Cyber Monday hack: Save up to $40 on the Amazon Echo Studio – CNET

This story is part of Holiday Gift Guide 2019, your source for the season’s best gifts and deals, hand-picked by the experts at CNET.

For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon discounted just about every device in its lineup — Fire tablets, Fire TV streamers, Echo Show displays and so on — with one exception: the Echo Studio. This new speaker, which doesn’t even ship until Dec. 17, has stubbornly stayed at its $199.99 list price. That’s too bad, because according to CNET’s Echo Studio review, it offers the “biggest, best Echo sound yet.”

Good news: By leveraging a cash-back service, you can save 10% on the Echo Studio, effectively bringing the price down to $180. And a couple other hacks can lower that price by another $10 to $20. Let’s look at how this works.

Step 1: If you don’t already have one, sign up for an account at Rakuten (formerly Ebates) or TopCashback. If you’re new to the former, you’ll receive a $10 sign-up bonus, resulting in a final price of $170.

Step 2: Once signed into either service, search for Amazon. (To make life simple, here’s the Rakuten page for Amazon, and here’s the TopCashback page.) Then click Shop Now or Get Cashback, respectively, and you’ll find yourself at the Amazon home page.

Step 3: Search for the Echo Studio, add it to your cart, then check out as you normally would. Note: If you’re new to using cash-back services, it’s important to realize that you won’t see any indication of their presence at checkout. Remember, this is a post-purchase rebate, not a time-of-purchase discount. What you should get is an email notifying you that the purchase has been logged for future cash-back payout.

Here’s a pro tip: If you have the Amazon Prime Rewards Visa Card, use it for this purchase. That’ll net you 5% off the original purchase price of $200 — so $10 cash back. (Alas, the Echo Studio isn’t part of Amazon’s current Prime Rewards Visa Card promotion, which can save you 10% back on most other devices.)

While it’s possible Amazon will offer a direct discount on the Echo Studio as the holidays draw closer, right now this is the single cheapest way to buy the speaker. At minimum you’ll save $20, but you might be able to wrangle that to $40.

Your thoughts?

Read more: Forget Black Friday: This Amazon shopping hack can save you over 70% any day of the year

---

CNET’s Cheapskate scours the web for great deals on tech products and much more. For the latest deals and updates, follow the Cheapskate on Facebook and Twitter. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page, and find more great buys on the CNET Deals page.