MouseSavers Newsletter Help & Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some of the frequently asked questions about the MouseSavers Newsletter.

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How do I subscribe?

To start receiving the FREE MouseSavers newsletter each month, follow the directions and fill out our newsletter sign up form.

When does the newsletter get sent out?

The FREE MouseSavers newsletter is sent out by email once a month, usually mid-morning on the 15th. If the 15th is a weekend or holiday, the newsletter will be sent out on the next business day. Delivery can take up to 24 hours. Please note that your subscription must be confirmed the day before the newsletter comes out to begin receiving the MouseSavers Newsletter that month.

How do I make sure the newsletter isn’t marked as spam?

The major email providers like Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo mail have gotten increasingly aggressive about marking email as spam, sometimes including the MouseSavers Newsletter. We do not send out spam and never have. We only send our newsletter to readers who specifically request it. However, we can’t control the spam filters that your email provider uses.

If you are finding our newsletters in your spam folder, you can manually mark the MouseSavers newsletter as “not spam” permanently. The instructions for doing this vary depending on what email provider or program you are using. Below are some generic tips and some specific instructions for popular email providers.

General Tips For Keeping the MouseSavers Newsletter Out Of Your Spam Folder

Gmail Spam Whitelist Instructions

  1. Find a recent MouseSavers Newsletter or Hot Deals mailing by searching in Gmail for “msnl@mousesavers.com” and clicking on one of the emails you find.
  2. If the mailing is in the Spam folder, click the “Not Spam” button on the toolbar above the email. If it’s not in the Spam folder, skip to step 3.
  3. Click the icon that looks like three dots in a vertical line (the “more options” icon) in the toolbar above the email.
  4. Select the “Filter messages like these” menu item
  5. You should see a form with the email address “msnl@mousesavers.com” entered at the top. You can leave the other fields blank.
  6. Click the “Create Filter” button at the bottom of the form
  7. You’ll see a bunch of checkboxes with options for what to do with our emails. Click the “Never send it to Spam” checkbox. You should see a checkmark appear next to that option (if not, click it until you see the check appear).
  8. Click the “Create Filter” button at the bottom of the form
  9. That’s it! You’re done. Our newsletter will now stay out of the Spam folder.

Outlook.com (Live.com, Hotmail.com) Spam Whitelist Instructions

  1. Usually, if you just find one of our emails in your Junk Email folder, you can just mark it not Junk once and Outlook will remember that. Just click the “Not Junk” menu above the email and select “Not Junk”. If that’s not working, follow the steps below to add msnl@mousesavers.com to your Safe Senders list.
  2. In Outlook.com, click the little gear icon in the top menu bar (the settings icon)
  3. Select “View all Outlook settings” at the bottom of the sidebar on the right that slides in
  4. Click “Junk email” in the list on the center-right of the window that pops up
  5. On the right side, you should see a section called “Safe senders and domains”
  6. Just under that heading is a piece of text that says “+ Add”. Click that text.
  7. A box will pop up with instructions that begin “Example:”. Just type “msnl@mousesavers.com” (without the quotes; just the email address).
  8. Hit “Enter” to save the email address to your Safe Senders list.
  9. Scroll down to make sure “msnl@mousesavers.com” is in the list.
  10. That’s it! You’re done. Our newsletter will now stay out of the Spam folder.

Yahoo.com Spam Whitelist Instructions

  1. Usually, if you just find one of our emails in your Spam folder, you can just mark it not Spam once and Yahoo will remember that. Just click the “Not Spam” button above the email. If that’s not working, follow the steps below to automatically filter emails from msnl@mousesavers.com into your inbox.
  2. Find a recent MouseSavers Newsletter or Hot Deals mailing by searching in Yahoo Mail for “msnl@mousesavers.com” and clicking on one of the emails you find.
  3. If the mailing is in the Spam folder, click the “Not Spam” button on the toolbar above the email. If it’s not in the Spam folder, skip to step 4.
  4. Click the icon that looks like three dots in a horizontal line (the “more options” icon) in the toolbar above the email.
  5. Select the “Filter messages like this…” menu item
  6. You should see a form with the email address “msnl@mousesavers.com” entered at the top.
  7. Select the dropdown in the middle of the box and select the folder “Inbox”.
  8. Click the “Save” button at the bottom of the form
  9. That’s it! You’re done. Our newsletter will now stay out of the Spam folder.

Can you send me a copy of the last newsletter?

Sorry, no. We use an automated system to mail the newsletter out to hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Once it has gone out, it’s very time-consuming to resend it to individuals, and MouseSavers.com is a tiny operation. For that reason, we cannot resend back issues. You’ll have to wait for the next issue. However, if you were hoping to get access to the private link for Undercover Tourist, that link is also included in most Hot Deals emails. So if you add Hot Deals to your subscription, that’s another way to get the link, possibly sooner than waiting for the next newsletter.

We have sometimes been asked why we don’t publish back issues of the newsletter on MouseSavers.com. The reason is that each issue contains private offers for subscribers only. If we put it on the site, those offers become public, which is counter to the agreement we’ve made with various hotels and ticket suppliers. We can’t continue to bring you those types of specially negotiated offers if the information is publicly distributed.

I am already a subscriber and want to add (or remove) the “Hot Deals” announcements.

If you are already receiving the FREE monthly MouseSavers Newsletter, you can also add an extra service — FREE “Hot Deals” email announcements whenever an extra-special offer becomes available in between the regular newsletters! If you later decide you don’t want to receive the “Hot Deals” emails, you can remove them from your subscription at any time.

The fastest way to add the “Hot Deals” option to your subscription is to go to the bottom of a newsletter you received and select “Update your preferences” – you can update the subscription instantly.

If you don’t have a saved back issue of the newsletter, just fill out the newsletter signup again with the same email you used originally, but select “I would also like to get the free Hot Deals newsletters.” on the signup form. You’ll get an email confirmation that your preferences have been updated, but you don’t need to do anything more.

How do I change my email address?

This is simple. You can do it yourself in under a minute!

The fastest way is to go to the bottom of a newsletter you received and select on “Update your preferences” – you can change your email address instantly.

If you don’t have a saved back issue of the newsletter, just start a new subscription at the new email address. The next time you get an email at the old address, just select “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of the newsletter you received at the email you no longer use. And if you don’t have access to the old email, don’t worry about it; the system will automatically unsubscribe that old address eventually.

I have subscribed, but I am not getting the newsletter.

Sorry, we know this is a frustrating problem, but unfortunately there is literally nothing we can do about it from our end. The newsletter is sent out mid-morning on the 15th of the month, or, if the 15th is a weekend or holiday, the newsletter will be sent out on the next business day. It may take anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours for your Internet Service Provider to receive, process and deliver it to you. Or it may not deliver it to you at all.

Because we have hundreds of thousands of subscribers to the MouseSavers newsletter, we use a bulk mailing service. Unfortunately, some Internet service providers have aggressive “spam” (junk email) filters that delete all mass-mailed items before they are even delivered. Your email system receives the newsletter, but it doesn’t end up in your mailbox. Nobody likes spam, but the aggressive filtering of bulk email is preventing newsletters and other mass-mailed items that you have REQUESTED TO RECEIVE from actually getting through!

We do not resend newsletters. Learn why we don’t resend newsletters.

If you have signed up for the newsletter and have not received it, please work your way through these suggestions:

1. Make sure you’re really subscribed at the correct address:

  1. Fill in all of the spaces in the newsletter signup form using the email address at which you should receive the subscription.
  2. Hit “Sign Me Up!”
  3. You will get one of two confirmation emails. If you get a confirmation email saying that your preferences have been updated, then you were already subscribed. If you get one saying that you need to confirm your email address, then you were not subscribed for some reason. You need to select the “Confirm” button in that email to finish subscribing.
  4. When you select the “Confirm” button in the confirmation email, this will subscribe you, and you’ll get the next newsletter. Note that until you actually select the Confirm button, you are not yet subscribed, and you must hit the Confirm button the day before the newsletter comes out to begin receiving the MouseSavers Newsletter that month. So if today is the day the newsletter is sent out, the first newsletter you get will be next month’s.

2. Most months, the newsletter goes out on the 15th. If the 15th is a weekend or holiday, the newsletter will be sent out on the next business day. If you subscribed on the day the newsletter goes out, you will not get that month’s newsletter, because the mailing goes out in the morning and is not repeated. Your subscription will start on the next month.

3. While the newsletter is sent out mid-morning on the 15th of each month (or the next business day), many times your own email system does not deliver it right away. Delivery can take up to 24 hours. So please wait until 24 hours after the delivery date before assuming you didn’t get the newsletter.

4. Some systems put all suspected “spam” into a separate email folder, which is typically labeled “bulk mail,” “junk mail” or “spam” — or something similar. You should check your “spam” folder to see if that’s where your newsletter ended up.

5. It may be possible to adjust your email settings to allow the MouseSavers newsletter to get through the filters. Sometimes this is as easy as putting newsletter e-mail address into your email address book. If that doesn’t work, many Internet Service Providers will allow you to authorize all mail from a certain address or containing a certain phrase (such as “mousesavers”). To do this, consult the online help system for your service, or call your provider for help.

6. The very simplest solution is to use a different email address in a system that won’t delete bulk mail before it’s even delivered. Gmail offers free Web-based email accounts. It does filter mass-mailed email, but doesn’t delete it — it goes into a Spam folder and from there you can tell the system “this is not spam.”

7. If you have signed up under a certain email address twice and you still aren’t getting the newsletter, use a different email address. It’s probable that the newsletter is being rejected by your provider and bouncing back to our mailing system. Once that happens 3 times, your account is automatically deleted.

It’s generally not a good idea to subscribe at work! Every month we get dozens of bounced newsletters. Usually these are from large corporations, government agencies and universities whose employees have subscribed at work. The employer bounces anything that even looks like “spam” and the employee never gets it. Eventually the address is deleted by our mailing system. Then the employee signs up again, using the same address, and the whole thing starts over.

8. If you use a spam blocker such as MailBlocks, ChoiceMail, EarthLink spamBlocker, etc., you must add newsletter e-mail address to your list of valid correspondents. If your spam blocker sends us an email requiring us to reply and/or type in a code, we will not respond and you definitely won’t receive the newsletter because your blocker won’t allow it to be delivered. You will be automatically unsubscribed.

9. Complain to your Internet Service Provider if you are not receiving emails that you have subscribed to. They need to know this information, because they WANT to fix their filters so that the mail you want gets through, and the Viagra ads don’t! The MouseSavers Newsletter is “whitelisted” (authorized) by every major ISP, but periodically one of them will suddenly decide to stop delivering it.

I receive the Hot Deals (or other short emails) from MouseSavers, but not the newsletter.

Some people have complained that they receive the Hot Deals emails but never the newsletter. We’ve occasionally received the same complaint when we’ve sent out a short text email with a correction to the newsletter: some people get the correction, but not the newsletter. Our guess is that your email provider is filtering out the newsletter because of its length.

The majority of inquiries we receive about this come from corporate addresses. It’s definitely some sort of issue with your email provider and unfortunately we can’t do anything about it. You can review our instructions above for making sure the newsletter isn’t marked as spam and also read items # 4-9 above, either or both of those may help you resolve the problem.

Also, please see the note above about why we don’t do resends. Thanks.

The newsletter formatting is not working.

If you are receiving the newsletter but the formatting is incorrect (for instance, part of the text is cut off, or the links don’t work), this is due to some unusual incompatibility between your email provider and the newsletter mailing list service. The mailing list service auto-detects which format to send you, and we are not able to make any changes to it. Luckily the system works for over 99% of subscribers. Most typically it is corporate and education (i.e. employer) email systems that don’t work with the newsletter format, probably due to the security software they are running.

If the format isn’t working in your email system, the only easy solution is to re-subscribe through a different email provider. Free Gmail accounts work fine.

I didn’t unsubscribe, but I just got a notice that I’ve been unsubscribed!

We occasionally receive inquiries from people who found themselves unsubscribed from the MouseSavers.com newsletter and who did not request to be unsubscribed.

We asked the mailing service we use for the newsletter how this could happen and we was told there are a few possible ways you might be unsubscribed without having requested it:

1. If you forwarded your newsletter to someone else without removing the “unsubscribe” link, the person to whom it was forwarded may have selected the “unsubscribe” link.

2. If you report the newsletter as “spam” to certain Internet Service Providers (such as AOL) this is reported back to our mailing service and you will be automatically unsubscribed. Also, if you are subscribed through an Internet Service Provider that sends us a spam rejection notice, we will immediately unsubscribe your address.

3. Read items #7 and #8 above, since these issues can cause you to be automatically unsubscribed.

4. In very, very rare circumstances we may manually unsubscribe and ban someone who is abusing the system. For instance, we have banned a couple of users for stealing our copyrighted work from the newsletter and republishing it under their own names. This is a very uncommon thing and we frankly doubt the people in question are wondering why they were unsubscribed.

I want to unsubscribe.

Sorry to see you go, but you can unsubscribe very easily!

The fastest way is to go to the bottom of the most recent newsletter (or any newsletter sent recently) and select “unsubscribe/change profile” – you can unsubscribe instantly.

If you don’t have a saved back issue of the newsletter, just wait for the next issue to come, and select the unsubscribe button in that mailing.