Tuesday, October 18, 2005

PinExpo...They've Got Deals

As a preamble, if you don't mind look in the adbar on the right to see if there's a PinExpo link there and click on that one to get to the site. Doing so gets me AdSense money and helps support this site...since it's free for me right now figure that one out ;)

OK. So why is something besides CheapPhoneCards being advertised on my blog? Because, in some cases, PinExpo is cheaper than CheapPhoneCards, and in some cases PinExpo has cards that CheapPhoneCards doesn't. Interestingly, though PinExpo is owned by Locus Telecommunications, CheapPhoneCards offers what Locus-type cards they do have (Locus Mobile, CallPlus, Oxygen) at more deeply-discounted prices.

For example, Oxygen Wireless is discounted anywhere from 1 to 11%. With the "cheap" coupon code you can get nearly 20% off of Oxygen at cheapphonecards. Other Locus-family cards are discounted 10 to 15% on PixExpo, while you can get $20 and $40 Locus cards on CheapPhoneCards at nearly 35% off and $20 CallPlus cards (and maybe other denominations) for nearly 30% offf (!).

That's not to say that CheapPhoneCards has the momopoly on even those cards. Yes, the "cheap" coupon code takes 5% off of any airtime purchase but I'll have to wait and see whether PinExpo has coupon codes too. If they do have coupon codes that get prices low enough I just might go with them for whatever airtime purchases I have to make.

The one thing that CheapPhoneCards carries and PinExpo doesn't are cell phones and cell accessories, all of which can either be discounted by "payme25" (20%) or on the Oxygen Wireless phone "oxygen25" (25%). Also, CheapPhoneCards has a rewards program aht has allowed me to get about $15 worth of airtime and accessories (a headset) free plus they sent me lots of accessories for my STi phone, see the relevant post. So then again I may not totally turn away from them...

OK. Now to the hard figures of where PinExpo has major-brand stuff (namely Boost Mobile) that CheapPhoneCards doesn't, and where PinExpo beats CheapPhoneCards' price on stuff (not counting reward points on CheapPhoneCards' side, which give you roughly 2.75 cents reward money for every dollar purchased, which is rounded down for rewards points purposes, and gives you about $3 worth of points for every person you refer to their site)...

One last thing: some of these are "sales" which may (or may not) go away. If they go away I don't reccommend PinExpo any more, except for Boost refills ;)

Boost Mobile-They have it (3-7% off), CheapPhoneCards doesn't
Liberty Wireless-They have it (1-7% off), CheapPhoneCards doesn't (not too big a deal)

Cingular-12% off on cards above $15 (CheapPhoneCards is 9.75% I think)
Omni Prepaid (on Verizon)-7-15% off (CheapPhoneCards doesn't have, 15% off is for $10)
PagePlus (on Verizon)-6-12% off (CheapPhoneCards is either a flat 7.9 or a flat 9.75 percent, this is only a good deal for the $50 card)

As you can see CheapPhoneCards still has some good deals but PinExpo has some better ones at the moment.

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