michaelhong.com

I buy a crapload of stuff from Amazon. I have an Amazon Prime subscription and most of the stuff that I ship two-day (free with Prime) usually comes the next day. Prices on Amazon fluctuate quite a bit. Only recently did I realize that Amazon has a 30-day price guarantee. The downside is that you have to track the price yourself over the 30-day period. However, there are two sites that will track the price for you. One is RefundPlease, the other is FlamingoWorld’s Amazon Price Drop Tracker.

At both sites, you just enter the ISBN/ASIN number, the price, the date you purchased the item, and your email address. If you’re worried about spam, you can just use a throwaway email address. Just make sure you check it!

Once you receive an email notification that the price has dropped, then go here: Amazon’s Return & Refunds Contact Form.

Log in with your user/pass and your recent orders should pop up. Let’s take my awesome recent purchase, the ice cream maker, as an example. Check the order whose price has dropped then click the Email button under customer service.

Now, under the issue dropdown box, select refund inquiry.

Then in the message box, just explain that the price of your item, <ITEM NAME HERE>, that you purchased on <PURCHASE DATE HERE> has dropped from $XXX.XX to $XX.XX and that you would like a refund of the price difference. You should receive an email from Amazon issuing the refund. I’ve recently used this to recover $20.00 from the price of my A/V receiver.

Easy peasy.

Last week there was a smoking deal on an Xbox 360 Elite from Dell. It included the console, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance/Forza 2 combo and two faceplates for $299. I was lucky enough to get in on the deal thanks to boogi. (My 360 Elite was built on 04-30-2008.)

It appears that the deal has returned, albeit not as good as the last one.

Now you can save $100 from the $449.99 retail price. Still an awesome deal, considering right now the 60GB Xbox 360 Pro is selling for $350. So basically for the same price, you get the black 360, a 120GB HDD vs a 60GB, two games (of questionable value, but hey, they’re free and Forza 2 is great), and two faceplates (also of questionable value, but again, they’re F-R-E-E).

Head over to Dell Home and enter coupon code V8Q199$GCXJWL$ at checkout. The code expires on 8/20. This makes me wonder if the Elites are being cleared out for a new model. Supposedly price cuts are coming in September on all models, but even then, the Elite is rumored to be dropping to $400, which is still $50 more than this deal. Doesn’t matter, if you need a 360 now, this is a sweet deal.

Xbox 360 Elite bundle [Dell Home] via Fatwallet
Use coupon code V8Q199$GCXJWL$ at checkout (EXP 08/20)

For some reason, I have had the bizarre urge to make homemade ice cream recently. So after reading some reviews on Amazon, I settled on the Cuisinart 1 1/2 Quart Ice Cream Maker. I remember when I went to a friend’s house when I was little and having to use the hand-cranked ice/rock salt ice cream maker.

This one is electric and apparently, all you have to do is freeze the container for about a day, then pour your ingredients in and start the machine. My machine just came in yesterday so I’m waiting for it to freeze completely before testing it out.

For recipes, I settled on the highly rated Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book, which has a few recipes for sweet cream (the base on which most ice cream flavors are built upon) as well as some of their more popular recipes, including my favorite, Cherry Garcia. Now I just need to figure out how to make Americone Dream…

I’ll let you know how my ice cream experimentation goes.

I’m thinking about picking up some Tumi luggage, specifically a wheeled carry-on to take with me on my travels. I have a nice Tumi duffle that has been dependable, but I’m tired of carrying it around. Wheels FTW. I’ll let you know what I end up picking.