Archive for category Specials

Super Bowl Sunday is traditionally one of the busiest delivery days for pizza companies. Why else do you think they fight to get those last few ad spots right before the game starts?

This year, you’ll be able to save a little money on your Super Bowl pizza order thanks to foursquare and American Express. When you check in to the nationwide Super Swarm (just like the one foursquare offered for last year’s Super Bowl), you’ll be eligible for $5 off at Pizza Hut when you pay for $10 worth of pizza with your American Express.

The process is the same as other American Express promotions: just open the special after you check in and tap “Load to Card” and then pay with your American Express. You’ll receive confirmation via foursquare within a few minutes of your card being charged and then a statement credit within a few business days.

In a new twist, foursquare will be providing a link to sync your card with American Express for those who haven’t previously synced up, making it easy for people who weren’t previously aware of the American Express specials to take advantage of the offer.

The beauty of these deals is that the guy at your local Pizza Hut doesn’t need to know anything (and he almost certainly won’t know anything) or do anything for you to take advantage of the offer. You don’t have to clip a coupon and present it to your deliver driver. And best of all, it doesn’t exclude any other coupons you do have and want to use. As long as you activate the special, pay with your American Express and spend more than $10, you’ll get the credit.

Pizza Hut has offered foursquare specials in the past, but pizza delivery is one of those categories that’s usually excluded from foursquare specials since you never really visit the store to check in. It’s another in a series of innovative ways American Express and foursquare have been able to work together to offer frictionless discounts.

Last week, American Express partnered with foursquare to offer $5 discounts at restaurants participating in New York Restaurant Week (again). This week, it’s LA’s turn.

American Express cardholders who check in on foursquare at any of the hundreds of participating restaurants will receive a $5 statement credit when they spend $21 or more. The event runs through February 3 (with the exception of January 28).

To take advantage of the deals, you’ll need to sync your Amex card to foursquare. When you check in, visit the special and tap the “load to card” button. You should receive a notification after the transaction is processed and then the credit will appear on your statement within 3-5 business days. It’s valid just once per restaurant.

What do you think of the deals?

Following the success of the recent Small Business Saturday promotion — where American Express offered “Spend $25, Get $25″ specials at hundreds of thousands of participating businesses nationwide — the deal is being extended to encourage foursquare users to shop at small businesses throughout the holiday season. This time the deal will be a “Spend $10, Get $10″ deal that’s available at the same huge set of merchants for a limited time.

To take advantage of the deals, foursquare users will need to sync their cards with their foursquare accounts before they go shopping. Once they do, the deals will appear on the foursquare homepage and when users tap the “specials” button in the foursquare app’s Explore tab. After loading the deal to your card from the foursquare special screen, you’ll receive a one-time $10 statement credit (per cardmember) within about five business days.

The list of merchants involved is enormous. The screenshot at right from a nearby shopping area shows just how many places are offering the deals.

Since the deal is being offered at the credit card level, there’s no need for businesses to sign up, or even know the deal is being offered at their establishments. This makes it a completely frictionless transaction, since there’s no chance a cashier will give you a blank stare when you try to redeem the deal.

I used the Small Business Saturday deal to treat my dad and sister to Mexican. I got to look like a high roller for a little while, until I finally had to come clean that we were essentially eating for free. They were both wowed and the redemption experience couldn’t have been easier, so I’m excited to see this offer expand.

Did you take advantage of the deals on Small Business Saturday? What was your experience?

Foursquare has added another provider to their third-party deals platform: Scoutmob. The deals will be available in all 13 Scoutmob cities.

Unlike daily deal providers like Groupon and Livingsocial that were already represented on foursquare, Scoutmob deals require no advanced purchase. The deals will look similar to the other providers, but you’ll simply present the offer to the participating merchant to redeem the 50–100% off deal.

“From day one, we’ve been utilizing a user’s location as a form of currency,” said Michael Tavani, co-founder of Scoutmob in a press release. “That has allowed us to flip the traditional ‘pay upfront’ deal model on its head. Our thought is that locals should impulsively explore their cities; having to pay upfront for a deal doesn’t really allow that behavior. We’ve always been good at driving people to unique local merchants around each city, and now Foursquare will enhance the Scoutmob experience through their tips and location-based social features.”

Scoutmob deals are better for the businesses who offer them than those from other daily deal providers. Instead of taking a 50% (or more) cut of the deal, Scoutmob gets a flat rate payment when the deal is redeemed.

Scoutmob has already registered more than 800,000 customers in their 13 active cities (Atlanta [where Scoutmob is based], New York, Boston, DC, Chicago, Nashville, Dallas, Austin, Denver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with more coming in 2012). Partnering with foursquare will help to expose their deals to an even larger number of users.

In addition to the deals, Scoutmob’s local editors will be adding tips about their cities on foursquare. You can follow them to find “unique tips on what to order, who to talk to, and plenty of other curious facts.”

Have you used Scoutmob deals already? Will they be easier to find now that they’re right inside foursquare?

Last year was the first year for the big Black Friday foursquare specials. There were 12 specials that ran nationwide. This year, that number’s up to at least 20, proving again the growing popularity of foursquare.

Here are the nationwide deals you’ll be able to unlock on Friday (many of which will also last through the holidays), just by checking in on foursquare:

• jcpenney: Check in to unlock $10 off a $50 purchase. They’re also donating $25 to the Salvation Army for each Black Friday checkin between 4 am and 1 pm.
• Sports Authority: Spend $100 and get a $25 cash card. Twenty people who check in (nationwide) will win a $500 gift card.
• Brookstone: Check in to receive $10 off a $70 purchase.
• Aeropostale: 20% off a $50 purchase.
• Toys”R”Us: Check in on Black Friday and get a coupon good for 15% off $150 purchase between November 27 and December 3. They’ll have swarm deals on Black Friday and other specials through the holiday season — plus you’ll be able to unlock a badge.
• Z Gallerie: First five customers to check in at each store on Black Friday will receive a $25 gift card.
• Payless: 10% off entire purchase on first checkin or $5 off a $25 purchase for any checkin.
• Macy’s: 20% or 15% off select sale and clearance items.
• Office Depot: $10 off an order of $50 or more in custom holiday cards and calendars.
• AT&T: 25% off any accessory.
• Verizon: $30 off Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset (regularly $99.99; valid November 25-27).
• T-Mobile: 30% off any accessory on first checkin.
• FYE: 30% off any used CD, DVD or Blu-Ray.
• UPS Store: 20% off printing services.
• Family Christian Stores: Spend $25 and get 25% off your entire purchase of regularly-priced items.
• Piercing Pagoda: 10% off your entire purchase.
• Cosmic: 15% off one regularly priced item.
• Zales/Gordon Jewelers: $50 off a $300 purchase.
• Ritz Camera: Get 5 free 4×6 prints.
• Perry Ellis: It’s not a special, per se, but you can unlock the Perry Ellis Heritage badge instantly at any Perry Ellis store or department store where Perry Ellis is sold November 24-27 if you follow them on foursquare.

In addition to all the Black Friday deals, foursquare has partnered with American Express to offer users deals at hundreds of thousands of small businesses on Small Business Saturday. Sync your American Express card to your foursquare account and make a purchase of $25 or more with it to get a $25 statement credit.

If you know of any other offers, please let us know in the comments or by tweeting @aboutfoursquare so we can add them to the list!

I’ve made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the above offers, but the offers could change at any time or I could’ve made a typo (it happens). Please check your foursquare app to verify any specials before you make any plans.

Squeezed between the traditional holiday-shopping kickoff days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday is the newer and lesser known Small Business Saturday. It’s an initiative sponsored by American Express that aims to encourage shoppers to support their local small businesses.

In this, the second year of the event, they’ve partnered with foursquare to offer a whopper of a discount on Saturday, November 26. Foursquare users who check in and spend $25 or more on their American Express cards at participating businesses will receive a $25 credit on their American Express statement.

There are more than 100,000 business participating. You’ll be able to find ones nearby on the 26th by opening your foursquare app, tapping Explore and then tapping specials. Be sure to expand your radius out to 10 miles to be able to see them all. You can also find them on the new foursquare website by looking for the map icons highlighted in orange (now that I think of it, they really need to add filters to that map).

Don’t forget to sync your card with foursquare before next Saturday to be eligible. When you check in at a participating business, tap the “load to card” button on the special screen and pay with your American Express card. You’ll get a notification from foursquare that your request was processed and the credit will show up on your statement around 5 business days later.

The beauty of these American Express specials is that there’s no involvement at all on the merchant’s side; the magic is all handled by American Express. You don’t need to worry that the merchant’s staff hasn’t been properly trained and won’t know what you’re talking about as you do with some other foursquare specials.

You can help spread the word about Small Business Saturday by taking the pledge to “shop small” on Facebook.

This is a great initiative to help support small businesses, who often struggle in the face of big box retailers, particularly during the holidays. A $25 discount (especially when you only have to spend $25 to get it) makes a great incentive to shop anywhere.

After the jump: a video from American Express promoting Small Business Saturday.

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Twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred. That’s the number of redbox venues you’ll now find cluttering your foursquare app. The ubiquitous DVD rental kiosks that take up less than ten square feet of space are all now on foursquare — and soon you’ll be able to unlock deals there.

Redbox is set to begin offering discounts to foursquare users during their 10 Days of Deals campaign. Foursquare will distribute unique codes that will unlock discounts ranging from a whopping 10 cents all the way up to $1. The deals will be available August 15–24 at redbox kiosks nationwide.

“With more than 27,800 locations nationwide, mobile allows redbox to hyper-localize our engagement efforts,” said Amy Gibby, vice president of marketing, redbox. “Foursquare significantly expands our mobile touch points and unlocks new ways for consumers to engage with redbox at local kiosks.”

If you think the Great Clips “specials” that clutter the foursquare Explore screen are bad, just wait until you see these pop up. The 3,000 Great Clips stores pale in comparison to what we’ll see from redbox during the 10 Days of Deals campaign.

As you can tell, I’m of the opinion that a redbox shouldn’t even be considered a foursquare venue. Every one of them is located either inside or adjacent to another venue and they’re never somewhere you’d actually “hang out” so it doesn’t make sense to create separate venues for them.

Deals at every redbox kiosk — if they’re publicized somewhere other than foursquare itself — could serve to expose a good number of redbox customers to the foursquare platform, but, in my opinion, it’s not worth the clutter the deals will create for other foursquare users.

UPDATE: We’ve received a response from Eric Friedman, foursquare’s Director of Business Development:

“We found that tens of thousands of check-ins were happening at unclaimed redbox venues, so we knew our audience already wanted to engage with redbox on foursquare. This partnership makes all redbox locations official. On top of that, the 10 Days of Deals campaign gives consumers a great reason to check in at them August 15-24.”

Additionally, foursquare will not be handing out the unique codes necessary to unlock the discounts. Users will be instructed to text a number that will return their unique discount code.

What do you think of the redbox deals?

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