Finding your way about

The site is largely self-explanatory and so you should be able to find your way about easily.

Use the menus along the top to choose categories, apply filters and access your user settings.

Hover over a deal to show a small group of buttons which you can use to vote, see a quick preview or go directly to the deal. You can also save particular deals in order to compare or come back to later.

Click on a deal to go through to its full description along with any comments that the community has made about it so far. Feel free to join in the discussion!

Click on any user to view information about them, how many deals they have posted and what they have been contributing to the site.

Reputation

Alongside every user’s name is a number in brackets. That indicates the user’s reputation. Reputation is a guide to how much someone has contributed to the site. The higher the number, the more the user has posted, commented and generally helped the site function.

Key milestones, such as posting your 10th deal or voting a deal hot for the first time will earn you achievements For each achievement, you’ll be awarded additional reputation points. You can see your achievements in your User Profile.

Logging In

To get full use of Grab A Great Deal and to be part of its community, you have to be logged in. However we know having a different username and password for every site can be a real pain so we’ve made it possible for you to avoid yet another one. Logging in can now just be one click away.

If you have an account with Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook or any other OpenId supporting website, you can use it to authenticate with our website. Your Grab a Great Deal account can have multiple associated accounts linked to it so you can use any one of them to login.

Be assured that we don’t (and can’t) store any details about your 3rd party account other than your email address - we’re just using the external sites’ authentication as a way of proving you are who you say you are.

However, if you’d rather, you can still authenticate in the traditional way with a username and password unique to Grab a Great Deal.

Posting Deals

We all know the great feeling we get when we find a fantastic bargain - we want to tell our friends all about it! That’s exactly what we want you to do here on Grab a Great Deal - spread the word!

We have made it very easy and quick to do - just log in and click on the big orange 'Add YOUR Great Deal' button. If you've not already done so, you'll be asked to read and accept the site's terms and conditions. You then have 3 options - you can post a deal, a voucher or a freebie. Choose which one you want to post and then fill in the form as well as you can. Some fields may not be applicable but if you miss anything important you’ll get a reminder.

You’ll need to specify an image when posting a deal and so you can either upload this if you have an image stored on your computer or you can just paste in a web URL of an image which is already on the internet.

A few things to remember:

• Include the product, the price and the shop in the title
• choose as clear and appropriate an image as possible
• don’t just copy the marketing blurb into the description (use some of it by all means, but try and add some content of your own to personalise it)
• If the deal isn’t available online, just enter the URL of the company’s website

Voting Hot / Cold

The best way to separate the truly awesome (hot) deals from the mildly interesting (lukewarm) deals is to have a way that our members can highlight deals which they consider are special. Heat rises and so the best will soon be at the top.

Deals can be voted hot or cold depending on your opinion of them. You can change your mind on how you have voted, or even cancel a vote entirely.

To keep a positive vibe on the site and avoid anonymous negativity, when you vote something cold we ask you to give a reason to justify your opinion.

The more you participate in the site, the higher your reputation becomes and the more weight is given to your vote, i.e. you can make a deal go up by more than just 1° at a time.

Posting Comments

We want Grab a Great Deal to be a friendly and interactive place for our members to enjoy visiting frequently. Share your opinions and argue your differences but please mind your manners and treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.

We have a code of conduct which must be observed - it’s all common sense but essential to everybody’s enjoyment and experience of the site.

There will be moderation to a certain extent but we cannot check everything. If you see any content while using the website which is potentially violating our code of conduct, please report it directly via the red flag button alongside the offending item or by using the Contact page.

Local Deals

Have you spotted a good deal which is only in your area of the UK? Specify where the deal is when posting it and we’ll make sure that people living close by see it first when looking for local deals.

Do you know of local small businesses that have special offers on, but don’t have the marketing clout to spread the word? Post their deals here and let our users know about them.

To find deals near you, first tell us where you are in the UK. You’ll need to be logged in first. Tell us how far in miles you’re willing to go and we’ll show you in the bottom right corner of any local deals how far away they are.

Community

If you want to start a discussion on something which isn’t specifically about a deal, e.g. general money saving, consumer advice or even who is going to win X-Factor, the community forums are where to go. See what other topics have been started by other users and join the discussion.

Quote previous posters, insert YouTube videos or pictures in your comments, use emoticons and font styles to get your point across. All that we ask is that you are polite and respectful.

User Profile

Avatars

With messages and comments flying about, it can be hard to know who you’re talking to so all users can have their own avatar (small pictorial id). Choose an image from the web, upload one of your own or choose one of our avatars from our collection.

Custom Lists

Only interested in a few of our deal categories? Choose those that you wish to see in a custom list and then access them all with one click.

User Preferences

Fill in the user preferences to select how many items are shown on each page and what the default time frame is for your searches.

Saved Deals

Keep deals that you’re interested in together in one place making it easy to find them again later.

Achievements

See what achievements you have earned so far and which ones you still have to get.

Deals and Activity

View all the deals, posts and comments that you or others have put on.

Referrals

For each person you refer who then signs up with Grab a Great Deal, you’ll be awarded an achievement which earns you more reputation points. The more you people you tell about the site, the faster we’ll grow and the more deals can be shared.