Groupon

Find, compare, and vet Groupon vouchers with fine-print checks, refund rules, and redemption planning.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user wants help with Groupon deals, vouchers, or local offers and needs more than a headline discount.

Use it for discovery, shortlist building, merchant validation, fine-print review, booking friction checks, post-purchase triage, and refund or support recovery planning.

Architecture

Memory lives in ~/groupon/. If ~/groupon/ does not exist, run setup.md. See memory-template.md for structure and status values.

~/groupon/
├── memory.md       # City, budget posture, category preferences, and hard no rules
├── shortlists.md   # Ranked deals with verdicts and caveats
├── purchases.md    # Bought, gifted, or expiring vouchers with next actions
└── incidents.md    # Booking failures, merchant disputes, refund attempts, support notes

Quick Reference

Use the smallest file needed for the current task.

Topic	File
Setup and activation behavior	setup.md
Memory structure and status model	memory-template.md
SAVE scorecard and output format	deal-qualification.md
Merchant trust and fine-print checks	merchant-checks.md
Category-specific watchouts	category-playbook.md
Refund, booking, and support recovery	recovery.md

Core Rules

1. Start with intent, not the discount badge

• Capture the real job first: category, city, date window, party size, budget, and travel tolerance.
• Distinguish "find something fun under budget" from "check whether this exact voucher is worth buying."
• A 70% headline discount is irrelevant if the user cannot redeem it on the needed day or for the needed group size.

2. Run the SAVE screen before recommending anything

Use the SAVE workflow from deal-qualification.md:

• Scope the real use case and deal type.
• Assess merchant quality and booking friction.
• Verify every restriction in the fine print.
• Estimate the true out-of-pocket cost and redemption effort.

No recommendation is complete until SAVE ends with a clear verdict.

3. Treat fine print as blocking data

• Always read the restriction block, not just the title and hero price.
• Check validity windows, excluded days, one-per-person rules, "new customers only" language, auto-gratuity, add-ons, taxes, paid value vs promo value, and required booking channels.
• If any critical term is missing or ambiguous, say so plainly and downgrade confidence.

4. Optimize for redeemability, not theoretical savings

• Prefer deals the user can actually book this week, in the right neighborhood, with acceptable scheduling friction.
• Penalize phone-only booking, narrow redemption windows, poor recent reviews, and merchants that seem hard to reach.
• If the merchant fit is weak, recommend a better option even when the headline discount is smaller.

5. Separate deal types before making policy claims

• Local services, goods, getaways, and ticketed offers behave differently on booking, shipping, expiration, and refunds.
• Do not promise refund outcomes from memory alone. Confirm the live deal type, voucher status, and current Groupon policy before giving a final answer.
• In post-purchase workflows, document whether the voucher is unused, booked, redeemed, shipped, or disputed.

6. Keep money-impacting actions user-approved

• The agent may search, compare, shortlist, draft support messages, and guide checkout or redemption.
• Buying, gifting, booking, marking redeemed, or submitting a refund request needs explicit user confirmation.
• Never store payment details, login secrets, full voucher barcodes, or claim codes in local files.

7. Leave a decision-ready output every time

Return the final recommendation in this structure:

Verdict: Recommend | Recommend with caveats | Skip
Best fit: [deal or category]
Why it wins: [up to 3 bullets]
Blocking terms: [if any]
True cost: [price + known extras]
Next step: [buy now, hold, compare, contact merchant, request support]

Common Traps

Trap	Why It Fails	Better Move
Ranking by discount percent alone	Inflated list prices make weak offers look amazing	Compare true cost, merchant quality, and redemption friction
Ignoring neighborhood and timing	A cheap deal two neighborhoods away at the wrong hour is not value	Score location, travel time, and usable dates early
Skimming past "restrictions apply"	The deal can become unusable for weekends, groups, or repeat visits	Read the full fine print before any recommendation
Assuming every voucher refunds the same way	Groupon rules vary by deal type and current status	Classify the deal first, then use recovery.md
Treating service deals like retail products	Trust, availability, and upsells dominate the real outcome	Run merchant checks and booking friction checks
Recommending merchants with stale or weak signals	Closed, overloaded, or badly rated merchants create support pain	Use recent reviews and direct booking clues, not score alone
Jumping to checkout without extras	Mandatory gratuity, taxes, parking, drinks, or upgrades erase savings	Estimate true cost before telling the user to buy
Logging sensitive voucher details	Local notes can become a privacy or fraud problem	Store only what is needed to follow up safely

External Endpoints

Endpoint	Data Sent	Purpose
https://www.groupon.com/*	search terms, city or ZIP, deal URLs, and normal browser navigation signals	discovery, fine-print review, and support page lookup
https://help.groupon.com/*	issue categories, deal type references, and support navigation	refund, booking, and policy verification

No other data is sent externally.

Security & Privacy

Data that leaves your machine:

• Search terms, location context, and deal URLs sent to Groupon pages during discovery and verification.
• Optional support or booking context the user explicitly asks to submit.

Data that stays local:

• Preferences, shortlist decisions, and follow-up notes in ~/groupon/.

This skill does NOT:

• Access files outside ~/groupon/
• Store payment cards, login secrets, or full voucher codes
• Buy, redeem, or request refunds without explicit user approval
• Claim merchant quality or refund certainty when the evidence is weak

Trust

By using this skill, deal-search context may be sent to Groupon and, when the user chooses to proceed, to the merchant tied to a specific offer. Only install if you trust Groupon and the selected merchant with that context.

Scope

This skill ONLY:

• Finds and compares Groupon offers
• Screens merchants, restrictions, and usable value
• Guides checkout, booking, and recovery workflows with explicit approval boundaries

This skill NEVER:

• Guarantee availability, savings, or refund outcomes
• Hide uncertainty about fine print or merchant quality
• Spend money or reveal voucher secrets without the user's instruction

Related Skills

Install with clawhub install <slug> if user confirms:

• buy — evaluate real value, compare alternatives, and avoid bad purchases
• shopping — broaden the search when Groupon is not the best channel
• booking — plan reservations and compare travel or stay options
• tripadvisor — validate hospitality and attraction quality with broader review signals
• travel — connect local offers with larger trip planning decisions

Feedback

• If useful: clawhub star groupon
• Stay updated: clawhub sync