Category Archives: Discounts and Deals

Birthday Goodies and Freebies

Is your birthday coming up? Do you want some good deals or freebies? Then check out the list below for some really good offers. I’ve ★ for ones that doesn’t require to ‘sign up’ to anything. Let me know if any of the offers are incorrect, have stopped offering, or any new ones you know about!

SHOPPING

Where: The Body Shop
What: Discount of up to $10 toward your next purchase
When: Your birthday month
How: Sign up for The Body Shop’s Love Your Body™ card

Where: RW & Co.
What: 25% discount
When: Your birthday week
How: Become a member of “My RW & Connection”

Where: Sephora
What: Surprise ‘what’s new’ gift (that’s how they promote their new products)
When: Your birthday month
How: Sign up for a Beauty Insider card

Where: Old Navy Canada
What: Surprise gift
How: Subscribe to Old Navy’s e-mail list

Where: American Eagle Outfitters
What: 15% discount
When: Your birthday month
How: Join AEREWARDS, the American Eagle Rewards Program

FOOD

Where: Red Robin
What: Free gourmet burger and fries
When: Your birthday week
How: Join the online eClub and receive an e-mail voucher once a year

Where: Vera’s Burger Shack
What: $10 voucher
When: Your birthday day
How: Join the Vera’s Club online

Where: Pajo’s
What: Free small fish and chips and drink or burger, fries and drink
When: Your birthday day
How: Register using the Free Birthday Meal Online form

Where: The Boathouse Restaurant
What: $25 gift card
How: Join the Westcoast Club, receive the gift card and make a reservation for two or more

Where: Boston Pizza
What: Free appetizer
When: Your birthday week
How: Sign up for the birthday club online

★ Where: Mosaic Grille at Hyatt Regency Vancouver
What: An enormous chocolate cake!
How: Tell them it’s your birthday at the start of your meal

Where: Coldstone Creamery
What: Buy 1, Get 1 Free Creation coupon
How: Sign up for the mail list online

Where: Baskin Robbins
What: Free 2.5 oz. scoop of ice cream
When: Your birthday day
How: Sign up for the birthday club

Where: Starbucks
What: Free drink
When: Your birthday day
How: Register your Starbucks card, add your birth date, and receive a birthday postcard and/or email

Where: Marble Slab
What: Free ice cream
When: Your birthday week
How: Join the mailing list

Where: Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
What: Surprise birthday gift
When: Your birthday day
How: Sign up for a Rocky Card (can also be artistically personalized)

Where: Blenz
What: Free drink
When: Your birthday day
How: Sign up with the Friends of Blenz Club

Where: JOEY Restaurant’s
What:The percent equivalent of your age off the entire table’s bill up to a max of $25 (if you are turning 25, 25% off, to a total max of $25 off)
How: You must show them your ID and you must join their E-Club

★ Where: Swiss Chalet
What: Free dessert
When: Your birthday day
How:You must show them your ID

★ Where: Steamrollers (some locations – ie. Robson + Bute)
What: Free burrito
When: Your birthday day
How: You must show them your ID

Where: Tarts Bakery at Broadway & Granville
What: Free tartlet
When: Your birthday day
How: Sign up for their email newsletter

Where: Booster Juice
What: Free drink
When: Your birthday day
How: Need to sign up for Booster Nation at least 24 hours prior to your birthday

Where: Dairy Queen
What: A free ice cream treat
How:  You must join the Blizzard Fan Club

Where: The Keg Steakhouse and Bar
What:  A free slice of Billy Miner Pie
How:  You must have purchased food and you must show them your ID

Where: IHOP Restaurant
What: Free Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity Meal
When: Right away (just for signing up), every year on your anniversary of joining and every year on your birthday
How: Need to sign up

Where: David’s Tea
What: Free tea
When: Your birthday day
How: Join David’s Tea Frequent Steeper Club

Where: participating Denny’s
What: Free Grand Slam Breakfast
When: Your birthday day
How: You must provide a valid ID

Flight to Calgary with Air Canada

idearabbit-aircanada_calgary idearabbit-aircanada_calgary4After my disappointment with Aeroplan, I still decided to try again, this time to go to Calgary (read my previous post in trying to go to Las Vegas). I didn’t know that the promo had more conditions (don’t they all…), and since Sheepie wasn’t going to be able to take time off from work over the long weekend, I decided to go back to Calgary on my own.

I was told that for the promo to be valid, I needed another person to go. It was two free flights – not one, meaning you just couldn’t take one. So I asked a friend who also used to live in Calgary and her parents still lived in Calgary. As a matter of fact, they lived only a few blocks from my parents house…lol. So the drop off and pick up from the airport to home by my friend’s dad was easy.

The promo or any Aeroplan flight does not Include taxes. This time, the taxes and fees came out to $150 per person, which still is much better than the regular $400+ to Calgary.

The flight going there was freezing, and my friend asked the flight attendant to turn up the heat a bit. There was even a stranger who offered his jacket to her, until it got warmer.

idearabbit-aircanada_calgary2 idearabbit-aircanada_calgary3

idearabbit-aircanada_calgary6On the flight back to Vancouver, I noticed that we were flying quite low and in the wrong direction after take off. We should usually see the Rockies come up fairly quickly, but I only saw the flat prairies ahead of us. The terrible intercom came on and the pilot said something like they were trying to take care of some technical difficulties…I watched the map on the little screen in front of me showing our plane was flying North.

After a while, the pilot came back on and told us the ‘malfunction’ was corrected and that we would return to flying our route to Vancouver. For a person who has extreme fears of flying, this was not something I wanted to hear…however, the rest of the flight went without a hitch, and arrived safely back to YVR. Phew!

I have heard numerous complaints about the staff, flight attendants, quality and now planes themselves from Air Canada. Their Aeroplan system has turned for the worse, and it’s so not worth accumulating little points. (going to Japan costs $700 for taxes and ‘fees’ even though you have to use 75,000 Aeroplan points) I’ve stopped carrying my card, or dealing with it anymore. Sure, the normal points you accumulate through their flights and at some retail stores are free, but if you have a credit card that allows you to get points, but then costs you over $100 annually, it doesn’t make sense. Sure it comes with some travel insurance, but I ended up having to buy a separate insurance to Europe because of certain conditions.

Thank you for the flight, but sorry Aeroplan, I’m abandoning the reward system. I’ve had better experiences with WestJet, going to Europe has always been with Air Transat, and now that there’s ANA (of JAL) to Japan, and that tells you something if I’d rather go elsewhere where they don’t have rewards.

Service/Quality on Plane: carrotcarrot   Cost/Return (Aeroplan): carrot  Call Centre Service: carrot

Airmiles – From Love to Goodbye

Some people like me love royalty cards, point cards, gift cards and so on. One of the reward system I use to use often was Airmiles. They’ve been around for quite some time and since all 4 members of my family uses on under one account, the points tend to add up. And since the others don’t redeem, I get to redeem. Over the years, I’ve been able to get some pretty handy stuff.

  • Oster 5-Speed Blender with Delighter Pitcher  (750 pts)
  • Portable Vacuum Cleaner
  • Facial Spa
  • Oven Toaster
  • Tall Summer Fan
  • Lagostina® 3-Piece Skillet Set 675 points
  • Gift cards -  Banana Republic, Chapters, Gap, etc.

With the Banana Gift card, I went shopping at Banana Republic. They were having a mega sale, so the $100 sweater was down to $11, and the $11, I used with my gift card, so I pretty much got it for FREE! Wipppeeee~!

The sad thing is, over the years they slowly got rid of more and more products you could redeem. They used to have a whole range of products and gift cards. Instead, they’ve introduced a new method of redeeming which is to redeem $10 off your next purchase where Airmiles are accepted for 95 points. That’s still a pretty good deal. However, places where you can redeem the points as cash is super limited – like at RONA.

If you don’t want to redeem for cash, you can set your settings to collect into your ‘redeem for merchandise’ or to both methods. Airmiles is free, so there is absolutely no loss except you have to carry an extra card in your wallet. But after looking at the reward system recently, where I couldn’t really redeem any of the products unless I have thousands and thousands of points, I lost interest. From that day on, the card left the wallet for good.