Continental Airlines is offering 100 free OnePass miles for registering and learning about Continental’s PetSafe® and PetPass® programs. Valid through November 30, and the miles will post 4-6 weeks after that. Via Gary of View from the Wing. Like the American Airlines 150 miles offer, this is handy for resetting the expiration date of miles if you don’t fly frequently.

Continental likes to state that their miles have “no expiry date”, but “if no mileage is deposited in your account for 18 consecutive months, your membership may be canceled, and your miles may be forfeited”. Gee, that sure sounds like an expiration date to me.

I haven’t posted a bank promo in a while, but this one isn’t too shabby. Dime Savings Bank is offering up to $300 in bonuses for their Prime Dime Rewards Checking. You can get:

• $100 for account opening, bonus paid immediately
• $100 for setting up a monthly recurring direct deposit
• $100 for completing two Online bill payments

Minimum opening balance is just $1, but there is a $15 monthly maintenance fee if average daily balance is under $5,000. Takes 6 months to get direct deposit and billpay bonuses. Expires 11/15/09. Selected fine print:

*Bonuses for Prime Dime Rewards Checking are $100 for account opening, $100 for setting up a monthly recurring direct deposit, and $100 for completing two Online bill payments. The bonus for account opening will be paid at the time of account opening. The additional two bonuses will be paid 6 months after the opening date if the direct deposit service is established and the bill payments are completed within 3 months of account opening. There are neither account minimum balance nor balance time requirements to obtain the bonuses. If you close your account within 6 months of the opening date, any bonuses paid will be deducted at the time of account closing. Bonuses will be paid for new checking customers only. Bonus accounts are limited to one per household. Promotion is in effect until 11/15/09. All bonus payments will be reported as interest on IRS Form 1099-INT.

You can get 150 free frequent flier miles from American Airlines by watching a two-minute video for Bose headphones.

This is handy for resetting the expiration date of miles if you don’t fly frequently. Currently, AA miles expire after only 18 months of non-activity.

Zecco Trading, best known for their free stock trade offers, is running another promotion for their Forex trading accounts where you can trade foreign currencies and gold/silver. I opened an account previously due to their last $200 promotion (now expired) and got the bonus successfully. Here’s the current offer for newly funded accounts with promotion code ZECCOCASH2TRADE1:

You can get up to $1000 when you fund your account and meet the trade requirement before November 13th, 2009 5pm (ET).

Just four easy steps:

1. Open an account with Zecco Forex
2. Make your deposit before 10/30/2009 5pm (ET)
3. Make the round-trip trade requirements before 11/13/2009 5pm (ET)
4. Collect your bonus!

Note: If you open a practice account first, remember to use promo code ZECCOCASH2TRADE1 when you open your live account.

Instead of just making one trade, you have to make a certain number of round-trip trades. Mini trades and metals trade only count for 1/10th of a “full” round-trip. With a 1 pip spread on $100,000 standard trade amount, that would mean $10 for a round-trip trade if you ignore any price swings. (I tried this by buying and then selling immediately.)

Consider the offer carefully. If you’re not looking to actually do any speculating, the “easy” money is to just trade twice and get the $50 for two trades minus spreads. If you are looking to speculate, the bonus essentially takes away the spread costs. Forex for an inexperienced investor is a lot like gambling, and this is similar to one of those online casino bonuses. If you know the ropes, you can use such deposit bonuses to grab an edge.

Credit card funding. An possible extra is that you can fund via a credit card. It does show up an a purchase, which means we can get miles or cash back, but when I withdrew it just went back as a credit on my card. Users have reported that if you can keep the initial funding in for 6 months and trade regularly (which this promo seems to require anyway), you might be able to withdraw via check and keep the rewards. There is a $5,000 cap on each credit card funding, but you can perform multiple transactions.

Restaurant.com is offering a 80% off with the coupon code CHEF, resulting in a $25 “certificate” for $2. Offer ends September 30th.

Contrary to my skeptical remarks(I’ve never used one of these before), many readers responded that they indeed found these certificates very useful in savings some money.

Here’s a sample positive scenario. You find a restaurant on the list that you like that usually runs around $20 + tip per person (~$48 for a couple). You buy a $25 certificate for $2, which usually comes with a $35 minimum purchase + 18% required gratuity on full price.

In that case, you can save around 50% on the total bill. Good thing I’m married and don’t have to worry about going on dates with coupons! 🙂

Gogo Inflight Intertnet is now offering WiFi internet on select Airtran, American, Delta, and Virgin America flights. See here for participating flights. I signed up for their mailing list, and got a code for some free WiFi in case anyone is flying in the next few weeks. Here’s another code good until 10/31, but I can’t tell if it’s one-time use only: 222wifi21940a.

Jonathan, first timers surf the internet in flight with a free gogo session this month. Just look for the “gogoinflight” Wi-Fi signal at 10,000 ft and keep up with the world below.

Enter SURFGOGOFREE when you are prompted to purchase your session through October 15, 2009.

*Good through 10/15/09. Offer available on select American Airlines and Delta Air Lines flights. Offer is good for one use per person, may not be combined with any other Gogo promotional codes and applies only to single sessions, such as Gogo Flight Pass and Gogo Mobile Pass. Use of Gogo service requires registration. Terms and Conditions

For some reason, I’ve managed to collect a bunch of random Starbucks news. Granted, I’ve been going there more often recently for the ability to read and work in a comfortable atmosphere outside the distractions of home. I’m okay with paying about $2 for some caffeine plus an few hours of productivity once in a while.

Price-Targeting
First, I found out that last month Starbucks lowered the price of their basic drip coffee and lattes, while increasing the price of their “complex” drinks like Frappuccinos. This is classic price targeting, which involves company extracting the maximum money out of the most customers possible.

People who are frugal and pay attention to prices will now find that a large drip coffee from Starbucks costs just about the exact same amount as a large coffee from a place like Dunkin Donuts. Result: Starbucks gets more price-comparing people. A person who was paying $4 for a Frappuccino before was already paying 100% more for extra sugar, whipped cream, and 5 seconds in a blender. They most likely won’t mind paying another 25 cents. Result: Starbucks extracts more money from non-price-sensitive person.

iPod Touch/iPhone App
Want to buy coffee? There’s an app for that. The Starbucks Mobile App, from what I can gather, tries to make your iPhone or iPod Touch act like your Starbucks card. And right now, if you use it to reload $25 or more using your Visa card, you can earn a one-time $5 bonus. That’s two free drinks for me… too bad I don’t have an iGadget.

Free Birthday Drink
I’m usually not big on gift cards, but there are some decent perks with using a registered Starbucks card. You get 2 hours of free Wi-Fi per day, unlimited refills on drip coffee, and now you also get a free drink on your birthday. I like the first two features better, but free is free.