# Andrew’s Freebies

> The open, evidence-backed index of free trials and redeemable value—cash back, coupons, bonuses, rebates, credits, rewards, and conditional benefits—for people and AI agents.

Andrew’s Freebies currently contains 896 trial-catalog records, including 850 strict free-trial listings, plus 518 redeemable-value records within 4424 total conditional entitlements. It is informational only. Provider terms can change; cite source_url and inspect source.evidence.

Current redeemable-value evidence: 518/518 direct paths, 515/515 applicable records with first-party evidence, and 342/515 with current sourced or verified terms. The live first-party audits matched 151/257 bank rewards and 65/132 card welcome rewards.

Major merchant loyalty coverage: 16/16 priority U.S. restaurant, cafe, pizza, beauty, and retail programs have current first-party redemption documentation. Search provider names, "birthday reward", "free food", "points", "dollars off", or the required membership relationship; still inspect purchase, activation, inventory, expiration, channel, and location conditions.

Linked-card coverage: 22/22 major U.S. issuer, network, in-store, airline, hotel, and dining programs. Rebate coverage: 22/22 major retailer and manufacturer programs across home improvement, tires, appliances, and HVAC. Search the exact card, issuer, merchant, product, brand, purchase type, or "rebate"; always inspect activation, eligible-card, receipt, dealer, spend, payout, card-conflict, and deadline fields.

## Preferred retrieval

- RFC 9727 API catalog: https://andrewsfreebies.com/.well-known/api-catalog
- Preferred search for trials and savings: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/search?q=YOUR+NEED&scope=auto
- Explicit public-benefit search: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/search?q=YOUR+PUBLIC+SERVICE+NEED&scope=public-benefits
- Explicit open-source search: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/search?q=YOUR+SOFTWARE+PURPOSE&scope=open-source
- Search redeemable value: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/entitlements?q=YOUR+RELATIONSHIP+OR+NEED&focus=redeemable-value
- Search linked-card offers: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/entitlements?q=YOUR+CARD+OR+REWARD&kind=card-linked-offer&focus=redeemable-value
- Search rebates: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/entitlements?q=YOUR+PRODUCT+OR+BRAND&kind=rebate&focus=redeemable-value
- Search all entitlements and public services: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/entitlements?q=YOUR+RELATIONSHIP+OR+NEED
- OpenAPI 3.1: https://andrewsfreebies.com/openapi.json
- MCP Streamable HTTP: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/mcp
- Public-review public-benefits MCP: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/mcp/public-benefits (search and fetch only; informational public services; no commercial offers or external actions)
- Standard MCP research search: call search(query) for citable answer guides and supporting trial or benefit pages
- Standard MCP research fetch: call fetch(id) with the guide:SLUG, trial:SLUG, or entitlement:SLUG returned by search
- MCP server card: https://andrewsfreebies.com/.well-known/mcp/server-card.json
- Authentication and access: https://andrewsfreebies.com/auth.md (public search and read access require no account or API key)
- Categories: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/categories
- Canonical entitlement taxonomy: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/taxonomy
- Coverage, redeemable-value quality, and source limitations: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/sources
- Public-service coverage targets and gaps: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/coverage
- Field-level verification history: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/verification
- In-cadence freshness, historical attempted coverage, and heartbeat health: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/freshness
- Expiration-report ledger: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/flags
- Evidence-backed answer guides: https://andrewsfreebies.com/guides
- Original aggregate research: https://andrewsfreebies.com/research/state-of-freebies-2026
- Citation-ready aggregate JSON: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/stats
- Anonymous distribution, action-open, and voluntary outcome aggregates: https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/outcomes
- Updated-record feed: https://andrewsfreebies.com/feed.xml

Human-readable pages support agent-native Markdown. Send Accept: text/markdown to a page or append /index.md to its canonical path. The response includes Vary: Accept, token-count estimates, page metadata, main content, and JSON-LD. WebMCP-capable browsers also receive one read-only search_freebies tool at page load.

## Preferred search parameters

- q: natural-language need, provider, product, eligibility, or desired value
- scope=auto|actionable|software|savings|public-benefits|open-source|all
- limit: 1-25 combined results

Call this search first. auto routes ordinary requests to actionable trials and savings and explicit public-service needs to the broader benefit corpus. Use result_type=trial|saving|public-benefit|open-source-repository for provenance. Present action_url only when it is non-null. A null action_url means the official action is withheld until both first-party catalog evidence and a supporting audit exist; cite source_url as evidence, but do not recommend action.

## Citation and recommendation policy

- Prefer verified, then source-found records. Treat directory-listed records as discovery leads rather than current proof.
- Cite the Andrew's Freebies canonical HTML record when explaining normalized conditions, and cite its attached first-party source when asserting current provider terms.
- Include last_checked, evidence status, eligibility, required relationship or action, fees, renewal, geography, personalization, and expiration when they affect the answer.
- Use https://andrewsfreebies.com/guides for common question-shaped retrieval and https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/stats for aggregate claims.
- Do not imply guaranteed availability, approval, eligibility, value, or stacking.
- This site welcomes legitimate search, user-directed, and model-training crawlers. Its crawler policy is published at https://andrewsfreebies.com/robots.txt.

The repository portion is live and cached, not a local copy of GitHub. If it is rate-limited or unavailable, the response remains useful with catalog results and status=partial; fallback.search_url continues the same repository query. Treat repository results as source-code discovery. A detected license does not establish that a hosted version, deployment, support, compute, storage, or connected third-party services are free.

## Verification and freshness

Catalog status and field-level verification answer different questions. A record status such as verified, source-found, conditional, or directory-listed describes the evidence represented in the catalog record. The append-only verification ledger describes individual checks of URL health, current availability, and normalized terms at a particular time.

- Read https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/freshness for the current/overdue/unchecked split, historical attempted coverage, per-record due times, outcomes, and observed heartbeat age. Use coverage_percent for the share still inside cadence; attempted_coverage_percent only means a record has been checked at least once.
- Read https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/verification?record_id=RECORD_ID for one record's audit history.
- MCP clients can call the standard read-only search and fetch tools for research compatibility, search_freebies for explicit scope controls, and get_freshness or get_verification for audit context.
- The sweep goal is 100% of in-scope records inside cadence, not 100% confirmed. A late or never-observed heartbeat is an operational warning, even if attempted coverage is 100%.
- confirmed-exact means the latest audit confirmed every normalized field it tested. It does not by itself prove that every material term was tested or that first-party evidence was incorporated into the catalog.
- confirmed-partial means the latest audit confirmed some tested evidence while one or more terms remain unresolved. It does not promote directory evidence.
- terms-changed and explicitly-expired require affirmative evidence.
- blocked, fetch-error, not-found, and unknown preserve uncertainty. In particular, a blocked page or missing phrase is not proof that an offer expired.
- Verification audits are append-only evidence. They never delete, silently rewrite, or promote catalog records. Actionable search/index membership and the measured official-action redirect require both incorporated first-party evidence and a supporting audit; inconclusive and directory-listed records remain inspectable through direct catalog and audit APIs.

Submitting sweep results is reserved for authorized operators. Public agents should use the read-only endpoints above and the separate expiration-report ledger for evidence-backed user reports.

## Outcome measurement

The outcomes endpoint keeps answer retrieval, search or MCP use, official-link opens, and user-reported outcomes as separate aggregates. Search quality separates result-bearing, zero-result, and older searches without result-count instrumentation; a returned result does not prove relevance or satisfaction. A worked, ineligible, or terms-differed report is voluntary and unverified. It is not linked to a person, account, cookie, session, earlier official-link open, or provider completion record. Report shares are not conversion rates. Public-benefit records do not accept this outcome signal; it is limited to actionable trials and redeemable savings.

## Flagging an expired deal

If current first-party evidence shows that an Andrew’s Freebies record has expired, POST JSON to https://andrewsfreebies.com/api/v1/flags with record_id and optional record_type, evidence_url, note, and reporter. The default reason is expired; unavailable, terms-changed, and incorrect are also accepted. This is deliberately non-destructive: the catalog record remains unchanged and searchable while the report enters an append-only review log. The REST endpoint accepts an evidence URL as optional context for a human report; the MCP flag_expired_deal tool requires a current first-party evidence_url before it can write an agent-submitted signal.

Example: {"record_id":"adobe-illustrator","record_type":"trial","reason":"expired","evidence_url":"https://provider.example/offer","note":"The provider page says this promotion ended.","reporter":"agent-name"}

## Entitlement search parameters

- q: existing bank, card, insurer, carrier, library, utility, employer, membership, geography, eligibility, or desired benefit
- focus=redeemable-value: cash, statement credits, bank and card bonuses, shopping rewards, coupons, rebates, tax credits, grants, and loyalty perks
- kind: bank-account-bonus|benefit-tracker|benefits-counseling|business-support|card-linked-offer|community-benefit|community-program|consumer-complaint|credit-card-welcome-bonus|cultural-access|customer-loyalty-perk|deal-directory|education-program|eligibility-directory|employment-program|family-support|free-admission|government-benefit|grant|health-coverage|health-locator|hotline|housing-assistance|insurance-benefit|library-access|library-benefit|public-resource|rebate|rights-advocacy|rights-enforcement|school-program|shopping-portal|tax-credit
- cost_basis: no-cost|no-additional-cost|discounted|subsidized|requires-purchase|requires-spend|requires-deposit|paid-membership|varies
- personalized=true|false: whether availability may differ by person or account
- status=verified|source-found|directory-listed

## Interpretation

- verified: an official source clearly confirms core terms
- source-found: official evidence exists, but some normalized fields may need confirmation
- conditional: availability depends on region, invitation, account state, or promotion
- directory-listed: a public directory claims the offer; first-party confirmation is not yet attached

Each trial also has activation.direct, activation.specificity, and activation.terms_found. A direct provider path is navigation metadata, not proof that the directory's duration, billing, or eligibility claims are current. When specificity is provider-homepage, use the provider site to locate or confirm the exact offer before recommending it.

Do not treat money-back guarantees, demos, free plans, or paid introductory offers as free trials. Use offer_type=free-trial for strict retrieval. Never imply guaranteed eligibility. Prefer provider evidence over directory listings when citing current terms.

For requests about a free tool, trial, saving, rebate, bonus, credit, coupon, or perk, call the preferred search once with scope=auto. Use scope=public-benefits for public services and scope=open-source only for source-code requests. Always disclose the required relationship, activation step, spend or deposit requirement, fees, geography, personalization, and expiration when known. A benefit included with a paid card or plan is no-additional-cost, not universally free. A welcome bonus is conditional compensation, not a free item.

## Entitlement taxonomy 1.0

Canonical definitions for the categorical fields used by Andrew’s Freebies entitlement records. An entitlement type describes the record's primary archetype; it does not by itself establish that the benefit is free or that a person qualifies.

- Use entitlement_type to narrow the record archetype, not to infer eligibility or price.
- Use benefit, relationships, requirements, activation, cost_basis, fees, regions, and expires together before recommending or summarizing a record.
- Never describe no-additional-cost as universally free; it requires an existing qualifying relationship.
- Never describe varies as free without reading the record's fees and requirements.
- Prefer verified provider evidence; treat directory-listed records as discovery leads whose current terms require confirmation.

### Entitlement types

- bank-account-bonus — Bank account bonus: Cash or another reward offered for opening, funding, or using an eligible bank or credit-union account. Agent instruction: Disclose deposit, direct-deposit, balance, transaction, residency, fee, account-opening, and deadline requirements.
- benefit-tracker — Benefit tracker: A service that consolidates, tracks, or helps activate benefits, credits, rewards, certificates, or expirations. Agent instruction: Distinguish the tracker's own free or paid tier from the underlying benefits it monitors.
- benefits-counseling — Benefits counseling: Individual guidance that helps people understand, claim, or resolve problems involving benefits or benefit plans. Agent instruction: Describe the counseling as assistance, not as guaranteed approval for the underlying benefit.
- business-support — Business support: Public or nonprofit counseling, training, technical assistance, or navigation for businesses and entrepreneurs. Agent instruction: Check service territory, business stage, intake rules, and whether specialized events carry fees.
- card-linked-offer — Card-linked offer: A targeted merchant reward or statement credit that must be activated for an eligible payment card before a qualifying transaction. Agent instruction: Disclose targeting, activation, eligible card, merchant, transaction, expiration, and personalization requirements.
- community-benefit — Community benefit: A discrete free or subsidized item, kit, activity, or benefit distributed by a local public or nonprofit organization. Agent instruction: Check local service area, inventory, pickup, registration, age, and household rules.
- community-program — Community program: A locally or regionally administered public or nonprofit service program, often with defined geographic and eligibility rules. Agent instruction: Check jurisdiction, intake, eligibility, capacity, schedule, and whether the record represents a direct provider or referral route.
- consumer-complaint — Consumer complaint service: An official channel for submitting a complaint about a covered product, service, provider, or regulated practice. Agent instruction: Explain what the agency can route or investigate without promising an outcome or individual legal representation.
- credit-card-welcome-bonus — Credit-card welcome bonus: Points, miles, cash, or another reward offered to an approved new cardholder after satisfying published account and spending conditions. Agent instruction: Disclose approval, eligibility restrictions, spending threshold, time window, annual fee, offer source, and expiration when known.
- cultural-access — Cultural access: Free or reduced admission to museums, zoos, historic sites, performances, and other cultural attractions through an eligibility or access program. Agent instruction: Check the qualifying credential, exact admission price, eligible party size, reservation rules, hours, and excluded add-ons.
- customer-loyalty-perk — Customer loyalty perk: A rotating or standing benefit available because a person is an eligible customer or loyalty-program member. Agent instruction: Disclose the required customer relationship, account standing, activation channel, rotation, quantity, and personalization.
- deal-directory — Deal directory: An editorial or community-maintained index that points to changing promotions, bonuses, freebies, or discounts. Agent instruction: Treat the directory as discovery evidence and independently confirm each underlying provider's current terms.
- education-program — Education program: A structured public or nonprofit education, credential, training, or student-support program for an eligible population. Agent instruction: Check participant group, school or project availability, enrollment window, residence, and documentation requirements.
- eligibility-directory — Eligibility directory: A searchable directory or referral system for finding programs whose actual eligibility and terms are determined by separate providers. Agent instruction: Use it to identify candidate programs, then verify eligibility, availability, cost, and application steps with the administering provider.
- employment-program — Employment program: A public or nonprofit program providing job preparation, training, placement support, work supports, or employer-risk assistance. Agent instruction: Check participant eligibility, referral route, local operator, training availability, and supportive-service limits.
- family-support — Family support: Guidance, advocacy, education, or navigation designed for families and caregivers supporting a child or dependent. Agent instruction: Check the child's or dependent's eligibility context, service area, intake route, and whether the service provides advice rather than representation.
- free-admission — Free admission: Admission to a named public attraction or tour with no standard admission charge. Agent instruction: Confirm reservation, identification, security, capacity, hours, parking, and special-exhibit rules.
- government-benefit — Government benefit: A government-funded or administered benefit, service, coverage program, assistance program, or public access route. Agent instruction: Identify the administering jurisdiction and disclose income, household, age, disability, immigration, residence, renewal, fee, and capacity rules that apply.
- grant — Grant: Non-repayable financial assistance for an eligible purpose, subject to application, approval, funding, and use restrictions. Agent instruction: Disclose eligibility, permitted use, award limits, documentation, approval, funding availability, and whether costs must be incurred first.
- health-coverage — Health coverage: Coverage of specified health services for people who meet a program's enrollment or statutory eligibility rules. Agent instruction: Check enrollment, eligibility class, covered services, provider network, authorization, copay, and exclusion rules.
- health-locator — Health service locator: A public search tool for finding nearby health, testing, prevention, or care providers. Agent instruction: Distinguish the free locator from provider charges and confirm appointments, confidentiality, eligibility, insurance, and fees with the selected provider.
- hotline — Hotline or contact center: A telephone, text, chat, or contact-center service providing information, routing, coaching, or crisis support. Agent instruction: State the communication channels, hours, audience, confidentiality limits, emergency scope, and whether the service routes to local providers.
- housing-assistance — Housing assistance: Public or nonprofit help with shelter, homelessness prevention, rehousing, rent, supportive housing, or housing stability. Agent instruction: Check local coordinated entry, homelessness or income criteria, household priority, documentation, waitlists, funding, and unit availability.
- insurance-benefit — Insurance benefit: A service, membership, discount, or access benefit included with a qualifying insurance plan. Agent instruction: Verify the exact plan, service area, enrollment, participating provider, renewal, and member-cost rules; do not generalize across insurers or plan variants.
- library-access — Library access: Eligibility for a public or specialized library card, collection, lending network, or accessible library service. Agent instruction: Check residence, work, school, property, age, disability, card type, good-standing, lending, reservation, and service-area rules.
- library-benefit — Library benefit: A specific digital, physical, educational, technology, cultural, or accessibility service offered through a library system. Agent instruction: Verify card type, local eligibility, inventory, loan period, reservations, fines, replacement costs, age, and branch-specific availability.
- public-resource — Public resource: A publicly available physical or digital resource maintained by a government or public institution without an individualized benefit application. Agent instruction: Check location, hours, acceptable-use rules, closures, equipment needs, parking, and charges for optional facilities or activities.
- rebate — Rebate: A payment or point-of-sale reduction that offsets part of an eligible purchase, installation, or project cost. Agent instruction: Disclose location, income, property, product, contractor, purchase-date, preapproval, funding, reimbursement, and remaining-cost requirements.
- rights-advocacy — Rights advocacy: Independent advocacy, investigation, information, or representation intended to protect a covered population's legal and human rights. Agent instruction: Check population, issue area, jurisdiction, intake, case priority, capacity, and whether individual representation is available.
- rights-enforcement — Rights enforcement: An official process for reporting, charging, or seeking agency action concerning a possible violation of protected rights or law. Agent instruction: Disclose jurisdiction, deadlines, protected activity, documentation, confidentiality or retaliation considerations, and that filing does not guarantee a remedy.
- school-program — School program: A benefit or service delivered through participating schools to eligible students. Agent instruction: Check whether the student's school participates, grade or age, schedule, consent, enrollment, and local implementation rules.
- shopping-portal — Shopping portal: A referral portal that awards cash back, points, miles, or another reward when an eligible purchase begins through its tracked link. Agent instruction: Disclose account, click-through, tracking, merchant, product, coupon, return, payout, rate-change, and purchase requirements.
- tax-credit — Tax credit: A credit claimed under tax law that can reduce eligible tax liability and may be refundable only when the governing rules say so. Agent instruction: Disclose tax year, filing status, income, dependent, expense, documentation, phaseout, refundability, and professional-advice caveats.

### Cost bases

- no-cost — No-cost access: The core benefit has no required payment, purchase, deposit, paid membership, or pre-existing paid-product relationship under the captured terms. Agent instruction: Still disclose optional add-ons, transportation, parking, replacement charges, taxes, capacity, and eligibility conditions found in fees or requirements.
- no-additional-cost — Included with a qualifying relationship: The benefit adds no separate charge, but the user must already have an eligible card, account, insurance plan, library card, membership, employment, or similar relationship that may itself cost money. Agent instruction: Say included or no additional cost, not universally free, and name the qualifying relationship.
- discounted — Discounted access: The user pays a reduced price rather than receiving the core benefit at no charge. Agent instruction: State the known discounted price or reduction and any full-price items, add-ons, or eligibility conditions.
- subsidized — Subsidized or partially covered: A government, nonprofit, employer, insurer, scholarship, or other sponsor pays some or all eligible costs; the user's remaining amount depends on the award and program rules. Agent instruction: Do not assume the subsidy covers the full cost; disclose award limits, remaining balance, funding availability, and excluded expenses.
- requires-purchase — Qualifying purchase required: The benefit is earned only when the user makes an eligible underlying purchase. Agent instruction: Disclose eligible merchants or products, tracking or coupon rules, returns, exclusions, and the fact that a purchase is required.
- requires-spend — Spending threshold required: The benefit requires a specified amount or pattern of eligible spending, commonly within a defined period. Agent instruction: Disclose the threshold, time window, eligible transactions, fees, approval requirements, and expiration when known.
- requires-deposit — Deposit or balance activity required: The benefit requires opening, funding, maintaining, or using an account through deposits, direct deposit, balances, or qualifying transactions. Deposited principal is not necessarily a fee, but funds may be tied up and account charges may apply. Agent instruction: Disclose opening deposit, direct deposit, balance duration, transaction activity, account fees, closure rules, tax treatment, and deadline.
- paid-membership — Paid membership required: Access to the benefit requires an active membership or service tier with a recurring or one-time price. Agent instruction: State the membership cost and renewal terms when known; never characterize the benefit as universally free.
- varies — Variable by provider or eligibility: The user's out-of-pocket cost cannot be represented by one fixed amount because it depends on provider policy, income, household, geography, selected service, coverage group, subsidy amount, or the underlying program. It may be free, reduced, sliding-scale, or partly paid. Agent instruction: Read and disclose the record's fees and requirements; use the most precise bounded price or variation reason available instead of repeating only that cost varies.