30% off cupon "hack"

B

B. W.

2[H]4U
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Messages
2,178
This info has been passed around all over the 'net this week:

"BestBuy has interesting "Back to School" coupon booklets at their stores. It's interesting because they appear to give you random sets of discounts. Someone found a way to identify the one that give you the 30% off coupon.

Basically, I've confirmed two ways to quickly spot the ones that have the bigger discounts:

1. As you'll see in the photos, the 30% off ones have slightly different copyright text than the lower (10% 5% 15%) booklets. If you get one with a 29528_1 to the left of the copyright symbol on the back cover, you have a lower one. If there's no text to the left of the the copyright symbol, you've got the 30% off!

2. I found the "Back-to-School" booklets next to the customer service counters. Since there were sales people there, I couldn't afford to stand around and sort through stacks of booklets. A quick way to find the ones with the bigger discounts is to look from the top side of the stack (i.e. spine of the booklet fold). The 30% off ones will be less yellowish in print, probably because of a difference in printing or folding batch"

pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/inju/tags/bb30off/

testimonial: "I just got back from BB, and maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, but I did not see any of those coupons anywhere in that particular store (Houston, FM 1960 and Hwy. 59). I have gone to the store for the last couple of days hoping to score on of those nice, Westinghouse 19" WS LCD's that are currently on sale. They had been out of them until this morning, but just before I was to leave to go back and check again today, I ran across this thread. Luckily for me, they had one of the monitors in stock. When I got to the cashier, I asked her if they had any "back-to-school" coupons. She could not find them either, and she eventually called her CSM to bring her a stack.

She took one and put the rest of the stack behind her register, so I did not have a chance to pick one. It turned out to be one of the 5-10-15% coupons. She tried to scan it, but her register would not recognize the coupon to apply it to the monitor. Instead of calling back her CSM, she just had me sign a small form and she rung up the monitor with the 15% coupon. Since I was already going to get the monitor anyway and was willing to pay the $170+ (taxes included) for it, getting it for $147.21 out-the-door was just gravy.

I assume this is a YMMV situation (I don't know if the coupons apply only to certain items or not). However, if you cannot find the coupons in the store, you may have to ask for one once you are ready to check out. "
Click to expand...
I don't know the limitations for the cupons, but if your going to Best Buy, I'd look for them.

EDIT: Only valid on purchases of $100 or more, not valid on sale items. Coupons do not apply at the register for purchases less than $100 or for sale items, and always require manager override.
 
Coupons don't usually apply to LCD monitors at Best Buy I think. I tried using a 15% when I bought my FPD2185...managed to talk the cashier into using it, but most are smart/stubborn enough to refuse to apply the discount.
 
I can say that i used a few of these 30% coupons, recently with the 500gb WD external hd it was on sale for $199 got it for $150 OTD. its not suppose to work with sale items but the cashier entered it.
 
movax said:
Coupons don't usually apply to LCD monitors at Best Buy I think. I tried using a 15% when I bought my FPD2185...managed to talk the cashier into using it, but most are smart/stubborn enough to refuse to apply the discount.
Click to expand...
you just need to find the most airheaded looking one. helps if they are female and you toss tech speach at them.
 
lmao, this is awesome.. its almost like my free laptop bag thing last year at BB and Office Depot. :p I'll have to give this a shot. Hopefully I can swing one of the 500gb hdd's, and my brother needs a laptop. I don't know what they are honoring with these coupons, but I'll social engineer them to death.
 
Martyr said:
you just need to find the most airheaded looking one. helps if they are female and you toss tech speach at them.
Click to expand...
Actually, the women are probably the smartest ones (hell, not probably, they _are_ :scared:). Luckily my dead sexiness helps the social engineer--, ok, so I just find the 50 year old they hired on, and confused him/her with coupon speak and frantic arm waving to get my discount.

Remember, frantic arm waving, as if "Oh dear god what's going on! Someone help!"
 
Appearantly these cupons only work for "computer accessories", and some say they require a manager override to work.

Other people have managed to buy other products though, so Martyr's advice would probably work. ;)
 
B. W. said:
Appearantly these cupons only work for "computer accessories", and some say they require a manager override to work.

Other people have managed to buy other products though, so Martyr's advice would probably work. ;)
Click to expand...

You just need to find the cashier that hates Best Buy as much as you do (which should mean almost any employee will do ;) ).
 
nilepez said:
You just need to find the cashier that hates Best Buy as much as you do (which should mean almost any employee will do ;) ).
Click to expand...

I second that. Find the chick, or the longest line, or the angriest employee. I find the longest line is best. They push the coupon through to get you out and on to the next customer.
 
got 2 30% ones myself
don't know what I am going to use them for though. I was hoping it would work for a TV, but looks like it won't. BestBuy would have gotten my $ today if so :D

They're good for another month, so I'll hold on to them for the moment.
 
movax said:
Actually, the women are probably the smartest ones
Click to expand...

boy am i glad I have a Best Buy where they hire on looks and not brains.
 
yeah I'm at best buy right now (working)

it works, and they're generally in "batches" of like 10 30% off, etc etc.

glhf
 
So could some [H]ers stop by your store and get discounts on non computer accessories? ;)

Share the love, man.
 
hmmm these coupons work on a ds lite? I've had a small gift card burning a hole in my pocket for two months now lol, and this may push me over the edge.

** edit, nm, read the fine print in the pics. But maybe I'll get lucky :p
 
i jus looked on 86th n lexington in manhattan..they had none of those things laying around:(
 
M*A*S*H_4077 said:
I can say that i used a few of these 30% coupons, recently with the 500gb WD external hd it was on sale for $199 got it for $150 OTD. its not suppose to work with sale items but the cashier entered it.
Click to expand...

I got in on this too and bought 4/ 500HD's...My book WD Ext drive..

..But check this out I opened one of my ext diskdrive(WD EXT 500GB)..of course this voids the warrty on the drive ..But when I check the warrty on the hard drive I took out of the case it has a 5 YEAR Warrty!!
It's a WD 500GB 16mb RE2...so if you think about its not a bad trade off :D

Here is how it's done...


Alright, here we go
1) Looking at the drive straight on and upright, rotate it 90 degrees clockwise, so that you are looking at the right side.
2) You'll notice 4 indentions in the plastic housing, one in each corner. The indention in the upper right hand corner should be different that the other 3 in that it isn't solid plastic. Instead, there is a hole in the center of the indention which is covered by black material. The black material needs to be removed (or a hole simply punched through) so that you can see and hence remove the screw that is underneath.
3) Once removed, look on the top and bottom of the housing. In the 'air vents' up towards the front of the housing, you'll see a tab which fills two of the vents. These tabs (on the top and bottom) have to be depressed while the drive housing is slid away from the outer housing. I used a thin knife to help push the housings apart and get the process started.

That should be all there is to it. I wonder if the removal or puncturing of the black material to get at the screw underneath will void the warranty. Well, it was worth it for me as now I have a 500GB drive and a USB enclosure. I hope this helps. Let me know how it goes. God Bless. ;) A great member at SD..gave me this info..enjoy
 
Thanks for the heads-up on these coupons. I went to the BB in Monroeville, PA yesterday and headed straight to customer service. I went through the stack of coupons, found a 30% off one and proceeded to snag a new Linksys Wireless Router for 30% off.

Wehoo! +1 [H]ot Deals!
 
This is F'in hilarious...I'm going to have to check this out when I get to work...
 
Kevl4R said:
Thanks for the heads-up on these coupons. I went to the BB in Monroeville, PA yesterday and headed straight to customer service. I went through the stack of coupons, found a 30% off one and proceeded to snag a new Linksys Wireless Router for 30% off.

Wehoo! +1 [H]ot Deals!
Click to expand...
thanks, too bad that Moronville (oops ;)) is a bit far out. Maybe I will see what the Waterfront has to offer. Or send my GF to the one in Robinson for her lunch.
 
Kevl4R said:
Thanks for the heads-up on these coupons. I went to the BB in Monroeville, PA yesterday and headed straight to customer service. I went through the stack of coupons, found a 30% off one and proceeded to snag a new Linksys Wireless Router for 30% off.

Wehoo! +1 [H]ot Deals!
Click to expand...


I'll have to pop down to the Monroeville store too, as...well on quick glance, i didnt see any at the Greensburg store
 
drizzt81 said:
why would that matter?
Click to expand...
because it would be cheaper than buying the WD 500gb sata2 drive anywhere else on the web. You could just take it apart and use the internal hdd in your computer. If its IDE, I wouldn't want to waste the money on it since I'm going all SATA.
 
has it been confirmed/denied that you cant use these on LCD pc monitors?

Wanted to pick up one for my dad.
 
w1retap said:
because it would be cheaper than buying the WD 500gb sata2 drive anywhere else on the web. You could just take it apart and use the internal hdd in your computer. If its IDE, I wouldn't want to waste the money on it since I'm going all SATA.
Click to expand...

It has to be SATA2. There are no IDE RE2 HD's, AFAIK, and there's defiitely not a 500GB RE2.

I just bought a 500GB WD5000KS on ebay for 170 shipped, and I considered that pretty damn [H]ot, but 162 (after tax) for a YS is even hotter....especially if you can enter the S/N from the drive on WD's site and get a 5yr warranty.

That said, I rarely find I use HD's for 5yrs. I have 3 older drives (one is maybe 3 years old) that's in my old rig. If I was more organized, I'd probably just dump the duplicate software and consolidate.
 
thenixhex311 said:
I'll have to pop down to the Monroeville store too, as...well on quick glance, i didnt see any at the Greensburg store
Click to expand...

If they don't give you the discount at the register, head over to the Customer Service desk. Thats how I had to do it because there was another promotion on the router.
 
I got word that all of the store's knew about the 'hack' almost instantly and pulled all of the 30% coupons. I looked through the stacks we had and sure enough couldn't find any.

Edit - ...here's to finding a store with lazy managers...LOL
 
I went too. The store had a few box fulls, so I couldn't look through all of them (and some of the employees were staring at me.. :D ).
 
w1retap said:
because it would be cheaper than buying the WD 500gb sata2 drive anywhere else on the web. You could just take it apart and use the internal hdd in your computer. If its IDE, I wouldn't want to waste the money on it since I'm going all SATA.
Click to expand...
If it is the RE2, it is the WD5000YS, which means SATA + 3G + NCQ.
 
drizzt81 said:
If it is the RE2, it is the WD5000YS, which means SATA + 3G + NCQ.
Click to expand...

3G? you can disable NCQ, right? Everything I"ve read shows that it lowers performance on desktop machines (not that it matters, since i just bought a KS, but I'm curious).
 
i'm glad that i grabed a stack of the 30%ers :D i think i have probably 20 left i can use :)
 
got a coupon, but the fuckers at best buy were out of the westinghouse lcd and wouldnt let me use it on a radeon 1900gt


update!: rode my fat ass to another best buy, and they let me use it on a 1900gt. 205 dollars out the door. goes for 360 on newegg. good deal, id say
 
nilepez said:
3G? you can disable NCQ, right? Everything I"ve read shows that it lowers performance on desktop machines (not that it matters, since i just bought a KS, but I'm curious).
Click to expand...
3Gigabit/second signalling speed. There is some common misconception that SATA-II means 3Gbps signalling. For more information: http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp

"The term SATA II has grown in popularity as the moniker for the SATA 3Gb/s data transfer rate, causing great confusion with customers because, quite simply, it’s a misnomer.

The first step toward a better understanding of SATA is to know that SATA II is not the brand name for SATA’s 3Gb/s data transfer rate, but the name of the organization formed to author the SATA specifications. The group has since changed names, to the Serial ATA International Organization, or SATA-IO.

The 3Gb/s capability is just one of many defined by the former SATA II committee, but because it is among the most prominent features, 3Gb/s has become synonymous with SATA II. Hence, the source of the confusion."

I was at the BB at the Waterfront in Pittsburgh and couldn't locate the coupons. I did see the My Book 500GB, but the price is around $300 not, $199 ?! I am confused.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top