A friend of mine had her television go dead on her last week, and tried everything to diagnose the problem: unhooking all of the peripheral components, wiring the cable directly into the television, unplugging the unit from the outlet completely for a few hours all to no avail.  She called a licensed repairman to come out and try to solve the problem (who subsequently ended up failing to do so).  Basically she tried everything to avoid having to spend what she was afraid would amount to huge amount of money to replace the television–which by the way was an 8 year old rear-projection Mitsubishi 60″ unit that looked like a monstrosity to be honest.

I offered my services as a self-admitted tech-geek to go with her and research all of her options and do price comparisons, but after a full day of shopping she was even more confused, not to mention sore and hungry.  At the end of the day, we had a list two pages long of model numbers, features, prices, delivery and set-up quotes, and two pretty big headaches.  She thought it would be a good idea to wake up on Black Friday and try to fight the crowds to get a better deal on one of the many potential televisions we had seen, but I suggested we wait to see if anyone was going to have one of those special “pre-Black Friday sales”.

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As it turned out I received an e-mail from Best Buy which was promoting sale that was available on Thanksgiving day for online shoppers.  What she ended up getting was a heck of a better deal than those people fighting the crowds for parking and employee assistance in the store.  The Samsung LN52A580 52″ LCD she ended up ordering only cost $1499.99 plus tax, and came with free delivery, free set-up, and free haul-away.  Most people are saying to themselves, “Well that’s not such a great deal.  I’ve seen 42′ Plasmas for $800″ (or something similar).  But to fully appreciate the deal she got, you have to understand that besides plasma being an already dying technology, the original cost of the television was $2299.99, the for televisions is $99 (and is almost never

free on such a large unit), the installation cost was regularly $99, and the haul-away is a $99 service for a total of $2596.99 excluding taxes which would have run an additional $156 for a grand walk-away total of $2752.99.  Her tax-inclusive purchase price was $1589.99 for a saving of $1163.00, which in and of itself was a great savings.

The story doesn’t end there, however.  On top of saving almost $1600, since she is a member of Upromise, and shopping through their portal website, she also is getting an additional $30 in college contributions, and Since I am a member of Best Buy’s Business Reward Zone, I get double the points for which she will be getting certificates totalling $60 for future use.  When everything was said and done, adding up the values of the Upromise contributions, Reward Zone certificates, television, and services she saved nearly 50% plus she doesn’t have to lift a finger to get it to her house, unpacked, installed, set-up, and cleaned up.  And, this particular model has better features than some higher-prices units that we had considered to begin with, making it an even better deal for her.

All without having to leave the comfort of home and deal with the vultures at the malls!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.