Best Buy General Deals Thread

[MileHigh AI]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

Reward certificate value forfeited upon return of product or service purchased with certificate.

Since I know for a fact someone at Best Buy corporate does patrol these boards, this is an asinine decision made by douchebags.

In relation to what another member said about an online In store pick up order losing them a certificate. Best Buy better start training their people better to locate items in the store then. Personally, if I place an order like the person did and Best Buy cancels it, resulting in my certificates being the casualty and I find said product on the floor when I come in; I'm walking out the door with it as my fee for doing their job for them. I mean hey according to them "there was no available stock".

[kenbenobi]

Originally Posted by MileHigh AI

Since I know for a fact someone at Best Buy corporate does patrol these boards, this is an asinine decision made by douchebags.

In relation to what another member said about an online In store pick up order losing them a certificate. Best Buy better start training their people better to locate items in the store then. Personally, if I place an order like the person did and Best Buy cancels it, resulting in my certificates being the casualty and I find said product on the floor when I come in; I'm walking out the door with it as my fee for doing their job for them. I mean hey according to them "there was no available stock".

Changes like that should have been announced, not hidden in some fine print. And also they shouldn't be enforced on purchases made BEFORE the change went into effect. I placed my pre-order in January, when points were definitely returned to you.

[Cranberry Moonwalk]

Originally Posted by MileHigh AI

Since I know for a fact someone at Best Buy corporate does patrol these boards, this is an asinine decision made by douchebags.

Lmao. No one at Best Buy is patrolling these boards.

[weberrygt]

Any half decent company would assess the situation and determine if points should be given back. I don't mean 10, 20 times for the same person. I mean - you are somebody who has used points, you just made a return, and you just found out about the policy. If you do it again, it is now on you. 1 time though? Yeah, you should get your points back.

[ctujackbauer]

Before we grab the pitchforks and torches - that's just my reading of the T&Cs.

However, nearly the same verbiage is used in the promotional certificate section of the T&Cs.

-

F. Promotional Certificates for Non-My Best Buy Credit Cardmembers

Members who do not have a My Best Buy Credit Card may be eligible to receive promotional certificates. These certificates have no cash value, and change will not be given for redemption. Certificates may be used only once. Certificate value forfeited upon return of product or service purchased with certificate. Certificates are valid until midnight (CT) on the expiration date specified. Additional limitations and exclusions may apply. Please see certificate terms and conditions.

C. Point Redemption for My Best Buy Credit Cardmembers
My Best Buy Credit Cardmembers may redeem points toward the issuance of reward certificates, or they may also use points with certain Best Buy Partners. If you are a My Best Buy Credit Cardmember, for every 250 My Best Buy points you receive, you will be eligible to receive a $5 reward certificate. Reward certificates are coupons for discounts on future purchases at Participating Properties and may be redeemed only for a discount on purchase amounts equal to or greater than the sum of the reward certificate(s) presented for redemption, excluding “Non-Qualifying Redemptions” (see below). Reward certificates are not transferable and may be used only by the member to whom they are issued. Reward certificates may be used in conjunction with most other discounts or offers toward the purchase of products, not to exceed the purchase amount. Reward certificates have no cash value, and no change will be given for reward certificate redemption. Reward certificates may be used only once. Reward certificates expire at 11:59 p.m. CT on the expiration date shown on the reward certificate. Reward certificate value forfeited upon return of product or service purchased with certificate.

-

Maybe it's the cert disappears and your points should return. Who the heck reads these things? We need something in the FAQ specific towards reward cert return situations, or some kind of official word from corporate.

[crackedknee]

Originally Posted by ctujackbauer

Before we grab the pitchforks and torches - that's just my reading of the T&Cs.

However, nearly the same verbiage is used in the promotional certificate section of the T&Cs.

-

F. Promotional Certificates for Non-My Best Buy Credit Cardmembers

Members who do not have a My Best Buy Credit Card may be eligible to receive promotional certificates. These certificates have no cash value, and change will not be given for redemption. Certificates may be used only once. Certificate value forfeited upon return of product or service purchased with certificate. Certificates are valid until midnight (CT) on the expiration date specified. Additional limitations and exclusions may apply. Please see certificate terms and conditions.

C. Point Redemption for My Best Buy Credit Cardmembers
My Best Buy Credit Cardmembers may redeem points toward the issuance of reward certificates, or they may also use points with certain Best Buy Partners. If you are a My Best Buy Credit Cardmember, for every 250 My Best Buy points you receive, you will be eligible to receive a $5 reward certificate. Reward certificates are coupons for discounts on future purchases at Participating Properties and may be redeemed only for a discount on purchase amounts equal to or greater than the sum of the reward certificate(s) presented for redemption, excluding “Non-Qualifying Redemptions” (see below). Reward certificates are not transferable and may be used only by the member to whom they are issued. Reward certificates may be used in conjunction with most other discounts or offers toward the purchase of products, not to exceed the purchase amount. Reward certificates have no cash value, and no change will be given for reward certificate redemption. Reward certificates may be used only once. Reward certificates expire at 11:59 p.m. CT on the expiration date shown on the reward certificate. Reward certificate value forfeited upon return of product or service purchased with certificate.

-

Maybe it's the cert disappears and your points should return. Who the heck reads these things? We need something in the FAQ specific towards reward cert return situations, or some kind of official word from corporate.

As you say, before the pitchforks come out, this was exactly something I noticed around 3 years ago when I actually returned something. I got the "sale" price back. So whatever it was, say the item was on sale for $30, I used a $5 certificate, got it for $25. On the return, I get $25, and the certificate is gone, it was always just a promo discount, not a banked dollar amount. No the points related to the $5 were not refunded, only a subtraction of the points for the $25 refund. As such, it makes perfect sense, they're not going to refund a promo credit (again, it is not a banked dollar amount).

The same case applies to price match, which I ALSO discovered about 3 years ago. Whatever the price was then, let's say it was $30 and I used a certificate to get it for $25. Then it went on sale for $23. Best Buy would only refund $2, NOT $7, because I used a promo $5 already to reduce the price, i.e. already a sale price in their systme, of $25.

And frankly this makes sense, that it's a promo, given you can use it on anything, not a $5 cash prize.

[weberrygt]

Good points (no pun intended). I am pretty sure that I have gotten points back on returns, but I may be thinking about pre-orders that I cancelled, so I never actually received / purchased the product. Can anybody confirm whether they have gotten points back for items that they purchased, received, and then returned?

[surfinhank]

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by mojojojo

Good Luck…

I placed an order for the 48 Hours / Another 48 Hours combo 4k pack for in store pickup. To help offset the purchase, I issued a $5 Reward Certificate from my banked points and used it as a form of payment with my BB Credit Card.

Of course it said that it was in stock at my local BB, but I received an email reply back in less than 10 minutes that they had to cancel my order due to no available stock..

I went into my BB the following day and of course, there sat 5 copies of the item on the shelf that they canceled on me. I told the person at the register as I was physically purchasing the movies about what happened with my in store pickup order and there reply was that it was a “web” order and they couldn’t help me.

When the order was cancelled, they immediately credited my account to $0 (even though it was never charged until it was picked up anyway) BUT I never got the $5 Reward Certificate back and it wasn’t loaded back to my points.

I waited 1 week hoping it would reappear automatically before I did anything about it. After the 1 week I started a chat online that I waited 40+ minutes for it to even begin and then took another 30+ minutes for them to tell me that it was all taken care of and I should see it back in my Rewards in 24-48 hours (ironically).

Another week passed and back to the chat for round 2….
Again waiting for an agent to explain everything all over again from the purchase to the 1st chat session… 45+ minutes laster, again I was assured that it was taken care of and the agent had successfully reactivated the $5 Reward Certificate and it would be available in 24 hours.

Another week passed and now I’m on the 3rd chat session with yet another agent.
Of course it was even longer now because I had to type and explain all of the other 2 chat sessions plus the original cancellation. A hour later (3 weeks now and multiple hours of my time vested) I was finally given the $5 back in the form of 250 points under “Customer Satisfaction” even though I had asked for 750 for MY TIME that was involved with the issue that they created and failed 2x’s to remedy. Of course, the politely declined.

I hope that yours doesn’t go the same route. Unfortunately, I have continually lost faith Best Buy as have others. Between stuff like this, the deletion of tiers Elite & Elite Plus (Which I was an Elite Plus for the last 5 years and made enough purchases through December to achieve Elite Plus Status for another year only to receive the email that we all received that they were ending the program and all the perks such as 45 day returns and price matching were being discontinued. The last 3 movies that I purchased have all been reduced in price 2-3 weeks later and no longer are eligible for the price reduction.)

Rant over…….

Had a similar incident but mine involved a shipped item. Best Buy recently ran a promotion: "spend $100 outside of BB and receive a $10 reward certificate". I did, I got the certificate, placed an order last Sunday for Legion of Super-heroes when it went on sale for $14.95. Brought the total to $4.95 plus tax, shipped. A few hours later I got an email the order was canceled... no reason given - item was still available on the site. Called and spent 45 minutes asking why the order was canceled, explained the bonus reward coupon scenario, etc. Operator said they'd reissue a replacement certificate. After the call I decided to place the same order using one of my banked certificates for $5 (making the total $9.95 shipped). That order went thru and shipped the next day, however... as of today I still haven't been issued a new certificate for the (unexplained) canceled order.

Was it just a fluke? Did the amount of the total order affect the cancellation? Who knows, but I'm not spending another hour+ on the phone trying to get it resolved.

[ghostsofjoy]

Originally Posted by crackedknee

As you say, before the pitchforks come out, this was exactly something I noticed around 3 years ago when I actually returned something. I got the "sale" price back. So whatever it was, say the item was on sale for $30, I used a $5 certificate, got it for $25. On the return, I get $25, and the certificate is gone, it was always just a promo discount, not a banked dollar amount. No the points related to the $5 were not refunded, only a subtraction of the points for the $25 refund. As such, it makes perfect sense, they're not going to refund a promo credit (again, it is not a banked dollar amount).

The same case applies to price match, which I ALSO discovered about 3 years ago. Whatever the price was then, let's say it was $30 and I used a certificate to get it for $25. Then it went on sale for $23. Best Buy would only refund $2, NOT $7, because I used a promo $5 already to reduce the price, i.e. already a sale price in their systme, of $25.

And frankly this makes sense, that it's a promo, given you can use it on anything, not a $5 cash prize.

Strange. I used the recently e-mailed $5 bonus certificate on a pre-order of the Slumber Party Massacre 4K. After it delivered, I chatted in and got a $4 price match (from $32.99 to Walmart’s $28.99). If they had taken the certificate into account, it would’ve been nothing…

[50strat54]

I've never read the fine print but I've never returned anything that I bought with a certificate at Best Buy, I always feared something like this would happen. I never trusted Best Buy or any retailer to give me back the points. I have never had any faith in them, it was always get while the getting was good and I always redeemed my certificates ASAP.

I never saved them up for a big purchase but did use them when a movie I wanted was on sale.

The only time I ever returned anything I bought with a certificate was when the disc was defective but that was maybe once or twice.

This sucks but the program is basically over and a lot of things are kind of over with physical media.

I hope somewhere in the past Best Buy mispriced something and you scored. I have bought a lot of mispriced stuff from them to offset anything like this. I remember that mistake of buy a $100 gift card and get a $50 gift card free. I can't remember if I am remembering this promotion right but it is somewhere here possibly on this thread and people went crazy! Best Buy finally figured it out and shut the promotion down but not after a bunch of forum members bought hundreds of dollars of movies and other tech stuff.

and then there were the Tom Petty Anthology Live Box sets for $24.

[crackedknee]

Originally Posted by ghostsofjoy

Strange. I used the recently e-mailed $5 bonus certificate on a pre-order of the Slumber Party Massacre 4K. After it delivered, I chatted in and got a $4 price match (from $32.99 to Walmart’s $28.99). If they had taken the certificate into account, it would’ve been nothing…

Yeah, like I say mine was about 3 years ago. Then again, you never know what one customer service rep might do and what another might do differently. I've definitely gotten a price match denied, then authorized by either going into the store or calling again later. They seem to do them by hand, so maybe it's just according to what one person thinks the rules might be in that moment.

I know one other thing from years ago was I had a bunch of gift certificates from Sony Rewards. I wasn't getting points I noticed, so I went in store to ask. They said no points were awarded for gift cards because the person buying the gift card in the first place got the points (though yes, there was no such thing happening for a Sony Rewards corporate program card). For a while if you had 2 cents on a gift card and used it you got no points at all for whatever purchase you made, the use of the gift card nullified any points at all (so if you spent $100 and used 2 cents of a gift card, you got no points). Eventually they started giving points for the portion that was not covered by the gift card.

[kenbenobi]

Good news! I called this time, instead of chat. The rep transferred me to the "My Best Buy Reward Certificate department". And within a few minutes, I got my points back! The direct phone number is:
800-433-5778

Now, I'm debating going through the same hell again. I have a pre-order which used $20 in points, that I want to cancel because I ordered the same item from Target for $4 less. It won't let me cancel it, despite being 19 days ahead of its release. I could call to see if they can cancel it, but I'm not sure what will happen with that $20 certificate. The department I spoke to couldn't work on cancellations so I'd have to call back...

Is it worth multiple phone calls to save $4? Probably not. I think I may throw in the towel, and call it a day...

[veritas]

Originally Posted by kenbenobi

Good news! I called this time, instead of chat. The rep transferred me to the "My Best Buy Reward Certificate department". And within a few minutes, I got my points back! The direct phone number is:
800-433-5778

Now, I'm debating going through the same hell again. I have a pre-order which used $20 in points, that I want to cancel because I ordered the same item from Target for $4 less. It won't let me cancel it, despite being 19 days ahead of its release. I could call to see if they can cancel it, but I'm not sure what will happen with that $20 certificate. The department I spoke to couldn't work on cancellations so I'd have to call back...

Is it worth multiple phone calls to save $4? Probably not. I think I may throw in the towel, and call it a day...

We really should just have a warning up that you need to call or go in to get anything done with best buy. I had a problem and they kept saying please wait please wait longer and longer a month and a half after the problem on 3 separate chats and eventually the last person admitted that the chat function has like no ability to do much of anything.

That pissed me off more then anything. Though it does explain the terrible customer service.

I never did get those points so I guess they "win" Though their prize is just business going to other stores.

[FlamedLiquid]

Originally Posted by 50strat54

I've never read the fine print but I've never returned anything that I bought with a certificate at Best Buy, I always feared something like this would happen. I never trusted Best Buy or any retailer to give me back the points. I have never had any faith in them, it was always get while the getting was good and I always redeemed my certificates ASAP.

I never saved them up for a big purchase but did use them when a movie I wanted was on sale.

The only time I ever returned anything I bought with a certificate was when the disc was defective but that was maybe once or twice.

This sucks but the program is basically over and a lot of things are kind of over with physical media.

I hope somewhere in the past Best Buy mispriced something and you scored. I have bought a lot of mispriced stuff from them to offset anything like this. I remember that mistake of buy a $100 gift card and get a $50 gift card free. I can't remember if I am remembering this promotion right but it is somewhere here possibly on this thread and people went crazy! Best Buy finally figured it out and shut the promotion down but not after a bunch of forum members bought hundreds of dollars of movies and other tech stuff.

and then there were the Tom Petty Anthology Live Box sets for $24.

YouTube

[unsung122212]

Reading FAQs section pertaining to Reward Certificates it says this on returns:

If I return an item where reward certificates were used, do I get them back?
Yes. For active My Best Buy® Credit Cardmembers, if you made a purchase using reward certificates and your order is returned or canceled, we will refund the points to your My Best Buy account within 3–6 business days.

[tyrok]

New Releases available in store on 3/7:

[FlamedLiquid]

Originally Posted by tyrok

New Releases available in store on 3/7:

All 3 steelbooks for me

[tyrok]

Originally Posted by dmabuse

Anyone have problems picking up The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray] at Best Buy? I went to 2 stores: The first only had one copy, but the slip cover was all messed up. So then I went to a second store and they have three copies, but I couldn't buy it because it was showing up at a zero dollar amount in their system. Not sure how they can get movies on release day, print a tag for it, put copies on shelf and not know that customers can't purchase it. The steel book was coming up fine. The manager offered to hold it and I gave my number to call me when it works. This is so annoying.

It seems the steel book was not as popular as the regular 4K. There was about 6 steel books and looks like no one was buying them. For some reason the stores only got 2-3 copies of the regular 4K.

The problem is Texas Chainsaw (as well as Devotion BD/4K and the Sony steelbooks out next week) are 8 digit skus and the registers don't see them as sellable items when scanned. The upc can be typed in manually to make it work but not every cashier is going know that.

Best bet is to just order online for pickup to avoid the issue.

[NVllyRnnr]

Originally Posted by unsung122212

Reading FAQs section pertaining to Reward Certificates it says this on returns:

Nice catch! I wonder if they forgot to update the FAQ. Will have to be on the lookout for a 'stealth' update.

[Bradsdadg]

Well, if my store decides to get in new releases this week, a change from this past week, I'll get a copy of Christmas Bloody Christmas...