HotUKDeals - a treasure trove of the useless and useful - but all great deals! (hotukdeals.com)

Member Name: Palice

Product:	hotukdeals.com
Date:	15/02/09 (144 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, great deals offered, voucher and freebies section, you never know what you'll get next!

Disadvantages: There's so much on there, it can be easy to miss something you really want or need.

I've become a bit of an addict of HotUKDeals. At first I would only use it to check out voucher codes (and for this it still remains the best site, but more on that later) but on the moneysavingexpert forums more and more deals were showing up from HotUKDeals, and, curious, I started checking out the main deals to see if I could find any more amazing bargains.

Well, I'm glad I did. Now, it may seem a discredit to the site to say that probably 99% of the deals posted aren't of any interest to me, but this just shows the bredth of offers on there. What I'm referring to is the main section; the section you see when you go on the homepage - the section with all the 'hot' deals listed.

How the site works - for those who don't know - is that a deal is posted by any user, and other users rate it 'hot' or 'cold' depending on how good they think it is. This contributes to a score in celcius for the deal. The 'hot' deals (I believe ones of 100 degrees or more, but not always) are the ones listed in the main section. Deals can come from literally anywhere - online or offline - and this is what makes the site so addictive.

You never know what you're going to come across next - the deals are simply listed one after the other, so you'll see ones for digital cameras next to ones for tomato ketchup next to ones for wardrobes next to ones for dog food! With such a massive range of stuff 'around the corner' I often find myself browsing through pages and pages with interest, even if most of it doesn't appeal to me at all.

Current examples of the 'hottest' deals, rated at 1000 degrees or more, are 'Lidl meal deal 99p for a sandwich, drink and crisps', 'Ryanair free flights are back' and 'Loft insulation was £50 will be £3 at B&Q' So you can see that almost anything will come up on this site!

Aside from the 'hot deals', the site offers other areas. The deals can be split into categories, such as 'Clothing', 'Computers', 'Electricals' etc., so you can eliminate the 'never know what you'll get next' aspect if you wish. There are also sections for vouchers, freebies, competitions, deal requests, for sale / trade, misc and feedback. I've only used the vouchers section so I shall talk about that next:

Basically, if a site has a voucher kicking around - for free delivery, % off, free gifts or whatever, it'll usually be on HotUKDeals. As a side note, I really hate all those dedicated voucher sites. They make you click through a million times to get to a voucher - usually which isn't real or has expired, and often isn't actually a voucher, just advertising for a sale or something. None of that on HotUKDeals. They'll tell you if a voucher is expired, and usually remove it from the site, and only have ones that actually work, stating the conditions of use, and exactly what the voucher will do.

On any deal or voucher (or freebie etc), there is a place where users can discuss it, explain how to use it if it isn't clear, or why or why not it's'hot'. This can come in handy if a deal looks suspicious, as you can see if users have actually used the offer or voucher, and if it's legit.

All of this is presented in a very easy to use and read format, and I couldn't recommend it more; whether you're looking for something specific, or just looking for the next bargain on washing up liquid/patio furniture/ladies' shoes!

Summary: A great way to spend half an hour of your life.