Quick shout-out to all my Canadian readers. Anyone Canooks out there? Anyway, I often watch the web surfing habits of my beautiful and non-geeky fiance to take a step outside my gadget-and-rss-filled bubble and see what issues are out there for the average Joe.
Friday we were searching for a rental car and she had a fantastic (but time-consuming) way of finding the best price. First, she would go to a major rental car agencies main site (i.e. http://www.hertz.com). Next, she would search for the type of car and the dates to get the prices. Then she did a Google search (I know, I’m trying to convert her!) to find a coupon code for Hertz. She’d enter in the coupon code, and if the price didn’t go low enough, she’d repeat the process until she found a good price.
If you’ve got the time, it’s actually a great way to get discounts online. She ended up saving us a good $100 or so, somewhere around 30% off the normal rates, or just around 2/5 of a Wii. (You might be a geek if…you measure the cost of a nice dinner in terms of gadgets. You know what I’m talking about.).
So today’s idea is basically a browser plug-in that does that basically automates that process. When you open up a page with a coupon code, the plug-in searches for the best coupon for that site and auto-fills the code. Another feature could be a quick Froogle search of other sites that are offering that same item, with links to sites that offer the item for less money than the current vendor.
Lots going on lately, apologize again for the lack of ideas. I’m getting married two weeks from tomorrow, on the beach in Maui…I can’t wait! As a result, things will be pretty slow around here until September. In the meantime, I hope you’re all staying safe and enjoying your summer.
7 responses so far ↓
kattszd // August 5, 2007 at 9:29 pm |
first and foremost, congralutions to your finace and yourself….it’s a good and noble thing you are doing to get married…like the good book says, you have found favour when you find a wife.
im still waiting for a reply to the previous email i sent you.otherwise it’s a great idea
James D Kirk // August 5, 2007 at 11:20 pm |
I wonder how long it would take before the advertisers/sellers would begin to game this ideas system by issuing the coupon codes to more places to be found by this system.
Of course, if I could get a flight to Maui for 70% off, I might buy into the whole thing
Congrats! I trust you’ll both be happy together, cause if not you’re likely out a Sony 10,000:1 contrast 60 inch, dual HDMI output, line quadrupled HDTV!
Be good to yourselves
JDK
Erinn // August 6, 2007 at 12:25 pm |
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage!
Why are you trying to rid your fiance of her google searching habit? What do you use instead?
astartupaday // August 11, 2007 at 6:24 am |
Thanks, guy – only 5 more days until we take off, I can’t wait!
Kattszd – I’m way behind on Email, but I do like the list and, if it’s OK with you, I’ll probably be posting about it soon.
James – Hilarious.
Erinn – Sorry, that was a pretty obscure inside joke. I work for Microsoft and Google is one of our competitors, so I use MS’s search tool on http://www.live.com. It actually works quite well, they’ve got a great image search engine. I’ve seen a few demos of the upcoming version and it’s pretty impressive.
Erinn // August 12, 2007 at 9:17 am |
Ahh, thanks for the clarification. We missed you at our 10 year high school reunion last night. It was actually a lot of fun. I talked to people I never talked to in high school. But there was much alcohol involved which most likely prompted those conversations.
Happy traveling!
astartupaday // August 12, 2007 at 3:40 pm |
Sorry I missed it, sounds like a good time. I haven’t kept in touch with anyone, it’s pretty bad. Would have been cool to see you and catch up with some of the old OHSer’s – hopefully I can make it back for the next one.
kattszd // February 21, 2008 at 12:57 am |
sorry for this late reply.. it’s fine with me. just go ahead and post the ideas.looking forward for what you have in store for March 2008