First, the good news: Best Buy is offering a $10 gift card to Reward Zone Gamer's Club members who buy Assassin's Creed 2 for PS3 or 360 by November 21, 2009. Sounded like a pretty good promotion, and they weren't shy about it, putting it in a free flyer, the weekly ad, and on signs hung up around the store. From every word I could absorb off these printed goods, all you had to do was be a member of the program (I am, though with some trepidation) and buy the game, and voila — $10 gift card to use for yourself, or to give to a loved one.
Now the bad news. I reached the counter, bought the game, and asked for my gift card. The cashier asked if I had a coupon. I did not. Nowhere did it say that one was required. I double-checked the signs in the store, the Web page, weekly ad, flyer acquired the week before, and so on. The only indication that there was more to it was a "Visit myrewardzone.com/gamersclub for more details," but there was nothing to indicate that more information was required or would be necessary for you to be aware of somehow.
So I said, "No, I don't have a coupon. Do I need one? The signs and ads do not say I need a coupon, nor do they say I need to go home and look online to get one." The guy informed me that I had to log into their site and dig around to find it (it wasn't easy), or that it should have been emailed to me (it definitely was not). I asked a supervisor what the deal is with this, and he confirmed that I needed a coupon to redeem their offer, which by all indications was coupon-less. I brought up again the point that nowhere did it say I needed one, and I started to think they were trying to get me to go home, waste a bunch of time looking for something that didn't exist, and lose interest, saving them $10.
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Article comments
1 - Jack
It seems as if they promote the offer but not the requirements so it makes them seem like a good place to buy your game, but they don't want people to actually use their offer because of the money they lose.
2 - Mark Buckingham
It's unlikely that many people will bother making a second trip out just to get the gift card. Luckily, I live close to the store so it wasn't too big of a waste of time. They also frequently offer a deal for "10% off any three movies or games," which they've even honored past the expiration date for me without a second glance, so this runaround was somewhat unexpected.
3 - Brian
I got this deal with MW2. I didn't even know about it until I saw the sign posted next to the game. It said ask a representitive for details. I asked at the checkout counter and he said some accounts just worked and others didn't. Mine didn't so a manager came over and asked if I received an email, which I didn't. They finally found a coupon laying around and scanned it and gave me the $10 gift card. It really only took an extra 5 minutes and it wasn't busy so it wasn't a big deal. Getting closer to the holidays, I can see how this could get annoying to customers and employees.