I made a point to complete all of my offers in one day.  On May 10th, I had purchased some diet pills, signed up for web hosting, and enrolled in GameFly.  All stuff I don’t need, but still cheaper than actually buying an XBox 360.  Not surprisingly, as of July 6th, none of my offers were showing “completed”.  This happens, and is why you print copies of EVERYTHING.

I contacted the company and told them that it had been over eight weeks and nothing was reported.  They immediately apologized and bumped three of my offers to “Approved”, and said it may take up to 48 hours for the fourth offer to update.  I printed off my certificates, added them to my growing list of paperwork, and began patiently waiting out the final 24 hours.  If it’s not updated by tomorrow afternoon, they’re getting another email.

I suspect the problem is that the company I signed up for (ServerPronto) is no longer listed as an offer.  But since I have printouts of my landing screen, order screen, specific “to qualify” instructions, and order confirmation, I don’t expect I’ll have any trouble.  Even if they put up a fight — which I doubt, given their surprisingly amiable conduct so far — nothing in their TOS states that when an offer is removed, its completion no longer qualifies.  I’d have a pretty strong case in small claims court.

This minor hiccup is why, if you’re going to try for one of these offers, you print a copy of EVERYTHING.  Print the terms of service, print the list of offers at every stage of the way, print the popup that says “To qualify with this partner, you must _____”, print the landing page at the partner’s site, print the page that shows you ordering, print the page that shows your order confirmation, print the order confirmation email you get, and print the status page every time it updates.  In the end you should have at least a dozen printouts for each partner.  Keep them in a safe place, because if things get shady, they are your only protection.  If needed, they can be called upon to prove — along with your credit card statement — that you made a good-faith effort to complete the terms of the offer.  They can also be used to paint a very negative picture of the promotional company, which in small claims court often carries more weight than the letter of the law.

I’ll update again once the final offer goes “Approved” and my paperwork gets mailed.  Once I have my XBox 360 in hand, I’ll post the URL of the site.

The 360 in this configuration costs around $350.  I calculated the least expensive path through the available offers, excluding offers that I didn’t qualify for (Blockbuster was available, for example, but only to new customers).  Choosing four (1 + 1 + 2) from a pool of about 30, the cheapest route wound up being:

• Sign up for Gamefly ($10 / mo)
• Sign up for diet pills ($6 s&h)
• Sign up for web hosting ($4 / mo + $30 setup)
• Sign up for a dedicated server ($25 / mo, minimum 3 months)

Total cost wound up being $125, or about 64% off retail price.  Not as good as the 90% off retail I wound up getting on the MBP, but still not a bad deal.  I made all my purchases today, printed all my supporting paperwork, and am waiting on two of them to report back to the promotions company.

Interestingly, the company I’m using for this offer was one of the companies that people previously complained incessantly about.  After scouring forums with well-established members, it seems that these guys (YF Direct / Connexus) are actually one of the more reliable companies.  And TheUseful, who fulfilled my Macbook Pro, seem to be generating more complaints.

I’ve got my special GMail account set up.  I’ve got a brand-new prepaid credit card to prevent account abuse from over-enthusiastic merchants.  And I even found a site that does this without any referrals.  Looks like all I have to do is sign up for web hosting ($6 / mo), credit monitoring from Experian ($15 / mo), GameFly ($10 / mo), and order at least $20 from FTD.

Four offers totaling $51 for an XBOX 360 Deluxe (retail $350).  When I did the Macbook Pro, I had to complete 19 offers and spend about $500 (about $200 after refunds), AND go through hoops of fire in order to get some of the offers cancelled.  This time around, the value of the merchandise is MUCH lower, so the offers are simpler and the cost is lower.  Even if the sponsors hose me and I have to keep my subscriptions for two or three months, I’ll still come out way ahead of the game.

I’ll post the URL of the site I’m using (again, not a referral) once everything is complete.  After all, I’m not going to drive traffic their way if they screw with me.