Earlier this week, I wrote about using the best credit card for your purchases and not to worry about the warranty benefit. To recap, I purchased a Drobo device at TigerDirect for $699.99 through the Discover portal and calling in their customer service to price match the product. Reader Hua left a great comment in the post:
I like the price protection provided by Chase on the CSP and some of their other cards… They just send a check for the difference.
I followed the advice and called up Bank of America. Unfortunately, the Alaska Airlines credit card does not offer that feature.
Not Everything Goes According To Plan:
I had everything lined up where I would receive nearly $130 in a price match. It’s too bad that I missed this line in their terms and conditions with my emphasis:
Exclusions from the Point of Sale Price Match Policy: The Point of Sale Price Match Policy does not apply to bundled items, free items, pricing errors, items of service, mail-in offers, offers including financing, out of stock, items offered below TigerDirect.com’s actual cost, or limited quantity items, clearance items, open-box items, and used/refurbished items.
The customer service representative said they could only go as low as $625.67 instead of matching the $571.99 price. I didn’t press them and say things along the lines of “cancel my order” to push the price lower. I probably should have pressed further, but I just said OK because of the 20% cashback from Bank of America.
Bottom line, I received a store credit for $74.25. After the BankAmeriDeal, I would pay $120 less and almost a free hard drive for the combo. After accounting for the gift card, it came out to be $516.58. Still, not a bad deal, but not executed entirely as planned.
Hmm… well that’s too bad but still sounds like a good deal.
One thing I learned about using the CSP price protection benefit is that if you use gift cards the protection will apply up to the amount paid on the credit card. What I found with one of my price match attempts is that if you are price matching at Best Buy, the Reward Zone/My Best Buy rewards certificates function as a discount. The way this appears iis that the original price of an item is just lowered rather than treated as a different form of payment… My supposedly wonderful price match claim didn’t go quite according to plan as the discounted price of my item was lower that I anticiapted (and lower than I listed on the form) and therefore I didn’t get as back as much as I had expected.