Be an underachiever for the best discounts

Pretty much any discount or reward can be expressed like this:

Get << awesome reward >> when you << do X >>.

Here, << awesome reward >> can be something like:

• 7% cash back
• free shipping
• 10,000 airline miles
• 50% off
• a set of paring knives
• etc.

And << do X >> is something like:

• sign up and confirm your email address
• place an order of $100 or more
• request an insurance quote
• print and redeem a grocery coupon
• make two purchases during each of the first three months with your card
• etc.

In other words: “To get this, you have to do that.”

This is one time when a D-minus actually beats out an A-plus

Underachievement is frowned upon in most contexts.  Consider these things said by No One Ever:

“You really need to bring those grades down, son.”

“Next season I want that batting average down in the low-.100's.”

“Now, if tomorrow you're not in after 10:30 and out before 3:00, I'm not going to be pleased.”

But not so with discounts and rewards.  To get the best discounts, it's best to do the Barest Minimum Actionâ„¢ (BMA) to satisfy the conditions of the deal.

Consider these applications of the BMA.  (Now, it goes without saying that you actually want what's being offered.  If you don't want it, it's no deal at all!)

1. Discount:  “Save $10 with a purchase of $50 or more.”   The discount is $10 whether you buy $50.00 worth of merchandise, or $500.00.  If you buy $500 worth of merchandise, the effective discount is $10/$500 = 2%.  If you buy $50.00 worth of merchandise, exactly, the effective discount is $10/$50 = 20%.  Much, much better.  (BMA:  Aim for exactly the minimum purchase.  You can do it!)
2. Discount:  “Save $0.99 on a tube of toothpaste, any size.”    Hmmm, the regular-sized tube is $3.79, but those trial sizes are 99 cents each.  That makes the coupon a 100% discount.  I like that!  It's as if I'm stealing it, but … I'm not!  (BMA:  Aim to get the smallest size if given a choice of sizes.  It's usually the best deal with a fixed coupon because the smallest size usually costs the least.)
3. Reward:  “Visit Swappable, and purchase any card.  Get 1000 Points.”  This was an actual MyPoints offer this weekend that I took advantage of.  (Most of the time I'm just looking at the BonusMails for the ones that offer the easy 5 points apiece.)  Swappable.com is a website that allows you to send gift cards that can be traded out by the recipient if they'd like one for another store.  Since it was within the rules that I could send a gift card to myself, I got a $50 Amazon gift card.  I could have gotten a $100 Amazon gift card, but I'd still have gotten the same 1,000 points (which works out to a little over $6).  I knew that we'd be buying from Amazon within the next few days, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a discounted Amazon card for anywhere close to 12% off.(BMA:  Aim to buy something at a discount that's rarely discounted, or only discounted a small amount.)
4. Reward:  “Earn $0.01 for each of the first five daily searches.  Earn $0.01 for every two searches afterwards, up to $0.15 per day.  Earn a bonus of $0.10 for each week you search four or more days.”  I've had an InboxDollars account for some time, and I admit that it doesn't get as much attention from me as some other similar sites do because I'm not getting regular email from them (I only get email from them when my account has gone inactive).  When I looked around the site, I found that the paid search component has the rules above.  I could earn up to $1.15 per week on searches ($0.15 times 7, plus $0.10), but that would require 25 searches a day, for each day, or at least 175 searches.  That's less than a penny a search.  But if I search once on each of four days, I get $0.14 ($0.01 times 4, plus $0.10), or 3.5 cents a search.     (BMA: Aim for maximum reward per action more than maximum reward.  Usually there's diminishing value for doing more.)