Freeze-dried meals…

Do you know if you also get the 10% back in rei dividend?

Add paying with an REI visa and logging in with cleansnipe.com, and that's another 10% off. If the dividend applies, you are practically eating for half price.

Dividend is only on full-price purchases…

Well, not really a sale then…at least on the 10% mountain house items. I mean, yes, the $20 gift card if you spend $100 is a sale, but the buy 8 then get 10% off seems odd….really the only difference is when you get the money.

So, if you buy 8 mountain house items, you get the 10% discount immediately…otherwise you get it next year….not really a sale to me…

Actually in this case the dividend does apply. So you get 10% off the food up front AND your dividend at the end of the year.

Is there a way to confirm it? Or….just call up customer service?

Ok…I called up REI. Yes, you do get the 10% dividend on top of the 10% discount. Its not a clearance item (ending in .73), its just an on sale item….there is a cut off though on sales. The cutoff is 15%. So if something is on sale more than 15% you do not need the dividend next year. If its under…you do.

So, you would get the 10% dividend on the mountain house sale (effectively making 20% sale). Other times I have bought like REI clothing that was 20% off on some sale…that would not give me a dividend.

This is a great deal….so you get 10% off, plus 10% dividend, plus if you spend $100 you get $20 gift card. Combine that with 5% cleansnipe and REI visa and you are looking really good.

Two notes though: technically, the $20 gift card if you spend $100 or more isn't 20%. Its around 17%…plus you need to get near exactly $100 to make the largest discount of 17%(not hard with mountain house), but lets say you get $105 total…that is a 12.5% discount.

second note: I happened to place two rei orders last night, both over $100 (you can get multiple cards even though it says you can't). Only my first order tracked through with cleansnipe…even though I used the same browser to do the second order. I think you need to explicitly go through cleansnipe and hit the rei button before each order (maybe after you place the order it loses the affiliate tracking cookie or something from cleansnipe). So I lost $5 of cleansnipe money there.

Thank you for the heads up about cleansnipe though! I use sierra trading post all the time too….it gives me another 3% off there.

I just got back from REI, and the cashier said that the $20 gift card offer is "one per membership number" — so if you got two of them, consider yourself lucky!

Yeah…I know that it states one per customer. But…I've already done two $100 orders, both received a $20 bonus card that was emailed to me pretty much right away. And…today, I just tried doing another order over $100 and still got a $20 card (I didn't check out though…just testing).

So…at least with this promotion…they have no software in place for "one per customer"…..you'll get a card with each order over $100.

I noticed the same thing with the annual 20% coupon that gets sent to customers. It also is supposed to be once per account. But, I placed two orders online within minutes of each other and I was able to use the 20% coupon on both orders. I think last year I did a 20% coupon on one order, and the next day it wouldn't let me do it again. (so there is some software working…but it rarely works). I know the year before that I had a bunch of stuff to buy and if I did phone orders I could use the 20% coupon on every order, but I couldn't online…weird.

Cleansnipe charges 2% (of the amount being transferred) to move your 'dividend' to your paypal account. They bleed you a little at each step, but it's still a good way to travel. I buy from REI often, am a member (10% off), pay with an REI visa (5% off- and always pay my balance), and login with cleansnipe each time (5% off). So everything is effectively 20% off, all the time (minus a little). Add in free shipping and still a very liberal return policy and I have no problem patronizing REI.

Spazzy Italians take note.

OK, just found out about active junky…..it pays 7% at REI and sierra trading post (cleansnipe pays 5% at rei and 3% at sierra)….is there a downside to active junk that I'm not seeing?

I was not familiar with active junky until now. I know cleansnipe works as advertised, but I will try AJ and see how it pans out. Seems like the same concept, but with a slightly larger payback.