Picture it: a bloke with a spivvy moustache, Arthur Daley jacket and slicked back hair. He leans in and says, "Sssh, don’t tell anyone, but fancy a quick back-door glance into Amazon’s secret bargain basement?"

Yet actually this isn’t a bar-side tip, it’s a bit of high tech wizardry that lets you uncover links to 75%-off plus bargain pages, buried deep within the site.

In fact, there’s a whole a hidden rule book for Amazon, letting you slam dunk prices to smithereens and slash postage fees.

Don't assume Amazon's cheapest The Amazon business model is that it’s a one-stop shop. Yet, while it’s often cheap, however tempting it is to do all your shopping in one easy sweep, you can often undercut it.

In the same amount of time as it takes to search Amazon, you can use shopbots (shopping robots) that whiz to scores of internet retailers to find the cheapest price. My www.megashopbot.com tool auto-searches what we believe are the best of these for each category.

Amazon’s hidden bargain basement

Amazon has some stock reduced by 90% or more, but it generally doesn’t direct people to these areas, sending them to higher profit margin products instead. Yet there is a way to manipulate web links to find pages that list all 75%-99% off bargains in a section, eg, 75% to 99% off Beauty or Video Games.

The trick may sound like something out of Spooks, but it's legal and easy to do. It’s all about fiddling with Amazon web addresses (URLs) to bring up lists of knock-down prices. For those who are techie, the key is to find the “section node number”, something like 468292, add that to a search string and put "&pct-off=75-99" at the end.

If that sounds like goobledygook, there’s a raft of links to popular sections using this method and full step-by-step guide to building your own at www.moneysavingexpert.com/amazon.

The results can sometimes be great and sometimes not. But it’s a fun way to browse a hidden catalogue. Do check delivery is free though.

Monitor the perfect moment to buy

Amazon varies goods' prices, and when they're cheap, they sell out quickly. A free site lets you enter your desired price, and emails when Amazon hits it.

Simply got to www.Zeezaw.co.uk and tell it the maximum price you want to pay for Amazon items. It e-mails when the price drops to that amount or lower.

Not everything has free delivery

These days Amazon offers free delivery as standard. The free 'super saver' option usually takes 3-5 days, but not all goods qualify.

Some items do have a delivery charge, usually goods sold by Amazon marketplace sellers, rather than Amazon itself. Always check at the top of the page that it states “Your order qualifies for free delivery”. If it doesn’t, you'll pay.

Beware you don't 'pay more by default'

While Amazon lists free delivery on some products, I would urge you to double check you have selected the “super saver” delivery box at the check out. If not, the default delivery option is the expensive 1-2 days first-class option.

Get next-day delivery free too

Every so often, Amazon offers customers a free 30-day trial of its 'Prime' service, in the hope that they'll keep paying the £48 for it once the trial's over.

The service gets you free 1-day delivery, rather than its normal 3-5 day delivery. The beauty is you can sign up, order, then just cancel the trial before Amazon charges you.

There’s no automatic way to get this, it depends whether you’re offered it or not and that can vary from time to time.

To grab it, go to Amazon and click the "Amazon Prime" link on the screen's left hand side. If it says "Sign up today for your free trial of Amazon Prime", then sign up for it and shop as you usually would.

As the trial will run its course even after you've said you're not paying, cancel as soon as you've signed up. Forget to cancel, and it’ll take the money from your account - so think carefully whether you really want the service before letting that happen.

Get a free Amazon £15 voucher Accepted new Amazon credit card customers can bag a free £15 gift voucher when spending ANYTHING on it within 180 days of opening the account.

This is a nice added bonus, but ensure you always repay the card in full every month, or the 16.9% APR interest will dwarf the gain.

For more info, go to www.moneysavingexpert.com/ccfreebies which also includes info on how it affects your credit score.

Earn Amazon vouchers with online surveys If you're willing to give your views on topics like the Labour Party, lingerie or the latest moisturiser, you could earn Amazon and other gift vouchers by doing online surveys.

All you have to do is put the hours in filling in surveys online.

Extremely dedicated survey do-ers earn £200ish a year from home. These are companies like Valued Opinion, Lightspeed and MyTNS.

There's a full step-by-step guide to the top paying online survey & market research companies at www.moneysavingexpert.com/surveys Students, save 5% Students are about the only lucky folk who can get a voucher code for an instant discount.

You need a current National Union of Students Extra (NUS Extra) card to get 5% off.

Just register at nus.org.uk, for a personal promotional code to paste into the gift voucher code box, every time you order on Amazon. While it’s not valid on all departments, it does include books, music and DVDs.

Earn charity funds or Nectar points It’s possible to give charities a boost at no extra cost to you.

When you grab something on Amazon, it’s recorded and the charity is paid cash, around 5% of your purchase value.

Simply click through to Amazon from a charity’s special link, log-in and click on the product you want.

Charities that do this include Voluntary Service Overseas, The Royal National Institute for the Blind and Epilepsy Action.

Alternatively, set up a free Nectar account, log-in and click on Amazon.

You’re paid 1 Nectar point for every £1 spent. If you spent £500 at Amazon, you’d have 500 Nectar points, worth £3-ish. Considering a £500 purchase would net a charity a £25 donation, that option could be more worthwhile.

If you’re a regular cashback site user and are wondering whether it's possible to use it with Amazon, then, as far as I’m aware, none currently list it.

12 Free iTunes Downloads

iTunes is giving away 12 free downloads, one each day from 26 Dec. It hasn't specified what will be available, but there will a free song, video, app, TV episode or film.

Based on last year's giveaway, there should be some gems in there.

To grab them, just go to www.itunes12daysofchristmas.co.uk and follow the instructions.

£9.15/month phone line rental

Anyone on BT can slash the cost of line rental (the line doesn't change, just who bills). The already-cheapest line rental provider has cut its costs further.

Primus' Home Phone Saver, which includes free calls to UK landlines evening and weekends, is now just £9.15/mth - £25/year less than BT.

You must sign up via a special link to get the offer.

Go to www.moneysavingexpert.com/homephones for a full guide.