How good is Columbia House Club? (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Porter]

I was thinking about joining their DVD club. I want to start to get seriously collecting so I thought this might be good. What do ya'll think? What are the good and bad points/pros and cons?

~Kevin

 

[Patrick Cate]

I can only offer my opinion on CH based on my experience with their VHS club I joined years ago. They may have changed some of their policies since then. Basically the pro's of joining the club are that you get a lot of movies up front for little, if any money. The con's are that as part of your club agreement you are obligated to buy a certain number of movies at the regular price within a specified time. Unless they've changed from when I joined them, their regular price will be the full MSRP price. Also they will send you each month a letter or postcard that will tell you about their latest releases and will list the movie choice of the month (or something like that) which you will have the return to them each month if you don't want the movie. Otherwise they will send it to you automatically. In my opinion I basically think CH is a waist of time and money. With the all the great internet stores like Amazon and others which heavily discount DVD's, you will in the mid and long run save a ton of money rather than buying from CH. Plus you will have the freedom to buy as many movies as you want, whenever you want.

 

[Dave H]

The bottom line is this with Columbia House: from a choice of thousands of DVDs, you can purchase seven titles which average out to less than $10.OO a piece, including shipping and handeling. Columbia House is the best deal I know; I have done it twice. Check out the DVD Talk.com site for details under "dvd clubs." There is tons of info. on how to maximize your orders with the RIGHT codes and purchases.

 

[Paul_Medenwaldt]

I just finished my obligation to the CH DVD Club and thought it was OK. They are really good about getting new release right away unlike the music club which takes months to get a new release. You can also do advanced orders for new releases. The only thing that troubled me was the prices. I believe that for the releases i purchased at regular price were all at 24.95 each which is about $7 more then i would of paid at like best buy or an online store, and thats not including s&h. So figure out the initial promo they have which i believe is 4 movies for .49 each then your first movie is 14.95 then 3 more at the average price of 24.95 and boom you have your deal. Your looking at about $10 a movie not including s&h. Also whats really nice is the online response. Instead of sending back the monthy card you can go online and accept or decline the montly selections.

Paul

 

[Marty M]

I, too, just finished my obligation to CH. If you only purchase the minimum of DVD's then you will come out ahead. The other thing to do is to call Customer Service and request that you be put on a Preferred Customer status. This way you won't be required to send back the cards. You only have to send in the card when you want to order a DVD. You can request to be put on Preferred Status right away, even before you have purchased the minimum.

 

[Ted Lee]

as already stated, do it the "right" way and you'll come out ahead.
here's the link from dvdtalk.
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...hreadid=107726
it's does a great job detailing the best way to maximize your purchases and also lists what titles will give you the best deals.

 

[Jeff Swindoll]

I dont know if this will sway you or not, but the last straw for me was when they had a pro pan&scan article in their mailer (all the time claiming to be unbiased).

It was very difficult for me to find my fulfillment selections since I could always find the DVDs I wanted for much cheaper on www.dvdpricesearch.com. Their shipping prices were outrageous, you're paying priority mailprices(maybe even UPS price) for bulk shipping. Luckily they had a free shipping special and I was able to fulfill my obligation and told them to go and pan&scan themselves . Cheers.

 

[James D]

It's definitely worth it. As already mentioned, you can work it out to be less than $10 per disc. Also, they have just landed a contract with Fox and are now making available for enrollment quite a few 5 star edition DVDs. They sometimes offer a 10% off online discount for fulfillment titles and DVDs that had an original price of $20 would still count as fulfillment even though the sale price is $18. You can also have 2 simultaneous open accounts per address. If you work it right, it's the best bargain going today.