Dr. Black Jack
Member
I've been buying new releases from Best Buy almost exclusively for the past 3-4 years thanks to the various incarnations of Gamers Club/Best Buy Rewards, but lately they've made it a giant pain in the ass to preorder or plain out order games:
GCU no longer stacks with Black Friday prices, which isn't super unreasonable but kinda bullshit considering that many people bought multi-year GCU memberships with Black Friday in mind.
Games with limited supply/niche games can "sell out" of preorders instantly and not become available again before release, meaning that you basically have to sit around your computer on CAG or whatever waiting for the listing to go live to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a preorder in. This happens far more frequently with Best Buy versus other retailers, thanks GCU!
Instore preorder kiosks are gone, so you now have to go to the Instore Pickup counter to make an instore preorder, which involves whatever high school kid is running the counter to basically just search the website for you aka pulling teeth.
What items can be preordered instore versus online only are no longer clearly defined instore, which means it's a total crapshoot on whether or not you can actually place a goddamn preorder until they try at the register, wasting everyone's time and making you look like an idiot.
Online preorders, even for instore pickup, are technically charged upon shipment but constantly reauthorize the payment card until release. This makes debit cards practically unusable and can fuck up your credit limit until the authorizations drop off. No other retailer does this for that exact reason and it's why I preferred to preorder instore.
Instead of making Elite Plus better/more attractive they just nuked reward point earnings for regular and Elite members.
My online orders have been randomly canceling for "incorrect information" even though it's the exact same goddamn information that I use every time I successfully order. When I contacted customer support about it, they said that there was no good reason for my orders to be canceled but whatever, they are so just shop in store for whatever I need, completely ignoring the fact that the items I was trying to order were online only.
I'm pretty much done with them outside of a random sale/clearance deal down the road. Amazon Prime gives me the same 20% off preorders without any of the other bullshit. GCU was so damn good but it basically killed their gaming department, especially for preorders.
GCU no longer stacks with Black Friday prices, which isn't super unreasonable but kinda bullshit considering that many people bought multi-year GCU memberships with Black Friday in mind.
Games with limited supply/niche games can "sell out" of preorders instantly and not become available again before release, meaning that you basically have to sit around your computer on CAG or whatever waiting for the listing to go live to have a snowball's chance in hell of getting a preorder in. This happens far more frequently with Best Buy versus other retailers, thanks GCU!
Instore preorder kiosks are gone, so you now have to go to the Instore Pickup counter to make an instore preorder, which involves whatever high school kid is running the counter to basically just search the website for you aka pulling teeth.
What items can be preordered instore versus online only are no longer clearly defined instore, which means it's a total crapshoot on whether or not you can actually place a goddamn preorder until they try at the register, wasting everyone's time and making you look like an idiot.
Online preorders, even for instore pickup, are technically charged upon shipment but constantly reauthorize the payment card until release. This makes debit cards practically unusable and can fuck up your credit limit until the authorizations drop off. No other retailer does this for that exact reason and it's why I preferred to preorder instore.
Instead of making Elite Plus better/more attractive they just nuked reward point earnings for regular and Elite members.
My online orders have been randomly canceling for "incorrect information" even though it's the exact same goddamn information that I use every time I successfully order. When I contacted customer support about it, they said that there was no good reason for my orders to be canceled but whatever, they are so just shop in store for whatever I need, completely ignoring the fact that the items I was trying to order were online only.
I'm pretty much done with them outside of a random sale/clearance deal down the road. Amazon Prime gives me the same 20% off preorders without any of the other bullshit. GCU was so damn good but it basically killed their gaming department, especially for preorders.