MarkRaby

In due time... -Mark-

Do you think that's too much for a lowly college student? -Mark-

Oh, man! I went to the Tuttle Crossing Best Buy (in Columbus) and they did NOT hand out tickets for the doorbuster items. No donuts or coffee either.... -Mark-

If there's a ray of hope at all to this, there might be some good news for those with hundreds of dollars in Best Buy Bucks. You know that the BB Bucks reduce the actual prices of the items, so if you're buying $300 worth of stuff and use $300 in BB Bucks, your purchase total will show $0. If the gift cards were automatically distributed, you would not get a gift card for the $300. But, last year, the cashiers had to actually manually scan the gift cards. Make sure you do not show your BB Bucks until after they have activated the gift card. This worked for me last year, and I'm hoping it will again this year. -Mark-

Heh; it's tempting, but the gas money wouldn't really make it worth it -Mark-

Eh, that's too insignificant a state for Best Buy to even worry about -Mark-

Looking at some other forums, it seems this is reaching to Parts of Iowa and Idaho as well. Maybe Best Buy just hates states that start with a vowel... -Mark-

There are 2 major Best Buy's here and 2 major Circuit City's. One of the CC and BB are very close to each other. I could definitely see a lot of people heading out to CC over BB this year. -Mark-

And you know what? Sometimes it's nice to be such a big test market. I liked being one of the very first people to be able to order salads from McDonald's or fruit from Wendy's. But then you have companies like Best Buy who take all the fun out of being a test market -Mark-

Heh. Yes, when I was in Vancouver last year (Pacific Time), I just could not get used to being 3 hours behind "the rest of people" in the US -- did not get to watch my morning CNN shows because by the time I would wake up at 7, they would already be into their 10:00 programming. -Mark-

Actually, the problem is that I was going to use my Best Buy Bucks to pay for them, which expire on Dec 3. But thank you so much for the offer. I wish I could take you up on it. -Mark-

Ah; sorry for misunderstanding you. That's a good point about us being a good test market for the "un-consumer friendly" things (of course, we don't get to be the test market for things like the personal shopping assistants who can let you in the store early on BF). I guess Ohio is just full of devil customers (but then again, I probably have a lot to do with that ). -Mark-

I thought you were saying the entire gift card idea was because of the Ohio lawsuit (ie. as part of a settlement or something). -Mark-

Yeah; lucky us - we are also the test market for a new Reward Zone program, where you earn 1 point per dollar spent (not 100), and you need 250 points to earn a $5 certificate, making the rate of return 2% instead of 3.3% -Mark-

All Best Buy stores within a 3-hour drive are doing the same thing. -Mark-

And those would be because of the Ohio lawsuit as well? -Mark-

Then I wonder why mjfrog88, in the St Louis area, also has this deal instead of the doorbusters (see this thread). -Mark-

Ohio sued Best Buy for illegal business practices (and for some reason, this shocked Best Buy....) But I don't think that is what's at play here. I would have to check the zip codes, but I think areas like Cleveland and Akron will have the doorbusters. I think it is part of the fact that we are a test market. Yep; earlier this year, they lowered our Reward Zone benefits, and to top it off they are scrapping the doorbusters for us. So, who wants to come live in Columbus? -Mark-

Yeah; if I didn't have the BB Bucks, I just wouldn't even waste my time there. There are some other deals I'm interested in (some of the 2-day sales and that 19" LCD monitor), but I sure would have preferred to spend them on that $250 digital camcorder or $379 laptop. -Mark-

Looks like they are expanding this a lot this year. Check bestbuy.com or your local paper to make sure you don't have this instead of the doorbuster deals: http://akimages.crossmediaservices.com/dyn_rppi/270.0.80.0/BestBuy/large/1124MW01cp2_rv74z.jpg I can't say I wasn't expecting this, but I'm still a little upset, and confused, at the fact that Best Buy doesn't want me to get to their store really early for any reason. -Mark-

Haha. Same here. I have no idea how I'm going to find any time for sleep between now and late Friday afternoon -Mark-

Yep. Same here. By the way, isn't it lovely to have a newspaper subscription when Thanksgiving rolls around? It'll be the first year in many years I don't have to drive to the local convenience store at 5 AM to get a paper. -Mark-

http://www.compusa.com http://www.bestbuy.com -Mark-

I don't see where it says 11/24-11/26. -Mark-

And where do you see that it's available today? -Mark-