Best Buy to Match Back to School Promo with $100 Store Gift Card

[tigress666]

Circuit City used to have well paid employees who actually took the time to know the product they were selling. You could see they took the job seriously because the pay was good. Except for the annoying attempts to sell warranties for everything, I enjoyed shopping there. When they laid off most everyone in order to hire people back at small wages I wrote their corporate office a nasty letter telling them how much money I had spent their and how I would not be shopping there anymore knowing the service was about to become bad ad that I supported the quality employees they just discarded without a thought. I finished by saying I sincerely hoped their business suffered for this so bad that they had to close shop. I got some bogus reply about their rationale for firing those people. It didn't take long for my vision of their demise to come about. They were in bankruptcy not many years later. I guess I was not the only one who stopped spending my money there.

Hate to say it but I suspect more likely was they were in trouble when they scaled back employees. The scaling back of employees probably though hastened it rather than helped (it takes money to make money so when a company gets to a certain point, it gets much harder to save the business cause some of the measures you can do to save money might harm your business even more. They may have been better off cutting back somewhere else but apparently did a failed attempt at saving themselves. I also thought they should have spent some money updating their store's look... people don't like shopping in places that look run down. Make a place look shiny and new and people want to stay longer and think to check out more stuff cause maybe you have something shiny and new to buy. Plus it makes your products look dreary if they are in a dreary store).

I miss Circuit City. And yeah, I used to get really good help at Circuit City. If nothing else, they were willing to help you (never really got that experience at Best Buy). Especially since I refuse to buy anything at Best Buy (never ever had good service there. And had at least one incident that pissed me off enough to not spend money on there on principle). I have a similar hope to yours about CC about Best Buy, that their horrid customer service bites them in the butt one day. I do note they got listed as one of 2010's top most hated company *grin*.

 

[GREEN4U]

Poor service and staff isn't even Best Buy's biggest issue. It's the simple fact that their prices just aren't that good. I can buy the same things from Amazon or eBay for cheaper. That said, I haven't bought anything from Best Buy in a long long long time. In fact I can't even remember ever buying anything with my own cash (usually were all from gift cards from birthdays/christmas, etc).

Still, between an iTunes and Best Buy gift card, the Best Buy GC is the lesser of 2 evils.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Hate to say it but I suspect more likely was they were in trouble when they scaled back employees. The scaling back of employees probably though hastened it rather than helped (it takes money to make money so when a company gets to a certain point, it gets much harder to save the business cause some of the measures you can do to save money might harm your business even more. They may have been better off cutting back somewhere else but apparently did a failed attempt at saving themselves. I also thought they should have spent some money updating their store's look... people don't like shopping in places that look run down. Make a place look shiny and new and people want to stay longer and think to check out more stuff cause maybe you have something shiny and new to buy. Plus it makes your products look dreary if they are in a dreary store).

I miss Circuit City. And yeah, I used to get really good help at Circuit City. If nothing else, they were willing to help you (never really got that experience at Best Buy). Especially since I refuse to buy anything at Best Buy (never ever had good service there. And had at least one incident that pissed me off enough to not spend money on there on principle). I have a similar hope to yours about CC about Best Buy, that their horrid customer service bites them in the butt one day. I do note they got listed as one of 2010's top most hated company *grin*.

No doubt they were likely in trouble when they scaled back. But my point is that taking that approach to "fix" things was the wrong decision. Getting rid of the quality employees was the wrong move. As you said it probably hastened the end. They might as well have closed up shop because they wrote the end right there.

There were probably ways they could have done it differently. They could have closed some stores and laid off a few people. Trying to hold on to some would show it wasn't the desire to switch to a permanent business model of low wage employees who will never be bothered to learn about the product they sell. Sometimes laying off people is the only choice but that large scale shift just changed the entire company for the worse. Of course there were probably ways to save money that would have made life for the top brass less enjoyable. Bonuses were probably the last to go.

Yeah BB just rubs me wrong. I have gone in there on occasion when I had no choice and it is so frustrating. I once asked a group of employees if they had any mini-toslink cables. They looked at me like I was insane. They had never heard of a toslink cable that could go into a miniplug like on a mac laptop. I guess if its not on their shelves it doesn't exist. LOL

 

[Ozbotic]

You said the following earlier:

"Though I'm kind of disappointed in the fact that they're not giving us an ipod touch for the BTS promotion, I'm actually quite glad that I'll be receiving a $100 itunes card. Spending money on that macbook pro was probably going to halt my itunes purchases for sometime, but now it seems like i'll have plenty of money to purchase ipod touch apps as well as apps in the mac store."

Whats your point?

That I said that i was happy about the itunes card? Yes I was until this other deal came up. In this situation I saw the glass as half full instead of complaining how I hate apple for not giving ipod touches instead.

Or is your point that I would have money to spend on the app store and now I said I may only use $50-$25 dollars in the app store?
I did say plenty(plenty as in more than enough). I don't NEED $100 dollars in an app store but if that was the only thing apple was going to hand out to us then so be it i'll take it.

 

[funnyatleast]

Well I wasn't too happy with this new apple change but BB gave me hope, NOW IT ALLLLL GONE!.

I called 3 BB and they said they will give the giftcard but WILL NOT take the 100 dollars off of the laptop.

I guess I will go with Apple....

Macbook pro (no tax area)
1200-100-90 (selling itunes GC)=1010
This really sucks since last year I only paid 900ish with the ipod.

 

[malman89]

Regardless of where people go to buy their new Macs, it seems like Best Buy is the clear favorite to trade in old Macs.

I have a 2007 C2D White MacBook, 1 GB RAM, 500 GB 7200rpm HD (self upgrade), and the 8x SuperDrive.

Best Buy will give $558 gift card credit for it or something like $375 to cut a check. Looking around at used Mac trade in sites, I'd be lucky to get $350 from them. So at best, I'd get a little more trade in if I went the check route, or a heck of a lot more if I got a gift card.

Although my laptop is in pristine condition (no scratches except minor underside ones), no stains, blotches, etc., it is 4+ years old. I wouldn't find someone to buy it for $500 unless it was a friend (of family) or a sucker.

 

[Emilio G]

I feel I should share my BB experience with you guys since it was a bit of a roller coaster ride.

My wife and i bought a 21.5" iMac with the i5 processor last Monday (week ago today) at the Best Buy in Wellington, FL. We find out about the BB promotion last night thanks to MacRumors. I call the Best Buy we bought it from and they tell us that since the iMac was on sale ($1159 down from $1199), they'd have to resell it to us at retail price THEN they'd be able to give us an iTunes GC for $100, not a BB GC. Seeing as how we wanted the BB GC, we said "thank you" and hung up, feeling it wasn't worth the hassle.

After reading all of you guys' posts on there last night and some today, I decided to go back to the BB we purchased the iMac from. I talked to a BB rep there and told him about the promotion. He said he had to go to talk to his manager and he'd be right back. Few minutes later, he returns telling me that Best Buy is currently not doing any kind of price matching concerning the Apple promotion. He also told me that I should maybe call back in a few days to see if things have changed. I told him about the MacRumors article and he repeated what he said earlier. I thanked him for his time and let him go on his way.

His answers didn't really sit well with me so I called another Best Buy in another part of the city (Palm Beach Lakes). I speak to an AWESOME rep there (name is Darrell) that confirms the $100 BB GC. I tell him that I was currently at another store and that they tell me they haven't heard of the promotion. I also tell him my story of recently buying the iMac and he informs me that I still qualify and that he'd like for me to give MY cell phone to one of their customer service reps. I do just that and the rep I speak to says he has to talk to his Supervisor. Turns out that the SUPERVISOR was the same rep that told me there was no price matching or promotion. Should have seen the guys face once he knew what was going on.

After that, the Customer Service Relations Manager comes out and does the paperwork to not only keep our purchase at the sale price we paid just a week ago but also gave us the $100 BB GC. It was extremely satisfying to see that SUPERVISOR'S face knowing that not 15 minutes ago, he lied to my face and told me there was no promotion to only witness us getting that $100 BB GC.

Last thing I'm going to post here, to help anyone out who might experience the same BS we experienced or to help refresh the memory of any forgetful reps, is the SKU number for the promotion:

2953989

I'm pretty sure that should be nationwide for all BB's but I could be wrong. It might just be our region or it might be nationwide. Either way, you can at least walk into your Best Buy and tell them that the promotion is valid and that is the SKU number they need for it.

Recap:

Bought our iMac on Monday (6/13/11) for $1159 (down from $1199)
Best Buy $100 GC offer is good with SKU number 2953989

If you frequent the Palm Beach Lakes BB store, Darrell is the man that really looks out for customer's as he went above and beyond for us, not in person, but OVER THE PHONE.

Sorry for the long story but I felt that I needed to get it out there that the promotion is valid and that the SKU number is 2953989.

Enjoy

 

[Shanpdx]

Regardless of where people go to buy their new Macs, it seems like Best Buy is the clear favorite to trade in old Macs.

I have a 2007 C2D White MacBook, 1 GB RAM, 500 GB 7200rpm HD (self upgrade), and the 8x SuperDrive.

Best Buy will give $558 gift card credit for it or something like $375 to cut a check. Looking around at used Mac trade in sites, I'd be lucky to get $350 from them. So at best, I'd get a little more trade in if I went the check route, or a heck of a lot more if I got a gift card.

Although my laptop is in pristine condition (no scratches except minor underside ones), no stains, blotches, etc., it is 4+ years old. I wouldn't find someone to buy it for $500 unless it was a friend (of family) or a sucker.

you might want to try eBay Instant Sale, earlier i sold my macbook it worked out well.

$558 gift card for a 2007 model, I had take it

 

[big dad]

IMO apple still has the better deal. Student's discount, free printer plus the $100 card.

 

[MacinDoc]

IMO apple still has the better deal. Student's discount, free printer plus the $100 card.

...not to mention discounted HDD and processor and graphic card upgrades, and significantly discounted AppleCare (discounted RAM upgrades, too, but I wouldn't bother with them at the Apple Store). Really, no BB offer can match the Apple Education Store's current offers, even without the free iPod.

 

[Centient]

Circuit City used to have well paid employees who actually took the time to know the product they were selling. You could see they took the job seriously because the pay was good. Except for the annoying attempts to sell warranties for everything, I enjoyed shopping there.

Yeah I remember going to the CC computer department and having conversations with staff that knew more than I did and were actually helpful. That was 10-15 years ago though. When they stopped being a commissioned based enterprise they lost their advantage over BB.

By the time they closed, most CC's were just drab, poorly staffed stores run teenagers and managers in their mid-20's. The same kind of staffing situation you'd find at your local Burger King.

 

[monaarts]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Best buy in kennesaw, ga won't give the $100 gift card.

Please post any other stores in Georgia that will honor both the student discount and $100 gift card - I'm looking to purchase an iMac this weekend.

 

[MacNJDevs]

Ok so had a great experience in a BB in NJ. went in for a new macbook pro and the sales person was awesome new about everything and the promotion that was going on. I got the edu discount and the $100 GC plus an HP photosmart printer for $60 and since I used my BB Card got no interest financing and reward zone points. So idk about everyone else but that beats what apple could have done for me.

 

[nizmoz]

I got my new MBP and was able to get the $100 GC at Best buy. They would not discount the $59 additional amount to match what Apple showed on their website even after a bunch of fighting, but got the GC, tax exempt and my pro. Now I just need to think what I want to use the GC on.

 

[Vudoo]

I got my new MBP and was able to get the $100 GC at Best buy. They would not discount the $59 additional amount to match what Apple showed on their website even after a bunch of fighting, but got the GC, tax exempt and my pro. Now I just need to think what I want to use the GC on.

How did you manage to get it tax exempt? Texas has a sales tax.

 

[nizmoz]

How did you manage to get it tax exempt? Texas has a sales tax.

I work for a school and we are tax exempt.

 

[superstarmc]

best buy card is the better deal. with 100$, u can buy more than just crap off the mac app store like a sleeve for ur macbook or put it towards apple care. actually, get best buy to match the education discount on apple care which i think knocks 100 off it, than use the best buy 100 card on it too, so u get apple care cheap for macbook pro XD

My question is if you get $100 gift card and you buy a $950 MacBook air could you put the $100 gift card towards the Mac and get the $950 MacBook for $850?

 

[panda bear]

My question is if you get $100 gift card and you buy a $950 MacBook air could you put the $100 gift card towards the Mac and get the $950 MacBook for $850?

No. You get the gift card after the transaction is completed.

If you try to return the MBA and use the gift card, that does not work, because when you return the MBA, you also return the gift card.