Deal of the year nomination!!!

[Atif]

jbtech, HawkeyeNJ's whereabouts still remain unknown? Gosh I hope he's all right, his spurt with the very slick scans helped a LOT of us out. I remember the sticky on the forums, but I thought it was answered then removed.

By the way: (total personal opinion here) I think a deal should be based on its a.) Price as compared to the suggested retail price b.) Number of individuals actually receiving the product

Keeping this in mind, I would have to say that at the LEAST for those many people who got in, the Belkin NIC deal just squeaked in at the nick of time.

a.) Cost was $0.81 or $0.95 as compared to its $14.99 Suggested Retail Price (5.4%, 6.3% respectively of the true cost)
b.) 3,000 were shipped to many happy customers

What more could you ask for? (How about $.99 GeForce3 Ti500 video cards

Peace

 

[manko]

Almost forgot AMEX BLUE, before they changed their TOS. As long as you max out their refunds (don't PM on RAM).

I saved the single claim max $250 on a white-gloved delivery big screen TV direct from Sony.

 

[Frglss]

The ING $50 deal. Cold hard cash is tough to beat.
Eddie Bauer $20 off $20 with free S&H. Totally free clothes.

 

[virtuamike]

Although last year's deals were definately better, I got in on some good deals this year. At the very least it's made me a very smart shopper. Here's my take of the good stuff:

1. Free Labtec Pulse 2424 speakers @ Staples
2. 50% off monitor clearance @ Walmart
3. Dell, Dell, Dell (17" Samsung $85 shipped, $25 256MB PC133 DIMMs, etc.)
4. Rio 600 / HP 9150 @ CUSA
5. Staples PM anything & coupon (scored many monitors)
6. $0.01 for 5 Imation CD-Rs @ CUSA
7. All the 20%-30% off coupons at JCrew, AF, Gap, Kate Spade, on and on and on

Thanks hot deals forums for making me broke.

 

[WHipLAsh13]

Tought decision between the XP for 53.50 shipped and Ti-200 for $99.

 

[Gultig]

<< * Creative Nomad Jukebox for $30-ish@ Bluelight (one of the few that actually got it).


Raw AT deal of the year: the disappearance of HawkeyeNJ, who contributed many a fine deal to these forums.

-JB >>




I second JBTech's nomination for both the best and worst deal of the year!

(Gotta remember that the NJB was retailing for way over $300 at the time.)

HawkeyeNJ come home!

 

[LimeGreen]

I'm nominating the XPP giveaway as well. I won an 1800+ in Philadelphia at their live giveaway, which I'm typing from. ;-]

 

[MrBhevarsugadu]

by best deal is
getting Sony P50, 10Pack JVC MiniDVTapes, one more I can't mention

Paid 399.99 + 89.99 + 25.98 + Shipping Final Cost 528

Discounts:
- 25 coupon from Cruchfield for referrel
- 25 gift card from Crutchfield (my friend who refered got this from Crutchfield. He is giving it back to me so that I can buy Memory stick)
- 50 Sony memory Stick Rebate
- 100 MSN Rebate
- 96 Amex Blue PM for Camera
- 47 Amex Blue PM for 10 pack JV MIniDV Tapes
- 100 Epson 785EPX Printer rebate for buying digicam and printer(I paid $105 for this printer at CC after BLUE PM)
------------------------------
Final Price = 528 - 443 = 85

I have two pending PM at Buyers Assurance. I am not sure if it goes through. They need me to wait until I get 2 billing cycles on the Blue Card to make sure, I didn't return the stuff. If they go through

My Deal will be 85 - 96(Camera) - 47(DVTapes) = Pocket $58 on this awesome deal. Please! No Flames!

 

[telstar1]

1) Kodak DX3400 for $280
2) Humvee for $15 from Amazon ... shipped free
3) 30% off from Virgin Megastore (continues to help me with my Christmas shopping)
4) Free Notebook security cable from Kensington
5) MS Flight Simulator for $0.01
6) Toy Story and Toy Story 2 on DVD from eToys. Was supposed to be $15 but eToys died and I got it for free.
7) NetGear RT13 Router for $20
8) Sprint PCS Wireless Web Modem ... Went for $90 at auction

A great year of deals. Now find me a deal on a 16:9 flat-screen projection/plasma TV.

 

[cantstop]

NetBank 5.5% refinance is the #1 deal of all time.

With only a $10 fee, I'm saving approx $500/month.

I know of no other deal that can even come close.

 

[LawrenceIsMyName26]

Dell was the best retailer of the year!
Hottest Deals:
1)Sprint Pcs Wireless Aircard (which I sold on egay for 120)
2)30% off Virgin Megastores
3)Dell Desktop deal with the free palm pilot.

 

[GTFan]

Hmm I saved almost $100,000 in interest on the Netbank refi deal (5.25% for 15yr.) plus $2500 in closing costs so I would have to say that, for me, this was the deal of the century, much less year.

I am intrigued by Justincase's method of buying at least 2 of every deal and then using Ebay to pay for the first, that's a neat plan. The only fly I can see is that most of these deals involve rebates, so how do you buy 2 of each? Most rebates are 1 per household so you'd need some help from a family member or trusting friend. For the non-rebate deals it's a no-brainer if you don't mind the time invested to sell it on fleabay.

 

[DUKAT1]

Although I got in on many of the previously mentioned deals:

BB GF3 ti200 for $99 after mir (qty 3)
BB WD 60GB for $49 after mir (qty 4)
Compusa pricematch to BB WD 120GB for $99 after mir

etc......

But for me, the flat out best deal is the OD Pepsi products! As has been discussed many times, here in MI, we get by without paying the $.10 deposit.

Why is this such a great deal?
I have vending machines!

 

[Engineer]

Hottest deal this year?

The AnandTech Forums which is what makes most of this possible!

(Thanks ATHD forums for all the hot deals....not as hot as last year (Samsung 19" Shortneck monitor for FREE and $3.00 back (including shipping) after $30.00 rebate........need more of those).

Thanks Anand......and all you guys who post the deals and helpful knowledge.

Also goes a big thanks to the TeAm AnandTech Distributed Computing teams (come on over to the DC forum to see what we are all about and help us conquer the world in DC...buwhahahahaha! ) for a great year too....

 

[madalien]

I'll vote for the Kodak DC4800 that with PM, coupons and $100 rebate came out to around $230 for me as I remember. I ended up getting five and selling four. Great 3megapix w/ 3x optical zoom camera.

Also the CompUSA book deal. I scarfed up one of many first time out, then a day later when nobody in town was taking advantage grabbed more, and went back two more times in the next couple of days as I didn't want these to go to waste (pulled out of the deal by CompUSA). I think I was the only buyer of these in this store. Now I just have to take the next month or so to read some of what I got.

 

[Lowcarb]

The deal of the year HAS to be the The NetBank Home Equity Loan as low as 5.25% deal.

Nothing else comes close. I got 5.5% on over 200K for 15 years with $10 in closing costs.

Thats saving me about $60,000 over the 15 years (including the accelration of payments)

All the disk drives, monitors and free flashlites in teh world can't make up for what this one deal is doing for me.

 

[CHAOSMAN]

$130 from flooz
free cybiko= $100 staples gift card
Logitech z560
NFR stuff from MS
Loads of free amazon.com giftcards=free dvd's
thats about all i can think of for now

 

[beltme]

I'd like to look at the hot deal of the year a different way.

What deal saved us the most cummulative dollars? What about the recent notification of the Paypal-secure scam? Maybe most of us wouldn't have fallen for it, but many of us would. Plus a huge number of people who have never heard of AnandTech saved money by not being taken by this con person because we were able to get it shut down so quickly.

The power this group has to notify others and shut down a bogus operation is by far the best deal every year.

 

[greg]

In 1999-2000, I made my living from this board. It allowed me enough greenbacks to save and go to law school.

1. You guys rock
2. I was in on the bubble and it has burst
3. AMEX Blue is a godsend

Some distant , memories:
zip drives, STAPLES attache bags, Mercata, VA, Voodoo cards.

This year while in school, I took a break and only did things that were incredibly good deals.
IPAQ, Minolta Dimage7 from 800.com that I made $200 on, Nikon 995 made $300, etc.

 

[dpid]

A. the best deal i would say was the free (not MIR, no shipping) Windows XP pro full from microsoft.
B. the runner-up be geforce 3 ti200 for 100 at best buy
C. third place would be those people (i hope me too ) who got the altec lansing ADA880's from dell (whoever will get it, congrats!)
D. and who can forget all those free offers from automobile manufactuers?:

1. Nissan - kenneth cole watch/bag
2. Infiniti - palm m100
3. saab - i forgot (since i didn't get the certificate :-()
4. saturn - $25 gift certificate
5. and some others i don't remember off-hand

Stores:
dell was great except for the mystique surrounding the status of ADA880's (if they cancel the deal that is )

i really hated staples as a retailer (they don't notify you if the order would be canceled, but they would ship whatever was else you orded with the "deal" even though after finding out they didn't have it in stock, you wanted to cancel everything else with the order. almost got stuck with a palm software but no palm.)

the best forum: anandtech
where was i last 2 years?
i thought i got good deals on my own, but after seeing anandtech members posting hot deals in especially a bad year, i saw what i was missing before.

but if we are talking of a deal of a lifetime:
it would be hands down those places that gave you money to surf (i can't mention alladv... since it is forbidden for me to do so)...
seriously, how many people made hundreds and hundreds of $$$$ (some even made thousands)

 

[dp004i]

Let's see...
- $160 Canon S100 from Staples
- $115 Z560 (Dell sucky biggy dicky)
- $130 Samsung 950P from Staples
- $220 Ipaq 3635 from Staples ($70 if I get the $150 rebate)
- $0 AirCards from Sprint

 

[parkerny]

Here are my personal favorite deals of the year:

[*]Kodak DC5000 for $249 @ compusa.com, it was selling for $580 in-store at the time
[*]3 PS2 games for $75 shipped @ amazon.com.
[*]Logitech Z560's for $115 shipped @ dell.com
[*]Sony Clie PEG-S320 for $134 shipped @ dell.com
[*]Free $50 for joining ING and funding an account with $1
[*]Heads up that I could get the APR on my credit card dropped from 23.9% to 9.9% just by calling up Citibank and threatening to transfer my balance elsewhere. Now I can finally get that balance paid off!

Had much better luck online than at the B&Ms this year. Thanks to everyone that contributed to this forum and helped me save so much money buying things I didn't need.

 

[KokomoGST]

As Sewer Urchin would say... "yeah, definitely definitely"
last year was so much better for deals... the Sony 320 CLie for $140 was bad considering getting the 300 for $100 last year.
Then there was the insane $30 Nomad Jukebox 6G last year... came with case and accessories unlike this year's model.

 

[kev33yoc]

Best deal for me was a free HP DVD/cdburner(12x) after 100 rebate from gateway............

 

[Tangerine]

Hottest deal was free $50.00 ING plus the referrals I made 70.00 and 50.00 for my friends.

I am a new hot dealer this year but wow I got a lot of free and cheap stuff!
Free philips CDRW if that rebate ever comes! Free memorex scanner, free labtec webcam, free CD-R up the ying yang, free memory from CPUSA, free Intel ProPC cam, free Intel wireless base station, keyboard and mouse, too many free softwares from Staples, 30.00 20G hdd from OD, 20.00 Soundworks Digital speakers, $285.00 for a Dell 2100(gave to my mother in law, now that I'm divorcing can I get that back? LOL).
And finally there is the 17 inches of Samsung 753df lovin I got for $85.00 after that Dell $25.00 coupon and rebate.
Thanks to all the hot deal posters and Happy Holidays everyone