Coinstar Promotion: $50 in Gift Cards for $40 in Coins (No Mail-in-Rebate Required)

Coin-changing machine operator CoinStar is repeating a promotion where if you change $40 in coins into a gift card, you can receive an additional $10 gift card by mail at certain retailers. It’s actually better this year because it is no longer run as an annoying mail-in rebate. This time, after you exchange $40 in coins for a gift certificate, they provide a promotional code on the receipt that you redeem online. The $10 bonus certificate is still sent via snail mail, but this time “within 1-2 weeks” and without wasting time with mailing forms and postage.
The participating retailers include iTunes Store, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Borders Bookstores, and Regal-affiliated Movie Theaters. However, the page also says that Amazon.com will join the promotion on 12/9/2010. The page seems to hint that Gap and Starbucks will also join in eventually, but who knows. Personally, I like the idea of getting rid of my coins and getting a 20% bonus since I shop regularly at Amazon anyway.
By the way, if you convert your $40 into a gift certificate instead of cash, you’ll avoid their normal exorbitant 9.8% processing fee. Here is their kiosk locator.
I wrote about Coinstar and other things to do with loose coinage before and people shared some nice tips in the comments.