Ebates and Swag Bucks

My best friend lives in Los Angeles. I have been meaning to visit her, but my life has been crazy. And she works 2 jobs and has to take days off when someone visits, and I feel bad, because I know how important money can be.

So I'm visiting Memorial Day weekend. Which costs like twice as much as it would if I were to visit like midweek, but really not much more than a normal weekend trip. And I'm not really paying for anything else, like a hotel or a rental car, so I can "afford" to spend more on a plane. 

So my restrictions were: 

I had to arrive after 7pm, and leave before 10am. This is like the most expensive times to buy, but my flight back East already means I'm spending all day in a plane (time change plus 5 hours, ick). 

I've also never flown by myself, so I splurged (like $50) for the non-stop flight.

So I priced it out on EVERY website you could imagine on a Tuesday afternoon (best time to check flights, no?) . I found the perfect round trip flight at like $480, which is pretty close to what I would pay weekend anyways. But between waiting to see if it was a good flight and the best deal on it, I lost out and ending up paying over $500 for it. But, if the seating plan is true, it's because the regular coach seats are full, and I have to sit in the front, with more leg room. Oh no!

So now that I knew the flight and the baseline price, I checked Ebates to see what site I could get the most money back on. Like everyone of them was like a $1. Do you know how much a DOLLAR means on a $500 flight?

Not much. 

So I went to Swagbucks, and they had the same deal, just a dollar after I converted it to USD. So I went with Swagbucks and Hotwire, because they were there. 

Today those swagbucks came in, and they put in just the right position to get another gift card!!!! 

The moral of the story: No one is going to pay you big bucks to fly a plane. Unless you get it in a package.