Six Ways to Save with Capital One Shopping

  Shopping is more fun when you do it with someone. When I was a teenager, we used to go to the mall. Yes, in person, shocking I know! We'd hang out, get a pretzel in the food court, wander aimlessly through stores and never buy anything. And it was fun! These days I do 90+% of my shopping online, even for groceries. And you know what, my friends just haven't hit me up for a zoom call to shop together. I'm not sure why! Not gonna lie, I have considered livestreaming my Prime Day shopping, but I'm just not sure who would watch 🤪. So, I settle for talking about it on my blog here at Salty Zebra. Sometimes I talk about it at Bible study too and I get the biggest kick when my friend pulls out her journal to take notes! 

 One of the things I have enjoyed in the vacuum of shopping without friends is my AI friends filling in the gap. No, they don't share what's going on with their families or pray with me, but there is kibitzing! Yep, I had to look up the word "kibitz" to make sure I was using it right and I learned that it means, "look on and offer unwelcome advice, especially at a card game." I'm not playing cards, but shopping certainly has become a game for me, and I'm here today to tell you about the kibitzing, along with the helpfulness, that Capital One Shopping has added into it.

 I wrote a while back about credit card shopping portals and mentioned Capital One as one of them that I use frequently. Capital One Shopping is different than a credit card shopping portal but can work in conjunction with them. In this new world I've been exploring this is called "stacking," when you get bonuses from multiple sources on the same purchase. It is the equivalent of back in my couponing days when I got a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon for something that was also on sale or clearance. Thankfully, now there aren't cashiers to roll their eyes and huff at me when they see my pile of coupons! I gave an example of stacking in my post last Wednesday where I shared about an Amazon Shop With Points promotion that I used in conjunction with an Amex Card offer. I didn't mention there that I also received a 5% Subscribe and Save discount on that purchase too because that's for a future post! Today I'd like to share with you a way you can easily incorporate stacking into your online shopping, and get some kibitzing in along the way.

 Capital One Shopping is a service that anyone can use. You don't have to have a Capital One credit card or any other account with them, it is open to anyone. There is no charge for the service, but you do have to create a free online account with them. I should more accurately say that there is no monetary charge for the service, but you do pay them in information. To get the most out of Capital One Shopping, you need to install their plug-in for your browser. It is completely safe and, as far as I know, isn't selling your information to the government or the dark web, but they are watching you. They watch what websites you visit and what your spending patterns are. 

 If this creeps you out, you're not alone, but I have bad news for you. You're already being watched. If you use Microsoft or Google or Amazon or any other software pretty much, it's keeping track of you. Have you ever noticed that after you search for something, or occasionally even if you talk with someone about something near your phone, you start getting ads for those things? In today's environment if you're on the internet, and who isn't, you're being watched. So you might as well use it to your benefit!

Plug-In

 Back to the Capital One Shopping (COS) plug-in. Here's the link for Edge, and for Chrome. If you use another browser, just visit their app store and search for Capital One Shopping, they might have it too. Once your browser extension is installed congratulations, you now have a shopping buddy! And the cool thing is, this shopping buddy really knows their deals! 

 COS crawls the web finding the best prices on just about everything. If you're looking at a product on Amazon and COS happens to know that you can get the same product on Vita Cost but save $20, it'll let you know with a small note near the purchase price of the item. You can click on it and be taken directly to the deal. Now, COS doesn't always factor in things like free shipping and minimum purchases so you have to take the ideas with a grain of salt, but it can be super helpful. 

 I mentioned earlier that COS likes to do a bit of kibitzing and that this typically means giving unwanted advice. That happens too, and it's a trade-off I make for the really helpful information that I often get. I will admit that it can get rather annoying to have those pop-ups appear each time I enter a product page. I actually have three different shopping plug-ins installed at the moment so it can get quite burdensome at times. But if clicking on a little "x" periodically is the price I pay to save quite a bit of money in the long run, it seems worth it!

Browsing for Bargains

 In addition to shopping alongside you, you can visit the Capital One Shopping website and browse through deals there. You might come across something that you hadn't even thought of. For example, maybe you use Door Dash and you usually order on your phone. COS has different offers happening all the time and if you check there first, you could save even more if you put your order in through the computer instead! They might have coupons available that apply, or they might even be offering cash back on your purchase. This is what's really been a game changer for me, and it took me way longer than it should have to figure it out. It's not as simple as it looks! With the credit card portals, you click on the link and then shop and you get the deal applied automatically. This is just a little bit different. With COS you have to click through to the store AND THEN click on the plug in up on your search bar and activate the deal:

Step 1: Visit CapitalOneShopping.com

Step 2: Click on "Get this Deal" for the offer you are interested in

Step 3: Click on the plug-ins icon on your search bar

Step 4: Click "Activate"

Step 5: Shop! 

 Ideally, you would not close the window you've activated until you check out. Want to see if it worked? Head back to Capital One Shopping and go to "My Rewards & Savings." Once the order has processed your cash back should show up in your list. Initially it will show as "Pending." Want more information? Click on the little arrow on the right and it will show you when you are likely to have your cash back process into your account:

Redeem

 This doesn't happen overnight and usually takes a few weeks, but be patient, free money doesn't come fast! Once it does land in your account, you don't get actual cash, but you can use your balance to buy gift cards. Click "Redeem Now" from your My Rewards & Savings page and you'll find a list of gift card options. If none of them appeal to you at the moment, wait. These offers change over time too. I found that out today when I was writing this post. I went to capture the screenshot below and the gift card I was planning to purchase is gone. Here's hoping it comes back! That's one more reason you should never buy something just because it has a reward. Don't spend money you wouldn't otherwise. Then, if you get a bonus like this it's great, and if you don't it doesn't mess anything up!

Promo Codes

 I'm sure you've heard of online coupon codes, also called promo codes. There are a bunch of sites out there that house them. I've saved a bunch over the years using these, but it can be quite burdensome to look them up and then go through the back and forth process of copying and pasting each one to see if they work or how much they will actually save me. COS simplifies this SO MUCH! When you go to check out, if there are promo codes available for the site you're on, a popup will appear in the top right of your browser. If you click, "Try Codes" it will go through each one of them for you and figure out which one will give you the best deal, leaving it on at the end.

Special Offer Emails

 Another great strategy for saving money is waiting 24 hours before making a purchase. I'm not talking about grocery shopping here, but that pair of shoes you've been eyeing or maybe even a set of tires (I buy those online too!). The psychology behind this is that you're avoiding impulse purchases and if, after 24 hours, you still want the item, then it's fine to go buy it (providing it's in your budget of course). Ok, I'm laughing here as I write this and I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but it's a little like the "cooling off" period they require when you purchase a gun 😂. COS adds an additional benefit to this strategy. Remember how I told you it's paying attention to the websites you visit and what you're shopping for? If COS has a special deal, an unadvertised deal you can't find on their website, for something you've been looking at, they will send you an email about 12 hours after you look at the website. They look a little like this:

 I'll admit, at first I was really confused by these emails. The deal in the middle (Save up to 30% off cruises...) is just the sale going on with the website. Was COS just trying to let me know about a sale? But then it says "Unlock Your Offer" underneath and at the top of the message it says, "Earn 14.5% Rewards." So, initially, I click on the "Unlock Your Offer," shopped on the site, and then nothing happened. Thinking it was a quirky scam, I just ignored it for a while, but they are REALLY good with their targeting and eventually they got my attention again with some of their offers for websites that I frequent. I decided I was going to try to figure it out and it turns out it was simpler than I had realized. I just needed to open the plug-in and activate the offer, as I described above. Once that is done, every time you go back to that site until you've used it or it expires, you'll get the following popup if you click on the plug-in:

 Now you can shop and check out without worrying if your special rewards are going to come through. I will encourage you to read the terms and conditions on the offers though as they may apply different cash back rates for different types of items or purchases. For example, I regularly use a 13% cash back offer at Walmart, but it is not eligible for grocery purchases, so if it is active on my account when I check out then on the My Rewards & Savings page of COS I'll see something like this:

 This is an excellent example of what I meant by waiting and a reward might come to your inbox. If you go on COS right now you'll see the following offer for Walmart.com:

 That's only 1%. Don't get me wrong, something is better than nothing, but good things come to those who wait! In my inbox I received the following offer:

 Yep, you read that right, 13%! You don't have to buy camping gear that is advertised below either. If you read the terms and conditions it mentions that it does not apply to groceries, but if I'm buying something else on Walmart this is a pretty good cash back offer! And I've gotten even better than this at times. When I switched to T-Mobile home internet it sent me an offer for $55 cash back and when we switched our web hosting service it gave me a 55% cash back offer. Yes, you read that right, 55%! I paid for four years of web hosting at a rate less than 1/3 of what we had been paying AND I got $67 cash back through COS. Can't beat that! You won't always get an offer, and the offer may not apply to what you were wanting to purchase (groceries for example), but it never hurts to try. These are all things I was going to do anyways, with sites I was going to use anyways. Everything I get from COS is frosting on the cake!

Stacking

 I mentioned stacking at the beginning of this post and of course I wouldn't forget to tell you about how that works with COS! Ok, I'll admit it. I forgot to do that when I originally wrote this post, but then I was reading over it before I uploaded and so I caught my mistake 🤪. One of the great things about the Capital One Shopping site is that once a deal is activated it will follow the browser session. If you activate a COS deal and THEN go through a credit card shopping portal, you can double-dip! Yep, you can get the COS rewards AND the credit card rewards. Pretty sweet, eh? Just make sure to take care of the COS activation first because if you navigate away from the window the credit card portal opens, you'll lose that deal.

 Ok, we covered a lot today, so I'm going to sum it all up for you here:

• Plug In: Visit CapitalOneShopping.com, your browser's app-store, or click through the links above to install the COS plug in for the browser you are using
• Browsing for Bargains: Scroll through the available promotions, and make sure to click through to the websites for any that you are interested in. Remember, to activate the promotion, you have to click on the COS plug in once you are on the site you want to shop at and click "Activate."
• Redeem: Once you've accumulated a balance with COS you can redeem it for gift cards. I try to make sure to get cards for places we would be shopping anyways to help with our budget, but maybe you want to splurge on something special with your savings!
• Promo Codes: COS will gather and test promo codes for you, giving you assurance that you're getting the best deal possible wherever you shop.
• Special Offer Emails: Waiting until tomorrow to make a large purchase can pay off big if you get a targeted email with a special offer you can't find on the general website!
• Stacking: You can get benefits from both COS and your credit card's shopping portal!

Here's the Thing: Capital One Shopping isn't going to change your life, but it might change the way you shop, and it just might save you a few bucks along the way!