Dan is a self-described "marketing consultant by day, cheapskate by night." Since he meets with clients often, he regularly scours the web for superior travel deals. Not content even with paying the service fees imposed by most travel consolidators, he designed a small website that would kick back a few percent to him every time he or one of his friends clicked through the links to purchase the ticket. He kept adding more and more sites, and ButterflyMall.com hit the web November, 2003.

The principle is simple. Much of the advertising on the web is driven by the desire for click-through commissions, meaning that merchants reward websites for driving business to them by giving the referrer a cut of the sale. Most websites keep the entire commission. But rebate centers like ButterflyMall.com share a part of this commission with you, which goes cha-ching right back in your pocket.

You have coupon codes you picked up somewhere? No problem! You have a rebate credit card? No problem! Just tack on the rebate you get from ButterflyMall.com -- you can take them all! Dan recommends this himself. (Some coupon codes may be linked with one particular affiliate, but some can be used from any website.)

He also suggests checking out a bunch of places to find your lowest price before buying. Sure, an airline ticket purchase through ButterflyMall.com will give you a rebate of a few dollars, but if you paid $50 more than you needed to, it just wasn't worth it. He steers clear of sites he's never heard of, though, even if they have a really low price, both for his own purchases and for his members' purchases. You can click through with confidence on ButterflyMall.com, since all of the sites there have gone through a "strict screening procedure" to get rid of the riff-raff.

When I asked Dan what the best deals were on ButterflyMall.com, he pointed out MyCar.com. This site is great for people serious about buying a car. Local dealers will bid competitively to get you the lowest price! The generous 40% rebate lowers the already reasonable purchase price of a competitive quote from about $20 to $12. With potential savings of hundreds of dollars, this is a great deal.

Dan's working hard to find new sites to add, and he's working to negotiate even bigger rebates. Stay tuned!

Add ButterflyMall.com to your savings arsenal and spend less the easy way! Signing up is free, and you get $3 in your account!

(Oh, I got Dan to spill the beans where the butterfly came from. Visit the MBH Forum to find out!)