This week I decided to purchase a new Laptop, and checking through the latest deals I decided to purchase at Staples – since they have a series of stackable bonuses and discounts that greatly reduce the price of the purchase. Here’s how it broke down:
Lenovo U310 Original Price $699 Discounted by $150 to $549 Applied Staples Ink Recycling Reward of $40, and Staples 5% Rewards coupon of $17.50. Final Price $491.50.
Pretty good savings – but it doesn’t stop there:
- Pay with Ink Bold Credit Card for 5x Ultimate Reward Points = 2457 Ultimate Rewards (min cash value of $24.57, travel value of perhaps double that)
- Log in through Staples.com using Linked Staples Rewards Card for 5% back on everything a further $24.57 in Rewards.
- Get to Staples.com by clicking through the American Airlines AA Shopping Portal for 4x AAdvantage Miles = 1966 AA Miles.
As you can, paying for something the ‘right’ way vastly reduces your cost basis, and stacking all of these different programs really do add up. However, for the first time in my 36 years I was totally stumped when I unpacked my shiny new UltraBook only to find that instead of a lightning fast computational machine, I instead was the recipient of 25 Cardboard Folders…
I called Staples Customer support to resolve, and they called this a ‘picking error’ (personally I am more inclined to think this is an employee on their last week ‘picking’ it up and putting it in their pocket error; but that’s got nothing to do with the story….) they were very apologetic, and assured me that I would receive a new laptop on Monday via UPS.
The problem occurred when they told me of their process – in order to replace/reship they had to process the order again, charging me and crediting me the full price of the laptop – $699 and that would trigger a reorder – after some initial confusion about me thinking they would be overcharging me I got with the program, agreed to the charge (that was netted out to zero by the credit) and away we go.
That was yesterday.
Today, I realized that they might have canceled the original order in the system when doing this, and thus making the AA Miles not credit to AAShopping. Therefore I called them up and said that I think I may be missing out on some ‘money’ by their error. I explained that the possible order cancelation would cost me about 2000 AA Miles that I valued at $50.
Initially the response was I should contact AA Shopping, but I calmly explained that wouldn’t work, because if the order was cancelled when I called through the replacement order then there was no reason AA Shopping would now owe me anything – so they couldn’t help.
A brief pause and the Staples Agent returned to the call, saying she would email me a $50 Credit Coupon, which I thought was more than fair, and now am waiting its arrival, along with the Laptop.
In hindsight, I realize that I may actually double dip on that coupon, because they canceled and returned the $699, not the $491.50 charge, so it is possible that AA Shopping will issue me my miles and Staples will issue me my Credit…
I certainly didn’t go out with the intention of getting one over on them, and also, I may not receive the AA miles, but it is worth thinking through possible fallout of a fix like this – and this is not the first time Staples have hooked me up with a discount or credit when I have to fix a problem over the phone that may, or may not impact my savings that were made online.
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