Okay, so they're a little late to the party, but better late than never. Best Buy is doing a little something-something for all those HD-DVD owners who got left without a chair when the music stopped, and it even looks like they're trying to one-up Circuit City's already-cool return policy.
If you bought an HD-DVD player or peripheral before Feburary 23rd, you're now entitled to a $50 Best Buy gift card. You may not even have to ask for yours; BB's automatically mailing them out to everyone they can identify. If you're in Best Buy's Reward Zone, bought it off their website, or bought one of their overpriced warranties, you should get your gift card should show up in the mail within two weeks. Otherwise you'll have to bust out a receipt or a credit card statement and show it to the guys at the store... though they're also claiming you can do it over the phone at (888) BEST BUY.
The beauty of that is you can keep your HD-DVD player if you want... you're just getting free Best Buy money. But starting his Friday, you can also ditch it by using Best Buy's new Trade-In Center, which will pony out another gift card based on their estimate of what your item's worth. A few wee tests suggests that under optimum conditions, that'll be 60% of the retail price, but the good news is this option's available on any HD-DVD player (and any other electronics you've got lying around) whether you bought it at Best Buy or not.
It might not be perfect system, but it's better than nothing... which is what BB could've done instead. But when you start spending all that cheddar, keep in mind that a SquareTrade warranty costs half as much for a faster service that's rated better by our own customers.
Still, credit where credit's due... the gift card giveaway alone makes it about $10 million Best Buy's about to eat on this format war, all for your sake. See, and you thought it was the consumers who were going to lose.
Liked that? DIGG this post and Subscribe to our feed!
