Work Perks

I joke all the time that you should never pay full price for anything, but it's true!  Work discounts can usually offer great deals on random things that you might not instantly think to get discounts on. Travel components, shopping items, phone plans and more.. It never hurts to ask what your company can do for you!

Using work perks, not just for discounts on what your company actually sells, all adds up. Even if you are in some select stores, sometimes just asking "is there a corporate discount?" or "do you do any deals for people working for this or that company?" will work and get you a free cookie, 10% off, or more. My favorite way of wording a discount question is using "family and friends of.."

**It is very important to note that for anything below, always ask and do it properly through/with work, not just taking something or charging back to the company. This is a no-brainer, but just in case... thought to mention it. 

Personally, I've used the "proximity" question at stores (I work across the street, any discount for me if I buy food here from you?) a few times, as well as a few offers from company offered programs. I've also looked into travel help at my work (do we have a corporate discount for flights or car rentals?), which our receptionist was happy to give me.

Some thoughts:

Company-offered/paid into programs, like Perkopolis or WorkPerks/Venngo. I've used Perkopolis to look up goods coupons for online shopping, theme park tickets, hotels, car rentals and more. They also have other deals like house cleaning and services, flower delivery, etc. 

Cell phone plans. Sometimes work will have connections and can get you a good plan rate to reference. 

Flights, hotels and car rentals. My company has a discount on a couple select airlines and as an employee, I can just call, reference our corporate referral code and get a discounts on my personal travel. I know a couple people in our company has also utilized codes like this for personal vacation trips. Your company might have the same, so it can't hurt to ask. 

Supplies, like for office and home. A lot of the time companies will have order lines or discount cards that can be used at stores like Staples or for shipping items. We have discount cards for employees to use at Staples, shipping companies (like UPS), as well as at a couple technology sites through our IT department. 

Whatever your company sells or supplies (dog food from a pet store, shoes from a footwear brand, groceries from a supermarket, etc). This can also extend into the vendors your company may use, which I've done before too, by just asking if they would extend a deal to you because you work for one of their "partners". 

Food. My company once got a message from Swiss chalet that someone responded to, and now we get continuous coupon emails from them, customized "just for us". This is also the best category I've had luck on asking the "proximity" question on. 

Shameless Job-title use if you can. If you are police, fire, government or more, you could always ask if there is a discount for you and your line of work. Be proud of what you do :) 

Finally... Just Ask!

Free is not always free..

You've seen the ads.. "Get your first purchase free!"  "Get this incredible discount on ___ and pay just the shipping!"

Read the fine print. Really. And thoroughly. 

Yes, I've been sucked in a few times, and even though I read a bunch before doing so, I must have missed some key lines each time. My latest oops was for great jogging clothes for cheap that were hidden under a monthly subscription blanket...

But the best example though was this thing called Julep. My blog won't be about product reviews and such, but I'll this company/product to just explain why you should read the fine print. 

Saw an ad about getting free nail polish, easy, no hassle, blah blah. What's the catch. I read and read and basically you sign up for their monthly glamour box and you get your first month free. Interesting. You also get referral points if other people sign up using your code, which is worthwhile if it's a good product. This was a month before Christmas so I thought it could be neat to sign up myself and grandma and mom to get three free glamour boxes and use referral points to then get another free product. If the product was bad I would cancel all three. 

I read the fine print, you can cancel your subscription anytime, or you can choose to "skip my box" if you don't like the selection of items that month. I must have stopped reading there. 

I did it, signed up and my nail polish was in the mail. Then used my referral link to sign up two more people and their nail polishes were in the mail too. Then with all my referral points, I ordered what I could that would be free from the site and got a box of lip glosses and three mini lipsticks. I thought I was pretty clever. 

Then the next month came and there was new fine print. You cant skip your first paid months box. What?! $24.99 a month, and you have to pay this first month after your free month.

We received the products and the colors for nail polish that month were awful. Silver, dark purple and a pink that was pretty much silver too. Colours that didn't impress my grandma or mom. I recently tried the silver as people raved about the quality and within a day it was cracked. The texture was kinda like painting my toes with white out. Yuck. Then, tried the lipsticks and the priming pen made my lips feel like they were going to fall off which didn't feel normal..

Okay, so now to do the "cancel anytime" thing. Julep does not really have any monitored emails or live chat options, so you must call. 5 phone calls over two days later I finally got through to someone who seemed to hate their job. Told them the products sucked and I needed to cancel for myself and two others. He begrudgingly said he would cancel them and I got the cancellation emails. Done, right?

I had read before I bought into the program that others have had problems after cancelling; sometimes they got charged anyways, sometimes it didn't actually cancel etc. I watched my emails.  Sure enough a week later, one of the sign ups did in fact tell me my product had shipped and thanks for my business.. What?!?  I called again and again and finally just emailed their generic email address from Julep. I sent them my cancellation email and told them to not ship and do not charge. They reversed the charges but told us to keep the already shipped product for free as a "sorry". (It never did show up in the mail.)

Morals of this long story?   

1. Read all of the fine print you can find.

2. Google reviews about the company, about the offer, basically what everyone else is saying.

3. Call the company first to understand the offer before you pay/give a credit card. 

4. After your jump in, keep doing the research on the full site. Usually there IS a way to cancel, but a lot of the time it is time sensitive. 

5. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is. 

It never hurts to ask..

I joke about this all the time, but it can never hurt to ask. Ask for a free refill, ask to take the beer glass home for free, ask for a free sample before purchase, etc. 

One case in point, last Friday.

I had an iPhone 5s with Telus that was just limping along and not going to make it. Talked to the Telus store people and they advised to call "Loyalty" and see what they could do. 

I did and spelled out exactly what I was hoping for, citing that I've been a customer for a long time. To my surprise they responded back with basically 3 yes's to my three requests. Bonus!

So then I watched my emails and online and saw that my local Telus store has a sale on right now for the phone I wanted. So last Friday I went in and got one of those fancy new iPhone 6s for $280 (not $900)

Not only that but I asked if they would price match a case that I saw a couple doors down and she pulled some strings to do that. I also got a free spray and wipe, all while still keeping my old and great phone plan. Whoopee!

I probably come across some great deal or freebie daily, simply by asking. I'll ask if there are any current promos, secret unpublished coupons, all while simply being nice. I'll send messages to brands of products I like and tell them I like their product and do they have any coupons so I can keep buying their product. It's about being 50/50 whether I get a yes or no, but I'll take 50% more yes's versus not asking. 

Another case, I had an issue with a contact solution that I've used since I started wearing contacts in grade 11. Rather than just abandoning this solution, I sent an email to customer service explaining what had happened and basically did they have a bad batch in this bottle. After some back and forth (and some great information), they sent me a care package full of 3 full size product replacements (these bottles are $28 each and they sent me 3). Well impressed!

Ask. Simple!