Convert $30 Loose Change into $30 Amazon Credit and Receive a Bonus $10 Amazon Gift Certificate!

From October 1st through November 4th, Coinstar will let you use their coin-counting service to get $40 worth of shopping at Amazon.com for $30 worth of change.

You need to take at least $30 worth of coins to your local Coinstar machine, and when the machine prompts you as to how you want your payment you would select an Amazon.com certificate for the amount (which also makes the coin counting free if I read it correctly). Then you would fill out an additional claim form and mail it in to receive a bonus $10 Amazon.com gift certificate.

So you could make that $30 of loose pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters add up to $40 on Amazon! That's a 33% gain on your money. Then just wait for a special deal on Amazon and make the savings go even further!

Here's the link. There's a link there with some more detailed rules. It's limited to one offer per name/household. Remember that it doesn't start till Monday the 1st so don't rush out tomorrow.

Maybe tossing that loose change into a container wasn't such a bad idea after all!

Update October 1st -- Just returned from doing my Coinstar transaction. Was quite simple, using the touchscreen to pick Amazon.com, which entitles you to free coin counting -- their regular fee for coin counting redeemed for cash is 8.9%. You just load the coins onto a slot to feed into the machine. The counter shows the progress in total amount and breaking down the types of coins counted. When you've finished and it's over $30 you press 'done' and then press the Amazon logo on the screen, and the machine issues a receipt. The top part of the receipt shows the redemption code at Amazon.com for the gift certificate in the amount you fed the machine. The bottom part of the form is a mail-in form for the extra $10 certificate. It has to be postmarked by November 8th. There's a limit of one per household (too bad, I would've had enough change to get two certificates). So that's the scoop on how easy it was.