A couple of weeks ago, I bought my wife a new MacBook laptop for Christmas. I made the purchase through Amazon.com, and part of the deal was a $75 rebate. While I wasn’t terribly excited about the prospect of dealing with a rebate, the price (even before the rebate) was right, and I’d come out ahead in terms of free shipping and no sales tax.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised the other night when I actually sat down to take care of the rebate. As it turns out, Amazon handles their rebates through RebatesHQ, and I was able to simply visit that site and enter the order # and our e-mail address. Within seconds, the rebate offer was up on the screen, and I pointed, clicked, and submitted it. The next morning I received a tracking number via e-mail, and that status now shows that it is “scheduled for final processing” (whatever that means). If only all rebate submissions were so easy! Now I just hope the check actually shows up.