A Slice of the (Amazon) Pi
Tip It!This has gotta be one of the world’s worst kept secrets by now, but in case you haven’t yet heard… You can get ‘a slice of the pi’ from Amazon.com simply by using their search engine, a9.com. They’ve been running a promotion for quite some time now wherein you get an instant (and automatic) 1.57% discount (i.e., π/2%) on your purchases just for searching with a9. It used to be that you simply had to pop over and run a quick search prior to making a purchase at Amazon in order to activate the discount. It now seems that you have to search off and on for about a week before the discount is activated. I’m not sure how frequently you need to return to a9 to keep this alive, but once or twice a week seems to do it for me. Yeah, yeah, I know… 1.57% isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing.
Published on September 6th, 2005 - 11 Comments
Filed under: Frugality, Online
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
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11 Responses to “A Slice of the (Amazon) Pi”
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September 6th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.
BTW, how is their search versus Google and Yahoo? Same? Worse? Better?
September 6th, 2005 at 11:41 am
I always use Google, so I’m afraid that I can’t compare the two. The only reason I’ve used a9 in the past has been to get the discount. Just go search for something (anything) every once in awhile for a few days and you’ll activate the credit. Then go back every once in awhile (it’s unclear exactly how often) to keep it active. I have to admit that I haven’t been very good about keeping the discount active.
September 6th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
So Amazon is trying to “grab” customers from other search engines and giving them a discount of 1.57%. As you said Five, it isn’t much, but its better than nothing. I think for now, I’ll stick to heading to the bookstore and reading the book while I enjoy a cup of coffee in the store. That’s also the way I save a ton of money from buying magazines. I just read them at the store. Kind of bad, I know, but I do make sure not to crease or mangle anything while reading.
September 7th, 2005 at 4:33 am
Not to flame Fruition, but how much is that cup of coffee??
I completely forgot about the a9 discount.. it was definitely a lot easier to trigger before.
Recently I bought two books off amazon’s marketplace, I wonder do those discounts apply towards those type of purchase? Cuz I totally forgot about the discount..
Spent about $200 on textbook.. that would be about $3.50 that I could have saved. Price for a cup of coffee at the Barnes & Noble here!
September 7th, 2005 at 7:16 am
I’m a fan of this discount too… very easy to get. I don’t know if you want to tell people but Amazon has a price drop policy too – that one is not as well advertised.
September 7th, 2005 at 8:14 am
Cap, it’s $1.47, or something like that. They have really comfortable couches too!!
September 11th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
I use a9 pretty much as my “new” yahoo yello pages and google for everything else. Sometimes my pi discount expires, but I don’t order enough from amazon for that to be a problem…I just do a few “local” (ie yellow pages type) searches over the next several days off and on and it usually shows back up. So I just wait to order what I want.
I know…it’s not much…
February 12th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
If you do not want to continue searching using a9.com for the discount, set up a scheduled task in Microsoft to do it for you daily.
Click on Start> All Programs>
Accessories> System Tools> Scheduled Tasks
A window will open with the current scheduled tasks you have set up. More than likely there will not be an y scheduled tasks set up unless you are a real geek like me.
Right click in the window and select New > Scheduled Task
Name the scheduled task what you would like (Amazon discount)
Now double click on the new file. In the “Run†text area insert the following text:
“cmd /c “start /min C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\IEXPLORE.EXE http://a9.com/whateveryouwanttosearchfor“
Make sure that you leave the quotes in place.
Click on the Schedule Tab and set up how often you would like for it to run and at what time you want it to run. Of course your computer must be turned on for it to run.
Click on Apply and close.
February 12th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
correction to above.
Use this string.
cmd /c “start /min C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\IEXPLORE.EXE http://a9.com/whateveryouwanttoserachfor“