Student discount, student laptops, money saving tips and freebies
Discounts on student laptops and yes we can even find you a free laptop...!
Dabs is one of the UK’s leading online retailers of IT and technology products with a good range of competitively priced laptops. Pixmania is another online retailer of electrical goods again with good prices on laptops. For a laptop specialist and a variety of brands Laptops Direct have been trading online for over 8 years and currently has exclusive student laptop deals starting from £299. Finally is one of the biggest direct online laptop retailers in the UK with frequent online offers.It's even possible to get a free laptop by signing up to a mobile broadband deal, you just have to take a minimum 18mth contract but that includes your broadband access so you can access the internet anywhere, from the bus or train home to campus to the local coffee shop/pub. Deals start from just £17.50 per month, UK Broadband Guide compares the deals from all the mobile phone networks.
For software if you're after Microsoft Office Student edition make sure you get the discount from the Microsoft Store as students pay less than half the full price.
Student broadband
Most broadband providers look for a 12 month contract, which isn't very convenient if you're just going to be in a student house share for 9 months. However there is now an alternative as BE Broadband offers a service with 9 month's notice. If you're living in a Virgin Media high speed fibre optic network area then they are offering up to 10Mb broadband for just £15 a month for the first 3 months, and only £20 a month after that. It comes with unlimited downloads and no phone line is required -making it ideal for houseshares, and you can see how their deals compare with other student broadband providers at UK Broadband Guide.
Apart from Virgin's offer you typically still need to have a landline (which again carries a 12 month contract) in order to get broadband in your student house, therefore a good alternative is to get mobile USB dongle broadband which you can take with you wherever you live, for dongle broadband UK Broadband Guide features a comparison of all the mobile phone
networks offering mobile broadband. You can even get a free laptop with a mobile broadband deal from just £20 per month, perfect if you need to get a laptop for uni anyway and that will enable you to work/check Facebook from anywhere!
Student mobile phone deals
Save hundreds of pounds on your annual mobile contract - have you heard of cashback mobile phone deals? If not then you could be missing out on hundreds of pounds of extra beer money each year. Ok, now you're interested, read on... How it works is you select a talk plan from one of the discount phone dealers such as the Carphone Warehouse backed One Stop Phone Shop, Mobiles.co.uk or e2save. On these sites you select a handset and network deal and sign up for a 12 or 18 month contract with one of the major networks as you would on the High Street. Orange, Vodafone, O2 etc will still collect their monthly tariff from your bank account by direct debit however when you receive your phone from the dealer it will receive a number of cashback vouchers. How this works is every 3 months you post in a voucher and a copy of your phone bill to the dealer, then in return they post you a cheque with a cashback value of sometimes up to 90% the cost of the contract! Or even easier than that some will post you a cashback cheque for up to £250 towards the cost of your contract just two weeks after signing up. So why would they do that you're probably thinking? Well each dealer is paid a commission by the major networks for recruiting new customers, so all they're doing is sharing some of this bounty with you. It gets better - you can even transfer your number between networks (but not across your existing network). So to summarise you get a snazzy new (and often free) handset, up to 90% off the cost of your regular contract (via cashback cheques) and you get to keep your number. For other mobile deals Dial-a-Phone is the UK's leading specialist supplier of mobile phones direct to the consumer.
If you need your mobile phone unlocking so you can use it on any network then Mobile Unlocked provide free unlock codes for over 100 mobile phone models.
Get cash for your old mobile phone - Mobile Phone Xchange give customers the opportunity to turn all their old mobile phones into cash. They are one of the biggest recyclers of mobile phones with exclusive contracts with some high street stores. What a great way to help the environment, recycle your old phones and earn money, statistics show that over one person per household has an old mobile phone, which is just put in a drawer somewhere. Check now to find out whether that old mobile phone could be worth up to £150!
Text mobile phones abroad for free - Send SMS now - to send free text messages worldwide, you can also receive replies for free to an online inbox.
Trains railcards and student bus passes
Previously known as the Young Persons Railcard, the 16-25 Railcard is worth getting as it will save you a third on rail fares throughout Britain. It costs £24 a year, or £65 for 3 years, but you could recover the annual cost on just one journey! Once you have the railcard save more money and avoid the queues by booking your train tickets in advance through , if you're travelling soon you can pick the tickets up from the express ticket machines in the station so you don't need to wait for the post.
For the more adventurous, Rail Europe has youth discount passes on European summer inter-railing passes or sleeper ski trains to the Alps aboard the snow train in the winter - complete with disco carriage!
For coach travel the National Express scheduled coach network offers easily the best value way to travel to 1200 destinations throughout the UK, to airports and into Europen with Eurolines, as well as offering 35,000 £5 coach fares a month across the UK. Their website offers easy access to a journey planner as well as printable e-tickets. Upon purchasing a discount card, they offer discounts for students and under 25s.
If you're looking for a cheap way to travel to the Alps this ski season then consider saving money by going by overnight coach with Eurolines.
Car rental, student flights and ferries
Accommodation
Insurance and other
For CDs, DVDs and games, Universitiesnet have an agreement with CD-WOW!
If you need your music now Napster is back and offers unlimited ad-free streaming and 12 MP3 downloads from just £5 a month, can't say fairer than that. Plus sign up for 3 months and your 3rd month is free. Members receive unlimited access to one of the largest online music catalogues in the world with over 8 million tracks, as well as top quality downloads, expert playlists and radio stations; all of which is accessible online from any computer.
Student holidays, student bus passes and travel cards
- don't forget to check out the student travel section for further links.
For the new university term and discounted student travel from Stagecoach. Unirider represents excellent savings compared to the standard cost of bus travel and is available in a number of regions, where Stagecoach operates.
Car rentals.co.uk - through agreements with service partners including Alamo, Hertz, Budget, Thrifty and Europcar, carrentals.co.uk offers customers a choice of over 4,000 rental locations worldwide and great prices.
Cheap4Ferries offers competitive online bookings for all the leading ferry operators on major ferry routes to France, Spain, Ireland, Holland and the Channel Islands.
- search discounted airline fares and hotel rooms with the UK's largest online travel agent.
STA Travel are the UK’s leading travel company for students and can source great discounts on flights, tours, accommodation and travel insurance.
Hostelbookers - search and book budget accommodation in over 110 countries.
ISIC is an international student identity card which is essential for discounts when travelling overseas.
is a leading cheap travel insurance specialist which was established in 1988. By selling direct to the public, they cut out the middle man and can save customers up to 60% in commissions charged by other providers.
Discounts on books, cheap textbooks, games, CDs and DVDs
Amazon offer a wide selection of cheap textbooks, both new and secondhand, as well as MP3s, CDs, DVDs and video games for taking a break from the studying. High street bookseller Waterstones offers free delivery on all books with frequent promotions, including up to 40% off thousands of textbooks. Use Waterstones discount code 'BZ4687' for a further 5% off a basket spend of £20 or more. Also for student textbooks have a look at AbeBooks for buying cheap textbooks and even selling your old ones. Sell Student Stuff, iSwapBooks and Student Books are some other sites where you can sell and buy second hand student textbooks, or try the UK version of Used Textbooks. For cheaper still Universitiesnet has partnered with BookBoon to offer our users some free textbooks that can be downloaded as pdf files. Subjects covered include chemistry, economics, accounting, marketing and more.
to provide a further 50p discount off their already bargain prices. CD-WOW is an established entertainment retailer offering free delivery and a catalogue of over 2 million titles. Chart CDs start from just £7.99.
Another online entertainment retailer we like is Play.com with more great prices, a wide selection, and free delivery on everything. Both Play and Amazon offer a 5% discount to student holders of the NUS Extra card.
BangCD and the online shop are other good options. With HMV offering a further 10% off for students! Alternatively if you want to get rid of CDs then MusicMagpie allows users to turn all their old and unwanted CDs, DVDs and games into cash in one free and simple process.
Student discounts, freebies and voucher codes
99Inks - save up to 85% on printer ink with free same day dispatch. Use voucher code 'April 7' to save a further 7% until the end of April.
Adobe UK Education Store offers up to an 80% discount to students on products like Adobe Photoshop.
Blinkbox is the UK's leading online movie and TV site where you can download or stream films or TV shows online. Some of the content is free or you can use voucher code BLINK25 for 25% off paid content.
Money Saving Student - blog with money saving and money making advice for students.
Student Discounts - student discounts in and around your city.
Blag a deal contains over 50 articles on... how to blag a good deal!
Animal Aid - get a free veggie pack with recipe ideas, nutrition and health info.
Best 4 glasses - use discount code 'universitiesnet10' to get 10% off all products.
Easypods - free coffee sample.
is the online arm of HMV, and if you have an NUS card you can claim 10% off online or in-store.
Magic Freebies is updated everyday with at least 8 new genuine freebies.
Sporting Supplements - use discount code 'UNINET10' to get 10% off your first order of nutritional supplements.
Rockness Festival - enter discount code 'EUCHZA' onto ticketmaster to qualify for a cheaper student ticket to the Rockness Festival @ £139 (£10 off) which includes free travel to and from the festival!
Student Free Stuff features information on how to get free SMS messaging, mobile logos, online games, health and legal advice, debt help, reference sources, translation, PC help and an online essays section.
Topman and TopShop offer 10% off to students in-store.
University.co.uk provide students with free webspace, email (with unlimited storage space!) and internet access.
Viagogo is Europe’s largest ticket exchange. With viagogo, fans can buy and sell tickets for sports, music and theatre in a safe and secure environment.
Voucher Codes features a page of student discount offers.
Whittard of Chelsea is the UKs leading speciality tea, coffee, china and gifts retailer. Save 20% on your first order and free delivery, use voucher code UNS9.
