A new Best Buy Preferred Customer Weekend (1 Viewer)

[Andrea W]

Well, that was easier than I thought. Here's a PDF of the coupon I got in my email:

http://darius.mobius-soft.com/~andrea/bbrzcoupon.pdf

It's for memberships that expire on 7/31/04 and the coupon is good through 8/4/04.

Please be nice to my web site and don't post the link on other sites (can you say FW?)...

 

[nolesrule]

My membership doesn't expire till 8/31. I hope they do this again next month.

 

[Malcolm R]

Should this coupon work with any membership, or are they somehow bar-coded to a specific person?

 

[Andrea W]

Good question. This morning, I used the one I posted. So someone needs to try to use it (again) and then let us know. Or if someone else receives this coupon in their email, let us know if the UPC is different than the one on the coupon I posted.

 

[DeborahK]

Thanks, Andrea! I, too, expire on 7/31. I was not going to renew it this year, but all of a sudden I need to buy a new television for my mother's house, and so it seems worth it. I am going to do this on Saturday, so hopefully this will work.

Deborah

 

[Dick White]

Ummmm....memory check. RZ hasn't been around that long. It just started a little over a year ago.

I'm a little irritated to hear they are now giving bonus points that make it free. I waited until about 3 weeks before mine expired to renew it and got nothing. The cashier who renewed it told me I would get some bonus points and needed to go to the website to get them, but it turned out to be the bonus points for giving them an email address, which I did long ago.

 

[Andrea W]

Perhaps he was in one of the test markets. I think CA did one of the pilot RZ programs to test the waters...

 

[DeborahK]

Yes, California was a test market for RZ -- this will be my third year if I renew. The first two years were free.

I looked over Andrea's printed cert more carefully, and think that it probably is specific to her, because it mentions how much she earned in certs over the last year. I only earned $25 to her $125, so my guess is that she is being offered this deal because she spent way more at Best Buy last year than I did.

Those of you who are also set to renew on 7/31 (or earlier) and did not receive a similar special offer: Did you also spend this much (or more) or is my theory correct?

Thanks,

Deborah

 

[DeborahK]

Okay, I went back and checked the RZ renewal offer I got by e-mail from Best Buy. They offered me three months free if I renewed by 7/14 -- not a very impressive offer, so I passed. Also, the bar code on my cert was most definitely different than the one on Andrea's cert. So, it looks like different offers for different folks, depending on their level of spending.

Hope that helps,

Deborah

 

[Carlo_M]

As of last month I had only accrued about $70 in certs. But I bought a laptop last month and just yesterday got $65 in certs to total about what she had. But that wasn't until yesterday.

And yes, it does have her total on the coupon, but nothing else seems to identify it is for her only (no name). That UPC is a generic UPC code, and then it has instructions to the cashier to renew member.

The only way I could see it fail is if they are keeping track on the back end of who has received that PDF file (i.e. they scan your RZ code, it connects to a master computer that manages the RZ file, that computer also would have had to keep track of who they sent out that card to, and then that computer would have to tell the cash register not to allow the transaction).

Regardless, nothing on that sheet indicates Andrea's account so she won't get in trouble if anyone here tries to renew off of that PDF file (the UPC is pretty generic, I'm fairly sure that anyone who received that PDF file has the same UPC code).

 

[DeborahK]

Hi, Carlo,

I guess it is worth a try. But might not the UPC code on the cert be tied to her account? For what it is worth, the UPC on the offer I got was different.

Deborah

 

[Carlo_M]

Could be, but they'd have to do it for every single account, which is a lot of work.

Also your offer was different. You had three months free, she had "get 2 certs". That alone would warrant different UPCs.

 

[DeborahK]

It is possible that the UPC code goes with the offer and not with the account -- I did wonder if that might not be the case. I guess we will not know for sure until someone tries it.

Don't you think it's odd, however, that you did not receive any offer to entice you to re-up? Seems to me that you should have gotten something close to what Andrea got.

Deborah

 

[Andrea W]

My gut feeling is that my UPC code is different from yours, Deborah, because we got different offers. Someone posted over at DVDTalk that they got the same email coupon that I got. I just asked him to compare our UPC codes. I'll post here with the answer.

And I did not edit the email in any way before converting it to a PDF file. There was nothing about my account number or my name on it. Just the mention of the $125 in certs I earned last year (thanks, in part, to a TV purchase by my parents ).

Also, someone at DVDTalk had trouble getting my PDF file to work. I created a new one that is PDF 1.2 (Acrobat 3) compatible (and is of a little bit better quality, too). So if anyone is having trouble with the PDF link, here's the alternate (which worked for the guy at DVDTalk who was having trouble with it):

http://darius.mobius-soft.com/~andrea/bbrzcoupon2.pdf

 

[Andrea W]

The person on DVDTalk that received the same coupon I did via email reports that the UPC is the same as mine. So this seems to be a generic coupon that should work for anyone.

 

[Carlo_M]

Sweet, thanks for checking!

Still one more potential hurdle though, and that is if the "master RZ computer" keeps track of who that coupon was sent to, and denies someone who tries to use it upon renew.

Deborah, I think I may not have gotten the coupon because up until just recently this week, I only had $70 in certs. The additional $65 was due to a recent laptop purchase....

 

[Andrea W]

I don't think their system is that sophisticated. They can't even link bestbuy.com purchases to your RZ membership!

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Well, I'll try it out tonight and report back. Thanks for posting, Andrea!

 

[Carlo_M]

Anxiously awaiting your reply, Mark!

I'm going to hold off and see if I get one "on my own merit"

Of course if July 30th rolls around and still no dice, I'm going to try too (if you're successful).

And thanks for sharing, Andrea, even if it doesn't work out!

 

[DeborahK]

I see two potential hurdles: 1. Will they accept the coupon in the store when you try to renew; 2. will people who are using someone else's coupon to renew actually ever get the two promised certs. There could be some checking before the certs are mailed -- especially is they get flooded with these coupons and get suspicious.

I have to confess that I have a few ethical qualms about claiming something to which I am technically not entitled. But it will be intertesting to see what happens with Mark tonight. And even then, only time will tell I guess.

Deborah