rfduncan

I have recently started to get inundated by Director's Selection shipments that I didn't order. I keep returning them but would rather not run the risk of one getting lost in the mail and me stuck paying for it. Is there any way to permanently say NO to all Director's Selections? I swear I had it doing that before.

If not, is there any benefit to maintaining an active account anymore? It seems like eons since they had a mega sale that was anything to rant about. Thoughts?

lizard

Good to see that they finally added the Moulin Rouge BD; perhaps The Sound of Music will be coming soon. But unless Columbia House has a B1G1F deal that includes BDs as freebies, it will be hard to get decent prices on such titles unless one has an unfulfilled account.

lizard

You could call them and say that you are away from home a lot and can't respond to the DS in a timely manner. I find that the e-mail reminders that Columbia House sends work well and I don't have a problem getting the DS canceled well before it ships.

There really haven't been many deals at CH, since the club was revamped, which warrant keeping an account open. One can usually get equivalent deals elsewhere without the hassle.

Bill Needle

I use the "contact us" feature to email them and ask them to set the default for Director's Selections to decline (once my commitment is met). They usually respond within a day or so and let me know that I will no longer receive/need to respond to Director's Selections. At that point, there is no reason not to keep the account open, unless you want to open another one or some other reason.

DnceForce

I, too, apologize if this has been covered already. I went through a few of the latest pages and didn't see it covered.

My question is about the Bonus Points. Now, you can't apply them to sets, right? Well, it doesn't seem to be working for anything. I have 22 points available right now and I'm trying to use them because I'll lose them at the end of the year. I got it to where they'd let me use 15 of them, but not all 22 of them.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks this is stupid. But I can't seem to find a combination that will let me use all of them. What is up with this? I wish they'd just let you use it for any purchase equal to or over the amount of your total bonus points. I realize they want MORE money, but they WERE earned after all and they belong to me.

Any advice on this issue? Thanks!

BobO'Link

^Bonus Point redemption must be for the *exact* price of the selection. No partial amounts. So, if you can find a selection, set or otherwise, that is exactly $22 ($21.95) you can use them all. Otherwise you'll just have to go with a lower priced selection or a couple of really cheap titles and possibly expect to lose a few come the end of the year.

FWIW, "Bonus Points", like "Fun Cash" before them, are just not worth the hassle. If they'd go back to the version where you could apply any amount to a selection and just pay the difference they'd be somewhat better, but still not worth messing with. They are there to sucker the general public into thinking they're getting some kind of "deal". It's more cost effective to cycle accounts closing one as soon as it's fulfilled and forget about accumulating "Bonus Points".

I forget the full math but it works out to:

Selection with "Bonus Points" will cost you $2.99 (cost of shipping). This can be a few cents less if you redeem more than 1 selection. (i.e. - 2nd will cost $1.99 to ship - total $2.49 each average).

Selection *average cost* with a "well optimized" account will cost you about $4.80

So, enough "Bonus Points" for a "free" selection are only worth about $2 tops unless you manage to get free shipping as well. But that's fairly rare and usually requires the purchase of another title which can throw off the average.

DnceForce

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll just let them expire then. I haven't worked out the "perfect" selections anyway.

bhauge

I ordered "Despicable Me" BD when all pre-orders were $19.95 and Free Shipping. I found out it will be cheaper at my local chain store this week ($17.99 @ Fred Meyer, plus I have some store credit I can use). I checked my account and they've already shipped it. I'm guessing I can write "REFUSED - RETURN TO SENDER" when it shows up and they would credit me back what I paid. Should I call them as well just to make sure that this will work, or have others done this with success? Thanks

lizard

^Yes, they will credit the price back to you (eventually) when they get a refused package back. But they may charge you for shipping since it wasn't their mistake.

dadaluholla

Hmmm...why no A-Team? It came out yesterday didn't it?

jwstl

How is CH when it comes to honoring orders that are clearly a mistake? Something odd happened today and I'm wondering if I will really get my order.

I had 40 Bonus points and wanted to use them so I started looking for a Blu-ray I wanted. I also received a code-20101215DODT1D-for 2.99 shipping which I applied just in case I ordered more than one item.
Here's where the oddness begins: They let me apply points to multiple items with a combined price that far exceeded my 40 points. I was able to order The Bridge on the River Kwai BD, King Kong 1933 BD, and Forbidden Planet BD for only the 2.99 shipping. And I expected my points to be deducted but they haven't which means I can continue ordering using the points.

CalebAndCo

Just a heads-up:

I had two more BoGo orders with DVDs cancelled. I used the website CS form to request a Blu-ray for each as a substitute and they did it without a whimper. (They billed more for the shipping + tax than was credited back for the cancelled items, $.54 and $.71, respectively, but not worth arguing about.)

RoadToPerdition

Yeah, I have a similar situation. I have 58 bonus points and I ordered Mutiny on the Bounty and The Goonies on Blu-ray, both of which well-exceeded my point total. I'm curious what happens now.

jwstl

I can tell you and it's not good. They shipped one item from my order and cancelled the others. That's ok. Here's what's not ok: they took the other "free" items from that order and created a new order with the items at full price...not the selling price but the full list price. I checked my account in time to call them and have the order cancelled before they shipped and billed me.

RoadToPerdition

Huh, well that sucks. I thought maybe there would be a negative bonus point situation (I believe I've heard of that happening to others), which would be okay obviously, but I'm not okay with what you described. I will have to monitor my account.

RoadToPerdition

Okay, so they cancelled The Goonies and shipped Mutiny on the Bounty. Fine, but they also list an account balance of $2.49. I was charged $4.98 for shipping and processing for the two titles, so now that only one is actually going through, shouldn't I have a credit of $2.49 rather than a balance?

g

On the old site, that bonus points order would have worked. It would have given negative bonus points. On this new site, it looks like they fixed that previous flaw.

RoadToPerdition

So they ended up doing this to me. Now I see why they cancelled the bonus point order and reordered The Goonies rather than Mutiny on the Bounty (since the cost was about double for The Goonies). They recreated the order the next day and I'm now noticing it two days later after they've already marked it as shipped. Pretty low move on their part.

RoadToPerdition

I don't know if anyone has experienced this, but I figured I'd ask. I refused delivery on a package because I thought it was the aforementioned Goonies order, but it turns out I refused an order that I actually wanted and got The Goonies in the mail today thinking it was the other package. I've e-mailed them, but I know it usually takes them a day or two to respond. Do you think they will re-send my refused order at no additional charge? It's an unusual situation, but I'm hoping they will understand since nothing on the package identifies what's actually in it.

cgray

I think they shouldn't send it back to you for free, but due to their computer system, etc., it is probably easier just to ship it back to you. Do you really think it sounds like a smart business plan to include the contents of every package on the outside of the packaging?

wkkunkle

^^ If you are careful, you can actually open the DVD packages and then seal them shut again (pull apart at the glue versus the perferations) ... I did that once and resealed with glue ... then marked Return To Sender on it because it was a mis-ship ... and I didn't feel like fighting and waiting for a pre-paid label.

Actually got two packages this weekend and opened them up to where they could have been resealed (a practice I've gotten into in case I find floater discs ...).

Andras

Yes, resealing the carton boxes work, just use Elmer's Paper Glue or similar, then place something heavy on it overnight.

CalebAndCo

^

I've done that, too. A couple of big paperclips work to hold the flap for the glue to set on window boxes.

Depending on the type of box, you can sometimes ease the edge of the window out a bit to see what title(s) is on the bill.

Watson2

Until they changed their invoices you could peek at the listing of what's in the box. Wasn't a change for the better, IMO.

Edit: That was the smaller one, two and three disk sizes.

wkkunkle

I ordered some movies the last week of December. For my delivery address, I selected a modified address as the recipient (versus the 'default' one), simply because when they converted my account to the new site last year, they dropped the "Mr.", my middle initial, and my suffix from my name. I got them to add the suffix back on, but wasn't fighting for the other stuff. When I did this, I must have missed changing the address on the one ... so it went to the default name (identical postal address).

In any manner, the DVDs shipped to the default address had an invoice/packing slip in the box that had the prices charged per DVD, etc. like normal. The one inside the box where my name was modified to appear properly had an invoice that had all X's for my account number, no payment information, etc. (like it was a gift almost).

Then, a day later (after receiving the DVDs), I received an invoice in the mail for the ones shipped to the modified address ... that had pricing, etc.

I also placed a separate order for other DVDs using the Buy One Get Two code that was posted here and shipped to my modified address again ... I received a mailed invoice yesterday for that order with detailed pricing. Haven't received the DVDs yet ... hoping they show up today (tracking information shows they were received by the local post office distribution center two days ago). I am assuming the invoice inside the box will have my account number blocked out and no pricing.

Is this common? Or, is this something new? I know in the past (with the old site), I changed the way my name appeared in the shipping address field but my invoices in the packages always had the information on them.

I really don't like the mailed invoices that come separately .. they are on like really thin paper with tons of perferations so they fall apart ...

Also, when did Columbia House start the whole tracking thing where they email you a tracking number for StreamLite (formerly MailExpress)? Kind of interesting, although the tracking is rather lackluster.