A posted several months back about raping Trilegiant for free money and gift cards. Trilegiant is a marketing company that runs several paid membership programs under names like Autovantage, Buyers Advantage, and Great Fun. These programs are promoted with offers for free gift cards and other freebies for signing up for a trial membership. The general idea for the cheap bastard like me is to sign up for a trial, request the freebie (often as much as $50 in free gift cards), and cancel the membership. If you sign up for each of the different offers with freebies, you can net about $200 in freebies for less than an hour of work. Sweet…

But if you are willing to be patient, you can play them again before canceling. For most (but not all) of their services, they will offer you some type of incentive to stay with the program. Additionally, you can request an extension of your free trial so you don’t get charged while you are waiting for your other freebies.

I had some of these offers sent to my mom’s house in Louisiana, so I had a nice haul waiting in my mail when we visited yesterday. Here’s a summary:

• $20 check from Buyers Advantage ($20 credit card billfighter rebate)
• $10 check from AutoVantage ($10 gas rebate)
• $10 check from Travelers Advantage ($10 gas rebate)
• $40 Visa gift card from Complete Home

Add that $80 plus $0.13 in change I have found on the ground in the last week to my YTD Frugal Funds total, bring it to $233.13.