Buy 4 Starbucks gift cards, get 1 free

This is all over the internet, so why not jump into the fray? You can go to your local Costco and grab 5 $20 Starbucks gift cards for $80. Sure, it’s a great way to stock up on stocking stuffers. But why not just keep them for yourself? You know you’re going to be reloading that card of yours anyway, right? And just think of how much free coffee you’ll get with that $20 card! Well, maybe don’t think of that.

Actually, I have a great tip on how to get free coffee at St. Arbucks. Go in any evening and ask for brewed decaf. Many times they will have stopped brewing it for the night because – and this was a surprise to me – they rarely get orders for decaf at night. I mean, I have to go unleaded after noon if I want to get a good night’s sleep. But the rule is that if they don’t have what you want when you ask for it, it’s free.

Just a couple of nights ago this worked for me. I ordered a Venti Pike Place decaf and got a Venti decaf Americano on the house. Try it!

Get a Costco.com search plug-in for Firefox

I’ve been a fan of the Firefox browser for several years. If you haven’t tried it yet, I challenge you to give it a spin and compare its functionality and stability to IE.

One of my favorite Firefox features is the search engine toolbar that appears to the right of the address bar. The browser comes standard with several pre-installed search tools for sites such as Amazon, Wikipedia, and Creative Commons. It’s nice to be able to punch in a search term on the fly and be taken directly to the site of your choice.

You can also add search tools that other (smarter) people have created. I added one for Target.com a while back and it works great.

“So, is there one for Costco.com?” you ask. Why, yes there is! A group calling itself the Mycroft Project has made such a tool available. You can install the plugin directly to your browser and begin using it immediately. Or you can visit the main site and search the more than 15,000 plugins currently available. Note that not all plugins work with the current Firefox version 3.

Costco.com is top-performing retail site in August

Internet Retailer reported yesterday that Costco.com had the best “high broadband” rating of all web retailers last month. Their survey also studied who had the best access rating among dial-up and “low” broadband users. I’m curious to know just how many Costco.com shoppers are still using dial-up. We made the jump to broadband in 2001.

I’m also wondering if anyone reading this has ever had a problem with the site. I can’t recall one time that it ever failed to load for me. Being someone who works in an internet-related field, I appreciate the simple design of the site. I do think they could improve on their search functionality, however.

Harmonics flooring – Yes, it’s worth the savings

If you’re like me, you enjoy doing home improvements yourself so you can save some money and have the satisfaction of accomplishing something. If you’re a bit more like me, you’re afraid you’re going to blow a wad of cash on something that’s way over your head and end up wishing you’d hired a pro.

If you’re quite a bit more like me, you’ve invested in the Harmonics line of laminate flooring available only at Costco. You installed it yourself. And you’re happy.

Yes, as further evidence that we’ve drunk the Costco Kool-Aid in this family, we took the Harmonics plunge this past spring. I’ve admired the quality of this product ever since the store started carrying it. Then last year they introduced the wide-plank mahogany and I thought, “This might be it.” Then came the hand-scraped (looking) chestnut this year and I thought, “Now this is it.” Those beveled edges. The way the dark wood veneer throws off a subtle burgundy when the sunlight hits it. Wow, this stuff pops. It’s ours.

More advice on Harmonics flooring after the jump.

Sniff out the Chowhound for a dogpile of food advice

Don’t you love it when someone does all the hard work for you? There’s an excellent thread going on at this blog where people are sharing the best (and sometimes less than best) food they’ve found at Costco. I’m going to bookmark this discussion and keep returning to it. This is one of the reasons I love me some Inter-tubes.

Flat repair – worth the hassle?

I’ve come away from a less-than-pleasant transaction at Costco. Yes, I know – hard to believe coming from me. But I gotta be real here. It was a learning experience, to be sure, but it left me aware of a few chinks in the armor. Allow me to explain.

My wife was stranded with a completely flat tire Thursday afternoon. I left work early to get the emergency spare on for her. I’m heroic like that. So I knew I’d have to cut into work today to get the tire fixed since my weekend is already booked. And who wants to wait in line at the tire center on a Saturday? Not me. What happened next is a study in expectations-management, patience, and perseverance.

Props to my birthplace for free backpacks

The Costco in Wooldand, CA has donated 550 backpacks to two area schools. I’d post the link but the Woodland Daily Democrat has moved the story to their archive. Noteable because it’s just a really nice thing to do, and I was born there. At the hospital, not the Costco.

I’ll take my licorice unleaded, please

If you live in Monterey county and you’ve bought licorice from Costco lately, stop! The specific product is Lucky Country Aussie Style Soft Gourmet Black Licorice. That’s a really long name. I wasn’t aware Austrailans made licorice either.

The fall shopping challenge: Dell EPP vs. Costco

I just received the big C’s fall shopping special promo mailer. There’s something about getting anything from Costco in the mail that makes that 10-yard trek to the mailbox after work worth all the effort. If for some reason you don’t get this mailer, you can see all the fall promo items on teh inter-tubes. “Fall” into savings. Get it?

For some reason my eyes fell on a particular item in this offering – a Dell XPS computer bundle, including Word and PowerPoint. Now, it’s been almost four years since I bought my Dell Dimenson 8400 system through Costco.com. I’ve been very happy with it and I haven’t really kept up with Dell’s progress in marketing newer, better computing packages. I knew that the XPS line used to be the higher-end, gamer-friendly boxes. Now it seems it has entered more of a mainstream marketing target.

My employer offers discounts on Dell systems through the Employee Purchase Program. Last time after much research I opted for Costco because they had a better deal on the three-year warranty, plus the free customer assistance by phone. So I started to wonder if my computer tanked all of a sudden, which direction would I go now? Assuming I needed another new monitor (not likely) and I was looking to invest in another long-term PC system, which avenue would lead me toward a better deal on this exact package?

Give your Costco membership some ‘Leverage’

There’s a web site called LeverageCard.com that allows you to track and manage all your various gift cards, rewards memberships, loyalty programs, and other little plastic things that hang from your keychain. Good idea! But this site even lets you exchange gift cards and – by some freaky process I haven’t examined yet – earn interest on your memberships. Yeah, that’s what they say.

But here comes more news for you Costco members. Apparently through LeverageCard you can now purchase Costco membership certificates which you can then use to earn promotions and coupon booklets when you re-up each year. Sweet!

The first thing you need to do is register with the site, which is painless. Then you need to make sure your Costco membership is not automatically renewing and billing to your AmEx True Rewards card, if you have one. All you have to do is call Member Services to take care of that detail.

Then comes the uncertain part – using these fancy membership certificates to renew and get these coupons. Since I’m just learning about this myself, I’m going to try it and find out how it works. Then I will report back to you. I say, for free stuff, it’s worth a try.