Move over Priceline.com. Bid without being obliged to buy!
Written: Mar 10 '00 (Updated Mar 16 '00)
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This is for real. Bid on what you want and imandi.com will match you with merchants that sell the item. The icing on this cake is the promotion. You can earn up to $25,000 referring people to register with imandi.com. I saw the CEO of imandi.com on CNBC and yes they do have funding for this. This is spam for cash, but it is actually a lot of cash $10,000,000.
Why Bother Emailing your friends?
Not only is it spam for cash it is an introduction to a great service for consumers. Help your friends! The concept is similar to Priceline.com. You bid on something you want and imandi.com hooks you up with merchants that wish to sell you that item. However, there is no obligation to buy once you have received bids. I find this to be the biggest downfall to Priceline.com and the biggest bonus for imandi.com.
I disagree with comments on this site about imandi.com:
There has been criticism on epinions.com that imandi.com doesn't provide enough info on their product for people to consider registering. I disagree. They clearly state how their site works. It would tedious and useless to look through all the merchants that they represent. The concept is clear: you tell imandi.com what you want and they find someone who has it.
After you bid you get a lot of very specific information, and yes you do have to register to bid. They have to make money somehow. I registered and bid on airfare to my friend's wedding and received a list of merchants that would be receiving my request. I could choose to limit this list and exclude certain merchants if I wished. The name of the travel agency was provided as well as their location. I found about 25% of the merchants were local and I live in a small town.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth:
For all of you that don't like spam delete the messages you get from friends about imandi.com's promotion. Remember though, all you have to do is fill out a simple form and you get the chance to earn cash. Nothing more than you filled out to join epinions.com. The return is greater in the end with less work. Also just like the bonus rewards offered here at epinions.com this offer is temporary.
Why did I join?
Ok so I joined for some $$$. I wanted to earn a discount on airfare.Of the reward $ you earn the first $250 must be spent on the site. Okay by me because they have a travel service that gets you bid on airfare. I hope that they give me a cheaper overall price and that the $ from referrals gets the price even lower. If the service works then I will use it again to buy tickets. I'll see if imandi.com brings me a good deal. I'll update later after my first couple requests have gone through.
Businesses are beginning to use services like this to get bids on supplies . It is estimated that this will save them billions in the next decade. I see no reason why the average Joe can't use a similar service, imandi.com, to limit the time and energy required to get the cheapest price on items they want.
OK I got some quotes....
It took awhile to get the quotes from the travel agancies. The local agencies called me and I got emails from others. The prices varied. I got a bid for $650 on Northwest RT from LAX to Detroit and another for $240 for Spirit RT. The lowest fare I got on previewtravel.com was $400 on Northwest. I'm still contacting agents and still being contacted so I'll keep you posted. So far it has taken about 4 days to process my request.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
LisaS
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Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 33 members
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