Got my XA2 for $439.99 thank to this Forum.

Bill,

good piece of machine, enjoy the wonderful world of HD-DVD.

"but in fine print states not on HD-DVD players"

Nice, but short on ethics. The employee and Best Buy were exploited. We all like good deals, but we all also eventually regret lost ethics.

Oh please, Best Buy has decreasing customer service left and right. They only price match when the manager feels like it, I hear people say on here that they will try to return stuff, but they have to "check it out first" and if they can't - they won't take it back. Target, Circuit City, just about anywhere has better policies than Best Buy at this point, so if you got a deal by playing their legalese against them - good for you!

So you knew that the coupon didn't apply, but are proud that the salesman missed the "fine print" and gave it to you anyway? Let's not "thank" AVS for that. $60 is a cheap price to clear your concience. I suggest you consider that.

Edit: My mistake. I misread the OP to suggest that the salesman was unaware of the fine print. If he knowingly applied the discount despite the fine print, then we'll just attribute it to Best Buy "treating him right."

There's nothing really special about being a rewards member. After all, it's free.

I wouldn't consider it ethical to pull a fast one on BestBuy, but it works both ways. I recently went to BB to purchase a new air conditioner after seeing it on their website advertised for a nice discount. At the store, the salesperson showed me a stack of these units at a significantly higher price. I mentioned seeing the sale price half an hour earlier on the web (should have printed it), so he takes me to a store "internet" terminal to check it out. What do you know, it's listed at the higher price as seen on the floor!?

I knew what I'd seen prior to heading for the store, so I tell him I feel like I'd been bait-and-switched, but he's unsympathetic until I turn to walk out of the store empty-handed; he then motions for me to follow him to another terminal. This one lists the unit at the lower sale-price, and he then "asks" his manager if he can sell for the lower price of the "national-level campaign." (Of course he knew all along the difference between these two types of terminals.)

Apparently they have in-store terminals with independent prices that differ from their external internet advertised prices that we all see from our public access. The way he presented the initial terminal to "verify" their "internet" pricing seems quite underhanded. I'll be heavily on-guard with any future dealings with BestBuy.

good that you got the bestbuy deal. I went to the local bestbuy today and the guy didn't go the extra step to manually enter the coupon. Of course, he has no obligation to do so but I wish he would so that I could be enjoying Batman Begins right now.

I agree. He manually overrode the coupon and very likely may have been told that it should apply to the product notwithstanding the rider. Good buy by the way. And to all the self-righteous ones out there maybe if you were as quick to give the OP the benefit of the doubt as you were to apply your sanctimonious "ethical" judgment we'd have a better world.

Welcome to the family

Good for you...F! Best buy, the way I see it's Karma


Djoel

Bill, enjoy the XA2. Despite a few minor hiiccups, it's been a wonderful wonderful machine.

Yes BillZ, you are indeed a nasty, bad and naughty boy! Naughty, naughty, naughty!!!

aye, laddie, that situation just warms the cockles of me heart.

I, too, got an XA2 at this price thru this coupon (gory details here) and after reading this thread, I now realize that I am a truly shameful person and that I will carry the disgrace of this immoral act with me as a badge of dishonor. The $63.60 I saved is no compensation for the damage to my eternal soul. I should take it back and rebuy it at the normal $500 price tag right now to atone for my sins.

Just kidding!!! I've already got it in the rack, updated the FW and am watching Tokyo Drift. I guess it's Hell for me!!! lolkaibai!!!

I also got mine for $439.99 w/2 free on the spot with the 12% off coupon Best Buy sent me for my birthday last month. It was valid on pretty much everything. Thanks to all who brought me to the attention of the $499 in the first place.

Well guys I gave it my best shot. Went this morning and they had 1 XA2. The salesman brought it up to the register, looked up my reward number, scanned the 12% and it did not work. He then read the fine print and denied me. Went to another BB, none in stock.

Went back this afternoon tried a different sales guy and got denied again, but bought it anyway as it still is a good deal at $500.

$499 is still a great deal on a top notch player. I would have even bought mine with no coupons or free discs also. Congrats. They are getting harder to find. Not that they were easy to find in the first place.

got mine today at BB (or at least ordered it, should have within the week). there are two different 12% coupons out there. i had one emailed to me that said it excluded hd dvd. but when i called best buy and ask them about another coupon the manager gave me one with one that could be used on any magnolia product no exclusions. Cant wait for it to come in!!

A good salesman will take the hit on the coupon to make the sale.

And the way BB pushes their practically useless exrtended warranties and their $120 Monster HDMI cables, many here don't much sympathy for them.

http://www.bestbuysux.org/

Enjoy the player!

One can only imagine the crap people try to pull there. I'm surprised they allow any returns period.

I remember (true story) some broke-azz looking woman pick up a screw off the parking lot, walk in, and claim it was part of a dishwasher she wanted to return.

"That was the only part she had left".

Extreme case yes, but places like that are targets for shiesters.

3rd time was the charm. Got the player for $439.00 after going back for a 3rd time. I will probably get flamed for this, but I went back before going out for the evening tonight and simply brought the coupon up to the return area with my receipt. At this point I simply told the girl I had been in 1 hour prior and bought the XA2 and when I got home realised I had a 12% off coupon that I could have used. She did not even look at the coupon, threw it behind the computer, figured out the 12% difference from $499 and credited my card for $64.?? after tax.

I could have lived with $499 just fine, but honestly it bugged me that so many on here were successfull with the coupon and I was determined to get it at this price. Do I feel bad for doing this? Lets just say I wont loose any sleep tonight

I'm amazed a BB employee actually correctly figured out the 12% difference!




(I keed, I keed...)

Well it did take 2 calculators for whatever reason

Yeah, they use the calculators that can only do a maximum of 10% at a time...

It all makes sense now!

enjoy the player, man!

Someone said they had heard from a friend that BB doesn't take back returns. But Best Buy never raises an eyebrow when I bring back returns. I've brought back a dehumidifier because it was too loud, headsets because they were not good value for the price, DVDs with factory defects, and occasionally I return small accessories as excess if I decide I don't need them. They're always gracious with me.

The only thing they ever contested (and I don't blame them, it was a bigger ticket item): they could not sell me the DVI-supported monitor for my new PC system for some reason, so I actually did buy that system elsewhere and then returned, unopened, the analog display they sold me and told them I needed to cancel the backordered PC. A manager worked me hard to change my mind, but I was firm, and they politely backed down after a few minutes. They were smart to do so - I've remained a good customer.

I seem to recall hearing a consumer or state attorney general lawsuit was lodged against BB due to the in-store "public" versus "internal" price differences mentioned, though - if so, that sounds pretty egregious.

Yes, it can be dog-eat-dog, their (BBs) old warranty plans (pre-2002?) were begging for abuse practically. I knew cases of people "accidentally" breaking things to get a full price refund in store credit and upgrade to a new model. Or in your case, that's total crap, and NO store would do anything about that unless they are totally stupid or the cashier is weak-hearted or malicious enough to "refund" her in whatever way. This is in a different class of ripping-off the company, I don't really advocate this. I did it once with a truly faulty TV that would NOT accept a component signal right (colors were moire-d). But, maybe a little known secret - Sharper Image stores will refund big ticket items with the full price up to 1 year in the form of store credit. Now, that's a return policy!

But as for discounts, Best Buy will try to charge you higher prices all the time, and you have to fight them even for a real discount. They have at least 4 different pricing schemes (Internal website, internal stock computer, external internet website, in-store prices) to confuse J6P or just any customer. Heck, I tried to get them to match ANYONE on the 300 HD DVD, "No" one Store Manager told me, "We cannot match their emergency pricing as it is below cost". So, you're making NO money on these discs? Riiiiigggghhhtt. This is the same crap in reverse. BB has a price match policy that they choose to follow when they feel like it. Circuit City was more than happy to ring it up at Walmart's price plus 10% and give me the extra stuff from behind the counter for the release.

No other retailer does this to my knowledge, or has coupons with minuscule discounts that exclude a bunch of stuff in fine print, or print confusing exclusions in ads. It's all lawyering, plain and simple - mostly they win - sometimes you can win if you try.