And the day that we’ve all been waiting for, Bonus Redeption Day at Shoppers Drug Mart!  The big day will be November 28 & 29!  For all of you who have reached the maximum number of optimum points this is the day to spend them.  On Bonus Redeption Day your redeption amount increases.  So if you have 40,000  points you get $100 (extra $25) and if you have 75,000 you get $200 (extra $50) to spend!  This is a fantastic day to do a bunch of Christmas shopping, buy yourself a new camera or stock up on free food and other neccessities.  You can’t beat getting more free items can you?  And don’t forget you can still use coupons to maximize your purchases.

I don’t think I’ll have nearly enough points to make this Bonus Redeption Day practical for me (I’m pretty new to Optimum points), so I’m going to keep saving them up for the next one.  I can’t wait to see your great purchases in the brag section!

Huge thank you goes out to kato for the heads up on this great event!

Thank you jadedragoninbc for writing this article and emailing it to me. This article was originally published by her at eHow.

If you look carefully and arrange your life the correct way you can actually turn a profit from shopping using the AIR MILES Reward Program in Canada. AIR MILES are redeemable for many travel, merchandise and gift certificate rewards. Depending on how you use the rewards points they are worth between 10 cents and 15 cents each for gift certificates, more or less on items that are harder to price like flights and merchandise.

Sure, follow the advice to always carry your AIR MILES card and shop at AIR MILES sponsors, but if you want to take it to the next level, here is exactly how.

Your goal is to earn a combination of AIR MILES Reward Miles and Tax Deductible Donation Receipts that together have a value above what you spent.

Air Miles – Step 1

Identify which grocery stores in your area are part of the AIR MILES program. The AIR MILES program offers exclusivity to each sponsor in each region so this part is easy. In Western Canada the grocery sponsor is Safeway Canada and this article will use Safeway as the example. Same principles apply at other stores in other regions of Canada.

Air Miles – Step 2

In order to get the best sale prices at Safeway you will need a Safeway Client Card, available free from Safeway customer service. Once you have the card issued you can just quote your phone number to get the discounts.

Air Miles – Step 3

Collect AIR MILES coupons and watch for promotions for bonus miles. These can be found online, in the paper, on the shelf tags and in the in-store fliers. You should also sign up for e-flyers from the Safeway website.

These promotions come in three main categories:

1. Dollar Amount Spent for Bonus Air Miles Deals – Safeway regularly runs coupons for 100 or 250 bonus AIR MILES with a $100 or $200 purchase.
2. Bonus AIR MILES coupons for specific products.
3. Buy X get Y Bonus AIR MILES type promotions found in flyers and on the shelf tags. (hint read the fine print on the shelf tags because not all eligible products get the shelf tag.

Air Miles – Step 4

When the store is running one of the Dollar Amount Spent for Bonus AIR MILES deals, go to the store with your coupons and look carefully at all products offering bonus AIR MILES. Especially look at products that generally have some or all of these characteristics

1. low priced/low ticket items
2. ON SALE and
3. Offering Bonus AIR MILES
4. Maybe something you can find a coupon for online or in print

Bonus AIR MILES are just like all other AIR MILES, you just earn them in addition to or as a bonus to the regular AIR MILES awarded for shopping

Air Miles – Step 5

Calculate how many Regular and Bonus AIR MILES you would earn by buying each product meeting the Step 4 criteria. For ease of calculation you might want to calculate based on buying 10 or 100 of the item.

Here is the Math for a 10 units of a can of soup sale priced at $2.00 each:

1. Cost of product 10 units X $2.00 = $20. There are no taxes.
2. # of bonus AIR MILES from buying the product (say 20 miles X 10 units = 200 miles)
3. # of AIR MILES from Safeway regular program = 1 per $20 spent, so 1 mile.
4. # of AIR MILES from your participating BMO MasterCard or AMEX Card = 1 per $20 spent so 1 mile.
5. Spend $200 and get 250 Bonus miles promotion = 1.25 miles per $1 X $20 = 25 miles.

Total AIR MILES = 227 Miles
Times 12 cents each Mile = $27.24 of value in miles on a $20 purchase.

You just found that select product that is worth more in AIR MILES than it costs you.

Air Miles – Step 6

Purchase a large quantity of the product or products you have identified. You may be able to get the manager to order in more of an item (maybe a pallet full!).

Use your AIR MILES credit card, you grocery store loyalty card, and your AIR MILES collector card plus the appropriate coupons.

If you are using a spend $100 get a 100 miles coupon you will want to maximize your bonuses, so run the purchases through in separate transactions of $100 each, making sure that each purchase includes an appropriate multiple of items to get the full bonus on the item.

You do not have to worry about the credit card and base miles from the store as they accumulate across multiple transactions anyway.

Keep the receipts for the next step or buy one product at the regular price to establish fair market value. (edited for clarity)

Air Miles – Step 7

Call an appropriate local charity, set an appointment and pay them a visit. The Salvation Army or local food bank are your best bets for food donations. The animal shelter will love your pet food donations.

Ask the charity for an “in kind” charitable gift receipt or receipts (if they have dollar limits on individual in kind donation receipts). You will need to establish the fair market value of the product you are donating, which is where having a receipt showing the fair market retail value comes in handy.

Air Miles – Step 8

Reap the Rewards of your Efforts:

-Enjoy the thought you just helped feed hundreds of people or animals

-File your donation receipts with your income taxes for a approximately 40% credit on your income taxes (exact value varies by Province)

-Enjoy a nice trip (where my honeymoon came from), give great gifts from your miles, or use the miles to get that riding lawn mower you always wanted (seriously this is exactly where the writer’s John Deere mower came from).

Amazon has updated their video game deal of the week.  They are offering a free game with the purchase of a Wii system.  The Wii at Amazon includes Wii Sports and now you can choose either Mario Kart or Wii Play for free.  The Wii is priced at $219.99 and ships for free.  Both Mario Kart and Wii Play are priced at $49.98 so this is a pretty good deal.  I’ve played both of these games and they are both really fun so it’s a hard decision.  Great time to buy a Wii if you’re looking too for yourself or for Christmas.

To get this deal just add the Wii and the game of your choice to your shopping cart.  The discount will be taken off at checkout.  This deal is valid from now until November 29 or while supplies last.

Click here to check out the sale.

Thanks Nice for posting this deal in the Canadian Deals and Flyers section 😀

I already posted this in Deals forums (check my post there for link), but until November 26th when you purchase $30 in iTunes Gift Cards at PC stores, you get $10 off your grocery bill.  You MUST pick up the coupon off the gift card display rack.

Reitmans is offering a $25 gift card and a FREE lunch bag with any $50 purchase before taxes *(excluding gift cards) from November 21 – December 24th.

The $25 gift card will be redeemable between February 1 -25, 2010 (so don’t lose it!) 😉 on a $75 purchase.

Click here to print the page

Note: It seems like the gift bag is only with the plus size collection from Nov 22 – Dec 5 only

thanks coupondiva for posting this great deal!

If you missed the Gap Friends and Family recently, you can still get 15% off regular priced items with this coupon. It is valid Nov 2- Dec 7, 2009. There are coupons available for all three Gap Inc stores, please see below.

Gap 15% off Coupon
Old Navy 15% off Coupon
Banana Republic 15% off Coupon

Thanks to couponlady for sharing this deal with us!

Update: I have added coupons for Old Navy and Banana Republic as well!

When you buy any toy or book at Chapters online you will receive a “Swipe it twice” gift card worth from $5 to $5000. Then, bring that card into any Indigo or Chapters store between Nov 16-24, spend $50 or more and get your card swiped to see what value it is, it can be $5, $10, $25, $100 or $2,500. Bring in the gift card a second time before Dec 24th to reveal an even higher surprise of $10, $20, $50, $200 or $5,000!

Sounds like a good deal to me, however keep in mind you do have to spend $50 each time to reveal your surprise, and odds are it will be $5 and then $10 the second time.

For more information, rules & regulations, click here.

Claire’s stores across Canada have a great promotion going on right now that when you spend $20 in store you will get $10 bonus cash back for your next purchase.  The bonus dollars need to be spent between November 29 and December 13 on a purchase of at least $20.  This is actually a really great time to get stocking stuffers for any girl on your Christmas list.  Claire’s has really cool hair stuff and jewellery.  They also have some great tights and other girly stocking stuff, like make up and neat journals and pens.

Enter “THANKS” at checkout to take $10 off your order of $40 or more! But hurry, offer expires 11/22/09 at 11:59pm PST. When you use this coupon code not only will you be  helping your wallet, but your purchase will also help the breast cancer foundation! Ill definately be taking advantage of this offer!

Click here to start shopping at the breast cancer site store

*Thanks fleetingleaf for posting this great deal!

Campus Crew is holding their Friends and Family sale this Sunday, November 22, 2009. You can save 50% off on all regular priced items in the store. This sale is one day only and is a good opportunity to get some clothes for your family for Christmas perhaps. Don’t forget to print out your invite to get the savings!

For more information, click here.

Click here to print off your invite!

Thanks to sonic_blue_hands for sharing this deal with us!

For a limited time, spend $75 on your man and get $15 off. Check a store near you for more details, it sounds like this is valid on all items, and you don’t need a coupon.

For more information click here.

Give the gift of entertainment this Christmas and get  a little something extra.  When you buy a $30 Cineplex gift card you will get $40 in money saving coupons for Chapters, Zellers and the Cineplex Store.  I’m not sure if you have to buy the gift card online to get this deal or not.  If you have to buy it online there is a $0.99 handling and shipping charge which is pretty reasonable. 

The coupons included in the Holiday Gift Pack are:

• $10 off $50 purchase at Chapters (Nov 4-Jan 31)
• $10 off $75 at Zellers (Nov 4-Jan 7)
• B1G1 Free Big Snax Microwavable Popcorn
• $5 off at Cineplex DVD Store (Nov 4-March 31)
• Free Maltesers with purchase of Large Pop and Popcorn (Nov1-March 31)
• Free Regular Pop with purchase of Nachos Grande (Nov 1-March 31)
• Free Regular Popcorn (Jan 1-March 31)

Click here to check out this deal and order your gift card online.

Thanks to fleetingleaf for this post.

Microsoft is offering a free download of the Beta version of Microsoft Office 2010. This is a Beta version so there many be issues with it since it’s still in production stages, but you can try it for free now. Once you download it, it should be valid until late next year.

It comes with a complete package of everything you need including: Word, OneNote, InfoPath, PowerPoint, Access, SharePoint Workspace, Outlook, Publisher, Communicator and Excel.

To get your free copy, click here!

Zellers is holding their Friends and Family Event this Sunday, November 22nd. Take an extra 10% off on almost everything in the store including regular, sale and clearance priced merchandise. Remember to bring your invitation, as it’s an invite only event.

Note: Please check the list of exclusions before shopping, electronics are typically not included, and you can’t combine this offer with your SPC.

Click here to print off your invite!

I saw on the news that these things are flying off the shelves and people are paying $$$ to get them off kijiji and stuff. Are you buying one? I think my cats would love them. It’s basically a battery operated toy hamster.

ToysRUs.ca has announced on their facebook page that Toronto stores will be receiving a shipment of 400 Zhu Zhu Pets on Saturday, November 21, and an additional 1100 for online sales.

They retail for $12.99, and are limited to two hamsters per family ! ToysRUs.ca recommends that online shoppers try their luck before 7 AM. Happy hunting!

What the heck is a Zhu Zhu?