I used to hate the feeling when I’d buy something online and then, a few days later, see the same item discounted for way less than I paid. But I’ve learned a few tricks and now, even if you don’t find the bargain until after your purchase, I can show you how to reap all the benefits of the discount (and feel like a boss while doing it).  

Credit Card Price Rewind

I use my Citi card for just about everything that I buy online. They have a great program that I think is way underused: Citi Price Rewind. It’s easy. Every time you buy something (this works for online and in-store purchases), you search for the item on the Citi Price Rewind site. Then you upload a photo of your receipt and enter a few purchase details (date, price, vendor). After that, Citi does the work to find you a better price. They search far and wide for 60 days while you sit back and just let it happen.

I price rewind everything I buy. Sometimes there’s not return but, most of the time, I get a few dollars back and I’ve scored a few that get me more than $50 back for a single item!

Retail Price Matching

If you don’t have a credit card that offers to do the work for you, you can still take advantage of getting price matches. Most major companies (e.g. Target, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath & Beyond)  offer it, you just have to do the legwork of finding a better price and you usually have a smaller window of time to get it done.

But I can tell you it’s worth it because I literally just did it and scored big. Here’s how it went down:

I recently bought new bedside tables from Target. Sam and I still had a few wedding gift cards so I didn’t even look to see if the same tables were available elsewhere. When the shipping notification came through, I clicked on the table again and my price tracking widget popped up telling me that Jet.com and Wal-mart both had a better deal. I looked up Target’s policy and they honor a better price for 14 days from their major competitors. So I called Target and not only did they refund me the difference, they also gave me 15% off the new price because I’d used a coupon when I bought the item on their site. I did have to haggle a bit on the handling fee– Target charges $20 per piece of furniture but Wal-mart offers free shipping over $35. The customer service rep couldn’t waive the fee but gave me another 5% off as an apology.

With all that, I ended up getting a total of  $70 back to my card just from a 10 minute phone call!

One last thing to note: Amazon currently does not offer price matching, be sure you have found the best price or that the item is returnable before you buy there! Here is a great article from the Krazy Coupon Lady about price-matching Amazon prices when you buy from other major retailers.

Flight Price Match

Lastly, most major airlines offer a price match for 24 hours from the time you book your flight. I usually book with Orbitz which not only offers a price match for 24 hours but also gives you a $50 credit if you find a lower price. Even if that lower price is just a dollar less! Not gonna lie, I have a lot of Orbitz credit.