Bargain Hunter: Find the deals that have real value beneath the Black Friday hype

Halfords is gearing up for Christmas

Halfords is gearing up for Christmas (Henry Nicholls/ © Newsteam / SWNS Group)

Next Friday has been designated Black Friday by Britain’s retailers, which have adopted the American shopping event to seize the chance to flog their stuff.

It’s a blatant marketing exercise but there may be some bargains. Amazon, for instance, is running deals all week in the countdown to Black Friday and has already begun boosting its daily “lightning deals” in preparation.

At Nectar e-shops you can get quadruple Nectar points when you buy Body Shop or Harveys Furniture products on Black Friday or the week after. Apple, meanwhile is offering a Black Friday discount on its iTunes online gift cards, as long as you spend £25 on them.

Halfords will have a range of deals in store, such as a 200-piece socket set at £140, less than half its original price of £300. Then there are special openings. The discount retailer B&M is opening stores late on Black Friday, when it will offer 10 per cent off everything from 5pm till 10pm.

Also check out the forums on sites such as HotUKDeals or MoneySavingExpert before you buy. There are thousands of people quick to point out if a deal isn’t as special as a retailer is claiming.

I’ve made a video explaining how to get the best of out Black Friday, which you can watch at ind.pn/1uXBtfe.

The glass is overflowing for guides to bargain booze

The drinks comparison site Bringabottle.co.uk is well worth a look at this time of year. It not only tells you which shop has the current best offers on booze, it also informs you at what price bottles of wine, beer and spirits have been sold recently to give you a better idea whether the latest deal is a bargain or not.

For example, Moët & Chandon champagne can currently be snapped up for £25 a bottle, more or less the lowest price it has been since last Christmas, when it was sold at £22.99. The highest price it reached in the last 12 months was when it was sold at just under £30 in July.

Off to a flying start with American Express American Express members flying off this Christmas can earn up to £70 worth of statement credits when they add offers to their card through Foursquare and shop at participating airport shops.

The offers run until 31 January 2015 at shops in terminals at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh airports.

Keep your outbound ticket for Eurostar gallery offer

If you’re planning a trip to Paris and hope to take advantage of the Eurostar promotion of two-for-one entry to museums and galleries, hang on to your outbound ticket, advises reader Mike Curtin.

“Travellers need to be aware that they should keep their outgoing ticket as we found that the Musée d’Orsay would not accept the return ticket for this offer,” he says. “Fortunately we still had ours.”

Thanks for the tip, Mike.