The Great 'GMA' Online Shopping Challenge
Tech expert looks for best Internet bargains on holiday gifts and travel.
Dec. 5, 2008 — -- "Good Morning America" put technology contributor Becky Worley's shopping chops to the test. We asked her to find the best Internet deal on three sought-after holiday items, with only a half-hour to do it.
Bargain hunters, get ready to be wowed.
Flat-Screen TVs
Two of the 10 top-selling products on Black Friday were flat-screen TVs, so we asked Worley to find one with a 46-inch screen. Here's what she found:
Samsung 46-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $1,124 at the Web site www.newegg.com
Westinghouse 46-inch LCD HDTVfor $899 at www.amazon.com.
Two TVs for one (42-inch and 19-inch) for $1,199 at www.costco.com.
Travel
Worley's next challenge was to find three travel bargains on land, air and sea.
Mount Snow Skiing Getaway
Lift ticket pass plus one-night midweek hotel stay for $72 at www.mountsnow.com
Norwegian Star California-Mexico Cruise
Seven-night stay in early January starts at $369 per person for an inside cabin. Works out to a little more than $50 per person, per day at www.cruise.com
Southwest Airlines Chicago-Fort Lauderdale Roundtrip Flight
$118 plus tax for January dates at www.southwest.com
Games
Wii "Guitar Hero" for $44.99 at www.toysrus.com
Netbook Computer
Nine out of 10 of the laptops selling on Amazon this month are netbooks. This is a new category of computer that is smaller, cheaper and primarily for surfing the Web.
One example is the Acer Aspire laptop running on Windows XP listed for $349 at www.amazon.com
Web Tips to Get the Best Internet Deals
Use price tracking and comparison Web sites.
Prices change daily, sometimes hourly on the Web. Use a free price monitoring Web site like pricespider.com to track historical prices. This site is specific to electronics and what's cool is it provides a historical graph of prices, so if you see the price has dropped in the past, you know retailers have a little more margin to dig into, that's a sign you should wait.
With airfare you can monitor deals using yapta.com . You can flag a ticket and the site sends you alerts as the price changes. You can buy your ticket and monitor the fluctuations in price, and the airline will give you a refund if you pay more than its latest fare.
For all other types of products, a site like pricegrabber.com will show you the range of prices online and it will e-mail you an alert if a product you're watching drops in price.
Search for coupon codes. Look for coupon codes at sites like retailmenot.com. These codes often get you an extra 10 percent to 20 percent off your final purchase.
Place orders by Dec. 17 for free shipping. To receive your gifts by Christmas and qualify for free shipping, you should place your orders by Dec. 17. This date will vary depending on the retailer, but that's the cutoff date for amazon.com.
Deals of the day. Browse deal-of-the-day sites on deals.yahoo.com. They offer a sampling of some of the best deals online, including Amazon deal-of-the-day offers and woot.com, the original online deal site.
Monitor prices for refund opportunities after you buy. Many retailers have a price protection policy: If the price on an item drops within 30 days of your purchase, the retailer will credit or refund you the difference. Check priceprotectr.com to monitor the prices of purchases you've made. Send them the url of the item and if it drops in price it will e-mail you an alert.