Anti-Bargains w/ 28 Degrees Price Protection

Nalar on 30/11/2021 - 15:18

Hi All,

It only just occurred to me that I have been using my 28 degrees price protection inefficiently. During black Friday I took advantage of $25 capped Amazon shopback and picked the most expensive version of the board games I wanted, then price matched JB/Kmart. In all I paid $252 for $85 worth of games plus $25 cash back on top.

So my fellow Price Protection users, do you have a go to shop you use that has a lot of default cash back or some other non price related deal? eg For Lego I'll buy direct since you usually get a gift, but the Lego store points are useless, same goes for Myer points too I reckon.

While we are on the topic, does anyone else have any hacks around the PP/insurance on the card?

Cheers

Financial Credit Card

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Comments

  • avoidfullprice on 30/11/2021 - 15:32
    +5

    I don't understand your post entirely

    In all I paid $252 for $85 worth of games plus $25 cash back on top.

    You paid more, so looking to use price protection?

    • Nalar on 30/11/2021 - 16:05

      Yeah price protected all three down to $85, so inc $25 SB, it's $60 total.

      • avoidfullprice on 30/11/2021 - 16:12

        Right I understand that bit now

  • MeesusEff on 30/11/2021 - 15:35

    Eb Games, I buy full price for the carrots, then claim later. Or if somewhere has an item with better returns (amazon) that's more expensive, I'll get it from there and claim against some random Aussie store having a sale, they don't seem to factor in the delivery cost.

  • Islelone on 30/11/2021 - 15:38
    +1

    I don’t understand what OP is on about? How is getting a higher priced item just to claim price protection any better than just getting the item at the lower priced store instead?

    Edit: I see that OP has claimed cashback on top of the price difference from the price protection.

    • Bad Wolf on 30/11/2021 - 15:42

      Op is talking about buying somewhere with extra perks and having it price matched.
      Always works out in your favour

  • cyrax83 on 30/11/2021 - 15:40
    +2

    This is why they don't offer price protection anymore

  • zeno on 30/11/2021 - 15:45
    +4

    Knowing that there is a $20,000 cap for Price Protection as well as yearly cap, I still look for the cheapest bargains to minimise my claims. There are just edge cases if a big cashback rate is involved.

    • Nalar on 30/11/2021 - 16:06

      Im around 3k lifetime, I didn't know there was a life cap, just yearly.

      • zeno on 30/11/2021 - 16:14
        +2

        Now you know, Yama-chan.

        • WhyAmICommenting on 02/12/2021 - 00:51
          +1

          I'm straight. But I love that man.

          • Nalar on 02/12/2021 - 01:11
            +1

            @WhyAmICommenting: Shows that being funny can get the girl!

            I hope the show comes back after covid is over.

    • plmko on 30/11/2021 - 21:14
      +2

      I wouldn't hold out using it on fears of hitting your cap if you are using it responsibly. You never know when the program will end.

  • deme on 30/11/2021 - 18:04
    +1

    Can you still get the price protection?

    • Soluble on 30/11/2021 - 18:23

      Nope

  • cheaplee on 30/11/2021 - 20:08

    Can they cancel the insurance we already have one day?

    • Nalar on 30/11/2021 - 22:19

      yup, eventually they could withdraw it, but who knows.

  • star-ggg on 30/11/2021 - 21:17

    Last time there was a good % cashback offer on Amazon, I picked the highest price seller to get the biggest cashback then price matched to pay the cheapest price anyway. The insurance offer was around when BNPL was too. Never understood why BNPL was so popular and price protection CCs didn't get any hype.

    • plmko on 30/11/2021 - 21:20

      Conditions to get price protection CC are not for everyone. Years ago I had to wait over 2 years just to finally be accepted on one of the cards even though I had solid income.

      BNPL however provides discounts and benefits instantaneously and seems like applicant barriers are next to zero.

  • curious101 on 01/12/2021 - 02:15

    Unpopular opinion - I personally hate cheapsters and dodgy operators like OP. This seems to be a theme with OzBargain, if some individuals find a loophole, they will literally rape the company.

    OP is being deceitful here, how ?
    Here - OP buys at 252 with the intention of getting price protection at 85. 28 degrees pays the OP, 167 price difference.

    What they are unware of is the Cashback of $25 that OP is being deceitful about. So effectively, OP has paid 60 for a product.

    But if OP is truthful in filling out the claim, 28 degrees will only pay you 167-25= 142. Further, price protection wasn't designed to be used in this way. Help out the genuine business, advertising the item for lower price, instead of profiting the price jackers. Don't screw 28 degree either.

    • Nalar on 01/12/2021 - 03:40
      -2

      I was going to write a whole thing about how expensive the card is, and it's not rape, but really I don't care what you think and you're off topic, so here's my reply:

      "I bet you're fun at parties"

    • [Deactivated] on 01/12/2021 - 16:56

      they will literally rape the company

      Ummm. You need to look up the meanings of both 'literally' and 'rape'

      • curious101 on 01/12/2021 - 17:27
        +1

        True, you are right. Not proficient in English, but I hope you get the sentiment behind the words, not the literal meaning.

        If I said, "peg" the company, would it have been better, you reckon ?

  • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 08:44
    +1

    Can't say I like OP's approach, but 28 degrees pricematch is really helpful on buying local or getting things quickly, and later price matching with the cheaper but slower options.

    I also use the tool urlwatch on a Raspberry Pi to monitor the price box of my major purchases for a year (for a few retailers), which is great at picking up snap sales. Ditto with Camelcamelcamel.com for Amazon and Ozbargain search alerts.

    Finally, I keep a search folder in email for invoices less than a year old, and around the major sales periods manually check a wider range of purchases. Singles day netted six otherwise unplanned price matches.

    You can also claim more than once in a 12mo period if a price drops even lower.

    • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 08:48
      +1

      IMHO OP's approach is dodgy, and risks increased audit attention from the insurers and crappy behaviour by price jackers.

      I also don't claim where cash backs are involved, as you do need to disclose other benefits at sale time as part of your claim, and I think it's lineball.

      I also don't bother setting up alerts for cheap items or making claims <$10, as the form itself takes a few minutes as does retaining adequate evidence.

      • sickburn on 01/12/2021 - 11:23

        Just curious: what is your opinion on claiming back the GST via TRS (remember when we could leave the country?) in addition to price protection?

        Notwithstanding that you are supposed to declare the value of the item if you bring it back into the country.

        • curious101 on 01/12/2021 - 16:16
          -1

          GST via TRS, is only based on the original invoice - which never changes. And despite all the price protection claims, originally paid GST amount remains unchanged, and has no bearing on declared value as a result.

          So declared value = invoice value.

        • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 20:08

          I have zero qualms about claiming a tax deduction on pricematched items (which I've done before), nor TRS refunds of GST (which I've never had the chance to do). This might seem inconsistent, but there are some important legal differences.

          The PP is an insurance product, which is essentially a form of gambling: if a certain semi-predictable but not certain outcome happens, you get money awarded. Cashback is a no-no to me, because the PDS of the policy explicitly outlines circumstances where they'll pay proportionate benefits if you only pay part of the purchase on the card, and also in my mind because they raise cashbacks and 'other benefits' in the PDS and claim form in slightly nuanced circumstances. I don't claim in these circumstances because making a not-entirely-honest application risks entering insurance fraud territory.

          Tax claims are a different matter. You need to outline to the ATO the cost to acquire an item, and the proportion of it which is work related. You effectively get a refund of tax you've overpaid because your assessable income was lower than your work payroll or BAS had predicted. The cashback you get from 28 Degrees (not the retailer) in the event a 'gamble' pays off, is income, rather than the cost of a work expense (and is generally not assessable income). Provided you were honest in a tax claim, there's nothing dishonest going on here. TRS is slightly different (you're eligible for a refund of GST, because you shouldn't have paid it in the first place) but given the price match payout is straight up cash, rather than an amended invoice and/or provision of a GST credit, again, there's no shadiness in claiming. Neither are referenced in the PDS.

          In a similar vein, 'double dipping' against a retailer's separate "if our price drops within X days" scheme (which are usually generally structured in a similar insurance based form) is also completely legit, provided the second PDS permits this.

      • Nalar on 01/12/2021 - 17:56

        I like the idea of urlwatch to automate what is a very manual process for catching bargains, and I agree that form SUCKS to fill in so I'm with you with $10+.

    • curious101 on 01/12/2021 - 16:12
      +1

      Well done. You are a pro. You have some principles, but not a door mat for people to walk over either. Respect.

      P.S. If you have any instructions or URL to use the tool above, would be greatly appreciated.

      • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 20:30
        +3

        Installing urlwatch is relatively straightforward if you have used a *nix system or similar in the past, and the generic guides are exactly like my setup.

        On a Pi or other Debian systems this is as easy as sudo apt-get install urlwatch.

        The core thing is having your ~/.config/urlwatch/urls.yaml file in order. You need an entry per URL and it usually works best if you discard all the guff on the page which isn't needed. Otherwise it misfires every time their twitter embed has a new tweet // a new product is listed // a typo on the product page is corrected // stock fluctuates. A common entry to grab just the product price box of a page is below:

        filter:
        - xpath: //*[@id="product-price-336527"]
        - strip
        - html2text:
        method: lynx
        width: 4000
        kind: url
        name: "Simple name here"
        url: https://website.com/productpage

        Generally I open the site in Firefox, right click on the price box and choose "Inspect (Q)" to bring up the inner html. I look for a unique ID or Class HTML element. You insert the unique part as relevant into the config file. Run urlwatch —list (to get the numeric ID of your new test) and then urlwatch —test-filter x to make sure the output you're getting is what you expect (some sites have multiple price IDs or elements, for example). From there, running urlwatch without arguments will check the pages, and only report if a change has happened. You can automate it, or get email/slack/other reports generated, but I've just left it as an action that happens on various interactions I run on my Pi (for example, when I log out of my work timesheet) and manually react as required.

        Some alternative XPath selectors below.
        A class called productView-Price

        xpath: //*[@class="productView-price"]

        A page where I wanted the description text of the item to keep an eye on availability (in an ID) and also the price (in a class)

        xpath: //*[@id="overview" or @class="price"]

        A terrible page that didn't have a uniquely named class or ID. Needed to use the Firefox Copy Xpath feature

        xpath: /html/body/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/div/div[1]/div/main/div[3]/div[1]/div/div[2]/p[1]

        This is really only scratching the surface on a powerful tool, but hopefully it gives you an idea. It's also really good at handling JSON (using jq) if the shop's API supports it, but that's too detailed for this forum.

        • curious101 on 01/12/2021 - 20:35
          +1

          Legend. Thanks again, I am grateful.

          • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 20:39
            +1

            @curious101: Glad to help. It was a pain to figure out, but has definitely paid off with a few flash sales that I would definitely have missed otherwise. I doubt I'll get to the lifetime $20,000 cap before the scheme is entirely closed, but one can hope.

            • curious101 on 01/12/2021 - 20:43

              @timmypete: Yeah, I wouldn't have figured it out myself. Sometimes within a year product is discontinued, so you can't even find it - let alone finding the cheapest listing. This is a great setup. Will try to follow things up this weekend.

              • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 20:48
                +1

                @curious101: I've PMd part of my config file. Didn't want to publish all of my shopping history publicly!

        • timmypete on 01/12/2021 - 20:56
          +1

          Also - if anyone is automating, go easy on the requests. The absolute worst thing that happens from this is when a shop suspects a competitor is price-crawling and implements a captcha or breaks this tool.

          One request per ten minutes should be the absolute max for systematic, and you really need to consider if more than three checks a day is justified. A few sequential but one-off checks to get your search syntax dialled is fine, but repetitive stuff generally starts to get noticed.

          This is also why I've got it pegged to my work timesheets, rather than automatically at the same moment every single day.

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