airline card, cut it up and get the Starwood American Express.

3. A 40,000 Point Signup Bonus?

Get 10,000 points with your first purchase and an additional 30,000 after spending $15,000 within 6 months (it’s a 15,000 bonus plus the 15,000 you’d get from your spending).  Yes, $15,000 is quite a bit to put on a credit card in 6 months.  However, there are ways to churn through that by accruing charges that don’t really cost you anything.  More on that in a future post.

4. Or a $1,500 Signup Bonus?

Starpoints are really valuable for hotels. 40,000 Starpoints nets you an “unrestricted” 5-night stay (technically 4 nights plus the 5th night free) with no blackout dates at any category 4 hotel including the Westin Aruba, The Westin Chicago Michigan Avenue, The W in Montreal, New Orleans, Chicago or Seattle, the Le Méridien Tahiti or the St. Regis in Shanghai.  These rooms can be $200-$300 per night or up to $1,500 for five nights.  This means you’re getting 3.75 cents per point.  This would sound much better if the signup bonus was $1,500, right?

5. Starwood is BIG

Don’t know the name?  They own W Hotels, Westin, Sheraton, St. Regis, Le Meridien and several other brands you do know.  Over 940 properties in total.

6. AmEx Benefits & Extended Warranties

The Starwood is a full-fledged AmEx so it comes with benefits like car rental insurance, travel accident insurance, the Global Assist hotline and my favorite: a warranty extension of up to 1-year on products purchased with the card.

7. Free Starwood Gold Preferred Guest

If you manage to spend $30,000 annually on your Starwood American Express you’ll achieve Gold status within the Starwood Preferred Guest Program. At this level, you earn 5 Starpoints per dollar spent on Starwood stays (3 from Starwood’s SPG Program and 2 from AmEx) plus you’ll get room upgrades and 4pm late checkout.

8. A Decent Start

Get a 2.9% intro APR for 6 months and no fee for the first year.  After that the $45 fee is still attractive relative to other cards with rich rewards programs.  Most decent airline cards have higher annual fees.

9. Nights & Flights – Confusing But Worth It

In short, if you have 70,000 Starpoints, you can use SPG’s Nights & Flights offer to get 5-nights at any category 4 hotel plus Starwood will give you 50,000 airline miles to transfer into an airline account.  Normally, that 5-night stay would cost 40,000 points.  Since 70,000 points would transfer into 85,000 miles, you’re getting the nights for 35,000 miles, which is much cheaper than the 40,000 points they’d normally require.  Or you can look at it as getting to do a 50,000 mile transfer for 30,000 points, much better than the normal 1:1.25 ratio.

10. An Extra 2,000 Points?

Go here and get 1,000 points for each of up to two additional new Starwood AmEx cardholders who spend $150 in their first 3 months.

The secret eleventh reason: you can double-Dip if you have a business. Signup for both Business and Personal Starwood American Express cards and get double the bonus. Or just signup your spouse or significant other for the personal.

Caveats: you’ll likely need a 720 or higher credit score to get approved (buy your credit score & report for $11.96 after code FICO25 here). As always, read all the full fine print at the AmEx or Starwood sites for full details.

Beyond that, have fun and enjoy the vacation!

Comment below with your favorite credit card.

Update 6/30: the sleuths at boardingarea.com just uncovered a slightly more attractive sign-up offer: 30,000 points after spending $1,000 for both personal and business.  Even if you’ll spend $15k, you’ll still ending up with 4k more points with these new apps!

The Park Hyatt Paris

The single most generous deal in the hotel industry is here again.  Hyatt’s Big Welcome Back is the 2010 version of the promo Hyatt has offered via their free Gold Passport reward program once a year since 2002.  Through 6/30, every two stays at any Hyatt get you one free night at any Hyatt through 8/31. Since there are 7 levels of Hyatt, that means two $50 nights at your local Hyatt Place or Hyatt turn into one free $1,000+ night at the Park Hyatt in Paris, Sydney or Tokyo or great domestic locations like Chicago, DC, Beaver Creek or Kauai.

Plus, you can buy $100 Hyatt Gift Certificates at Costco for $79.99 so your $50 room is really $40 after the 20% discount. Call your local Costco and check for item #485271 to ask for availability.

It gets even better: you can combine the free Hyatt nights with great airline mile bonuses.  The best is American’s where you get 27,500 miles for 5 stays, netting you enough miles for at least a free domestic flight. Since 27,500 miles is worth at least $275 you’re making money just from the miles (5 stays @ $40 = $200).

Register here for the 25,000 bonus.  You’ll also get an additional 500 each per stay.

An alternative is to register for this United promo for 2,500 per stay.

Better still: chalk up 25 stays and, in addition to 12.5 free nights and a boatload of miles, you’ll become a Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond Member.  That means suite upgrades, free breakfast (they’re great and worth over $100 for two at some locations), free internet and other extra goodies.

Don’t want to actually waste your nights staying at Hyatt Place?  Don’t worry about it.  They all have kiosks.  Just walk into the lobby kiosk, check-in, then turn around and go back home.  You’ll still get your nights and miles.

Note that many Hyatt rates are lowest on weekends and that two stays on consecutive nights at the same property will only count as one stay.

The bottom-line: for about $500 and a little time, a couple who went and checked in for 6 stays each at a Hyatt Place would get about 60k total frequent flyer miles plus 6 total free nights at any Park Hyatt in the world. Used wisely, that’s worth over $10,000!

PS: I’ve used this myself. It really works. I’ll be reporting back with a trip review shortly!

PPS: Yes, I’m sorry for the delay posting this.  There’s still two weeks so try and make the most of it!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Donna H. of Williamstown, NJ for winning the iPad!  Congrats to our 16 $25 iTunes Gift Cards Winners: Ryan D. from Smyrna, DE; Michael M. from Orlando, FL; Angela V. from Irvine, CA; Candace S. from Warren, OH; Anthony H. from Presque Isle, ME; Jean H. from Lemoore, CA; Frank B. from Staten Island, NY; Genevieve W. from Grants Pass, OR; Andrea A. from Youngsville, NC;  Byron W. from Owensboro, KY and 6 other who we are waiting to confirm with!

In case you didn’t notice, we love contests at BradsDeals. In fact, in the past six months, we’ve had a total of 67 winners and 15 giveaways.

Photo: Apple

But this is without a doubt our biggest to date: We’re giving away an iPad and 16 $25 iTunes Gift Cards!

To win the contest, simply enter here. You can enter the contest once a day, every day through June 10. You’ll also be signing up to receive our email newsletter featuring the best deals of the day.

Each day, we’ll randomly select a winner for the $25 iTunes Gift Card and at the end of the contest, on June 10, one lucky BradsDeals reader will win an iPad. Good luck!

Read the official contest rules here.

The first day of summer isn’t officially until June 21, but Memorial Day- with the parties, road trips, barbecues and weekend getaways- always seems like the true kickoff to the season.

If you haven’t started shopping for summer already, now is the time to start. Whether you need designer sunglasses for that fab getaway, a new patio furniture set or an incredible BBQ grill, we’ve got a deal for you in the BradsDeals Memorial Day guide.

Last year, retailers slashed prices on apparel and swimwear to make up for poor sales in a bad economy. We expect to see great deals on clothing and accessories through the holiday weekend, too and we’ve already seen unusually good deals on patio sets, outdoor decor and home goods.

In other words, anything goes this year, so be sure to check the BradsDeals Memorial Day guide every day for the best deals.

**UPDATE: The contest is now over! Congratulations to readers Eva A., Jill A., Stacey C., MJ H., Kirsten H., Mark L., Kathy L., Terri K., Jan S., and Kevin W.!**

Do you use BradsDeals to find the perfect gift? Having trouble with a coupon code? Spot a deal that we missed? We love feedback and want to reward our readers for taking the time to share with the BradsDeals community.

From May 12-16, we’re giving away two $25 Amazon gift cards a day to BradsDeals readers who leave a comment on any deal or coupon (not this blog) to enter.

You can leave up to 5 comments a day to qualify, just be sure the comment is relevant to the featured item or store. Comments must be on BradsDeals.com, any comments left on this blog will not qualify. Inappropriate comments and language will be removed and disqualified from the contest. To leave a comment on the website, login with your either your Facebook username and password or credentials with Disqus, the service powering the commenting. We highly suggest checking off “Subscribe to all comments by email” because winners will be notified by a reply to their own comment. See official contest rules here.

Good luck!

Three Cheers to ABC15 Phoenix – and to Pam from Tampa – for being big fans of BradsDeals!

“The trick to saving is knowing where to go. Pam from Tampa emailed me about BradsDeals.com. I checked it out and they have some great deals!”

“So if it’s restaurant deals, car service discounts, or anything in between you can probably find a deal on it at Bradsdeals.com…they have bargains on some of everything.”

“Thanks for my new best friend Brad I was able to get it for 73% off!”

Watch the clip:

Welcome to the first installment of Staff Deals, a blog from the BradsDeals staff featuring our favorite and/or most recent online purchases.

Simple D-Kay Sneakers

When I joined the BradsDeals team almost two years ago, one of the first things I learned from Brad was that you should never buy shoes at a brick-and-mortar store. I was skeptical at first, but I can honestly say that since becoming an online-only shoe shopper, I’ve managed to save a minimum of 20% on every pair of shoes I’ve purchased (and that doesn’t include how much money I’ve saved by not paying the 10% Illinois sales tax and shipping charges)!

Thanks to Zappos, the online shoe industry is very competitive. Sites like ShoeBuy.com, ShoeMall and Shoes.com offer free standard shipping and free returns to try to get a piece of the Zappos pie. These sites also offer promotional codes, regularly have sales and price their inventory a few dollars cheaper than Zappos, which seems to increase prices a bit to make up for the free next day shipping and their whopping 35% return rate!

Simple TipToe Flats

So, just to recap, with online shoe shopping you get free standard shipping, free returns, an additional 10-30% off with applicable coupon codes and often pay no sales tax!

Here’s how I find the best shoe deals. Of course, if you’re shopping for styles that are from a previous season or are a few months old, you’ll likely save even more!

1. FInd shoes you simply cannot live without. I decided on the Simple D-Kay Sneakers and Tiptoe Flats.

2. Look at a few different sites that have the brand/style you want.

3. Once you found two or three sites, search BradsDeals for coupons that will work with your items.

4. You can search by keyword, brand or store. In this case, since you know what sites you might buy from, searching by store is the most efficient way to go.

At the time of my search, I found a 15% off coupon for Shoes.com and a 20% off coupon for Simple. As I stated, both sites offered free shipping and no sales tax, so the best option was Simple Shoes. I received my order within five business days, just as the warm weather hit Chicago!

Simple D-Kay Sneakers: original price: $60 final price: $48

Simple Tiptoe Flats: original price $60 Final price: $48

Shipping: $0

Sales tax: $0

Total: $96

Amount saved: $24 via coupon + $12 via no tax = $36!

Congratulations to BradsDeals Facebook Fans Dee Holmes and Aleese Barber for winning our Mother’s Day giveaway!

Aleese and Dee both won a $125 gift card to Red Envelope, the perfect site for getting or receiving exactly what you want for Mother’s Day!

If you didn’t win and still need to get mom something in time for Sunday, check out the handpicked deals in our Mother’s Day gift guide. Also, be sure to sign up for our newsletter, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay in the know about the best shopping deals and our great giveaways.