Users with Expired GCU: Preorders appear to be honored

Super Sonic

Super Sonic

CAGiversary!
Just a bit of an update  for those who made preorders for games that came out after their memberships expired. I know there was a lot of uncertainty as for whether or not preorders made before membership expirations would be honored or charged at the regular price. Well, my Gamer's Club ran out in July but my WoW Collector's Edition I preordered in June was just charged to my account with the 20% off, so it appears those of us that made tons of preorders beforehand are safe as we all had hoped.

To be clear, I preordered online through Bestbuy.com and did not do so in person at retail as their staff said in store preorders have their price calculated not when the preorder is made, but once it is sold. I did not pay the entire balance up front with paypal, but rather by debit card that puts an authorization charge on your bank account before going away in a few days until just before the game ships. 

 
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I had this discussion with best buy unboxed to make sure awhile ago


ME: Now that the program is ending I am curious.
If I've made pre orders using my GCU, is the price still honored when the game actually ships?
I'm pretty sure most of my pre orders are before my membership expires in Nov, but I'm making sure

BB: Good afternoon Nocturnx99 and welcome back!


With Gamers Club Unlocked (GCU) memberships no longer being available to renew, this is a fantastic question to ask as memberships may expire.

Should you place a pre-order while your GCU membership is active, but it is fulfilled after it has expired, generally speaking, you should retain the GCU discount price if your order is not modified in any manner. Should your order be modified (fulfillment modification, payment modification, etc.) after your GCU's expiration, the pricing would be recalculated. Without a current GCU membership, you would be at risk of losing the discount.



I hope this helps! If you should have any other questions, please let me know

BB2:
Please keep in mind that the previously provided information applies to online pre-orders only. As any store pre-orders are merely considered deposits, these would not receive the discount if the GCU membership has expired, regardless of when the pre-order was placed
 
This is good to know, I preordered several games before my membership expired, and checking the order status after it did so, they retained the GCU price. 

 
Good to know, my membership ends on New Years, so I'll be sure to reserve some stuff during the holidays.

 
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I had a couple GCU preorders open after mine expired. One was for the Marina/Pearl amiibo pack and that kept the discount. My other is for the Fallout 76 Armor Edition, so I'm feeling better for that one.
 
Post #2 in this thread is key - as long as you don't modify your order, the GCU discount will hold through shipping. 

However, if your credit card info changes, becomes compromised, or expires before the game ships - you will lose your GCU discount when you submit a new form of payment.

Best bet is to pay by Paypal as that charges in full at the time of the order.

 
Josef said:
Post #2 in this thread is key - as long as you don't modify your order, the GCU discount will hold through shipping.

However, if your credit card info changes, becomes compromised, or expires before the game ships - you will lose your GCU discount when you submit a new form of payment.

Best bet is to pay by Paypal as that charges in full at the time of the order.
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That's actually a really good tip. Good call.

 
Great, mine expired June 18, but on June 17 I preordered:

  • Spider-Man
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider
  • Spyro Trilogy
  • Code Vein
  • Hitman 2

September was supposed to have a brand new game every Friday of the week for me, but Code Vein's delay cut that dream short.

Never the less, these will be my final Best Buy gaming purchases unless GCU magically returns. Since nobody is offering a decent deal program, I'm going back to buying at Mom & Pop Shops so I can at least be able to play a couple of days early.

 
Josef said:
Post #2 in this thread is key - as long as you don't modify your order, the GCU discount will hold through shipping.

However, if your credit card info changes, becomes compromised, or expires before the game ships - you will lose your GCU discount when you submit a new form of payment.

Best bet is to pay by Paypal as that charges in full at the time of the order.
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I made it a point to say you don't need to use paypal to keep the GCU price. Some of us are cheap because we're poor, and can't afford to prepurchase a dozen games at once upfront. :p Though if you've got the free cash just laying around, I suppose paying upfront with paypal is peace of mind if your debit card is expiring in a few months.

 
This is great news, thanks for the update. My GCU expires mid-October so I'll make sure to preorder everything coming out afterwards that I'm remotely interested in. I'll most likely do every game in separate transactions to make sure cancelling one won't impact the discount on any others.

Also, does it make any difference if we order online for shipping or in-store pickup? I'm ordering everything with shipping just to be safe but curious anyways.

 
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Has anyone else been notified by best buy that they're replacing your best buy credit card with an actual credit card? They say it will not affect rewards and such, but I do have to wonder, with GCU being such a special case. I think I have 4 preorders on the site currently, all placed a few months ago with my old BB credit card which may be outdated soon.
 
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RabbiHick said:
Has anyone else been notified by best buy that they're replacing your best buy credit card with an actual credit card? They say it will not affect rewards and such, but I do have to wonder, with GCU being such a special case. I think I have 4 preorders on the site currently, all placed a few months ago with my old BB credit card which may be outdated soon.
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If you don’t do anything and just wait when they attempt to charge the card the worst thing that would happen would be for them to send an email for you to update your payment method.
 
I seem to remember reading on Best Buy's support forum that if an order is modified beyond just payment stuff -- say, a game you pre-ordered gets an additional bonus, like the Cappy coin with Super Mario Odyssey -- that this triggers a payment re-authorization and may cost you your GCU discount if it's expired.

I can't quickly find that post, so don't take that as gospel.

 
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I have KH3 preordered with the GCU discount and an additional $12 discount from some promo, but it's on an expired CC so I'm not counting on the discounts sticking.

 
If I’m able to pre order instore with gcu and pay off games after it gcu expires then you bet I’d put down $5 on a lot of games lol
 
So I pre-ordered a bunch of things on my bestbuy credit card, my GCU expires 9/15/18. I just got an email saying that they are upgrading my account to my bestbuy credit card to a visa and I will be getting a new card in the mail. Safe to assume that I should cancel those preorders and put them on the new card if it comes in time or do a paypal order or something. 

 
LannistersDebt said:
So I pre-ordered a bunch of things on my bestbuy credit card, my GCU expires 9/15/18. I just got an email saying that they are upgrading my account to my bestbuy credit card to a visa and I will be getting a new card in the mail. Safe to assume that I should cancel those preorders and put them on the new card if it comes in time or do a paypal order or something.
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Do you have the original Best Buy 'store card'?

 
Super Sonic said:
Now I'm getting a little worried. The game goes live in about 5 hours and it hasn't even shipped yet.
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I'm pretty ignorant about WoW in general but just quickly looking at both BestBuy.com and Amazon, it looks like the thing you ordered won't be available until the 20th even though the game releases tomorrow/servers go live today?

 
sayu said:
I have KH3 preordered with the GCU discount and an additional $12 discount from some promo, but it's on an expired CC so I'm not counting on the discounts sticking.
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Pretty sure that $12 discount is from the Visa Checkout promo deals they had in 2016. My RDR2 preorder from Nov 2016 has it as well.

 
sayu said:
I have KH3 preordered with the GCU discount and an additional $12 discount from some promo, but it's on an expired CC so I'm not counting on the discounts sticking.
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If it's from the Visa checkout promo, you will lose the additional 12 and be charged 12 more for the other game that you already paid for when you update payment. I had to fight to get them to honor it. Chat and calling them directly was impossible. I had to post on there forums to get a refund. I still have a few orders with 1 game unshipped :(
 
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menewbe said:
Pretty sure that $12 discount is from the Visa Checkout promo deals they had in 2016. My RDR2 preorder from Nov 2016 has it as well.
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Youngnoble said:
If it's from the Visa checkout promo, you will lose the additional 12 and be charged 12 more for the other game that you already paid for when you update payment. I had to fight to get them to honor it. Chat and calling them directly was impossible. I had to post on there forums to get a refund. I still have a few orders with 1 game unshipped :(
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Yeah, that must be it. Ordered KH3 and BotW on 12/12/2016. I actually stopped shopping at BB as frequently as I was because of their horrible customer service, so I'm not looking forward to fighting them over that $12.

 
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Romeo said:
Strange. I have the store card, for probably a decade now. Never heard of anything changing.
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Just double checked the email I got and apparently I can decline the change. I think I will do that, I have no interest in upgrading it to use to other than bestbuy and this way my pre orders stay.

 
When I applied, I had the option of store card or visa card. I chose store card. After about 2-3 years they said they were doing away with the store card and made it a visa.
 
snacks28217 said:
When I applied, I had the option of store card or visa card. I chose store card. After about 2-3 years they said they were doing away with the store card and made it a visa.
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When was this? I've had the store card for more than a decade and never heard of that.

 
From the bank's side, there are 2 different BB Visa cards:  The "My Best Buy Visa Platinum", which does not have an annual fee, and the "My Best Buy Visa Gold", which does have an annual fee.

I don't know for sure what would qualify you for one or the other, but I'd guess it's stuff like credit history/credit score/having a previous credit card with BBY, stuff like that.

As for applying for the card... it used to be that you had to choose whether you wanted to apply for the BBY Store Credit Card (only usable at BBY) or the RewardZone Mastercard/My Best Buy Visa.  But I believe a few years ago they changed it so that you no longer choose store or visa; you apply, the bank says "Based on your information, we approve you for Card A/B/C" and you take that offer or leave it.

As for doing away with the store credit card, I haven't heard anything like that, and the store card is still prominently listed on the website sooooo....

Giving a customer an opportunity to upgrade from Store Card to Visa is something the bank will do, because they want you to spend with that card everywhere you can.

 
I'm so glad I renewed mine  in March. I still have a feeling they will pull the program completely before mine expires, but I will use it as long as I can!

 
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Touch3 said:
From the bank's side, there are 2 different BB Visa cards: The "My Best Buy Visa Platinum", which does not have an annual fee, and the "My Best Buy Visa Gold", which does have an annual fee.

I don't know for sure what would qualify you for one or the other, but I'd guess it's stuff like credit history/credit score/having a previous credit card with BBY, stuff like that.

As for applying for the card... it used to be that you had to choose whether you wanted to apply for the BBY Store Credit Card (only usable at BBY) or the RewardZone Mastercard/My Best Buy Visa. But I believe a few years ago they changed it so that you no longer choose store or visa; you apply, the bank says "Based on your information, we approve you for Card A/B/C" and you take that offer or leave it.

As for doing away with the store credit card, I haven't heard anything like that, and the store card is still prominently listed on the website sooooo....

Giving a customer an opportunity to upgrade from Store Card to Visa is something the bank will do, because they want you to spend with that card everywhere you can.
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1) Your first point is spot on, BB has two bank cards, and you pretty much summed up exactly why one customer will get approved for the no-fee Visa, and another for the annual-fee Visa.

2) Your second point is wrong, BB does still give you the option for an in-store card or an outside Visa card. A customer just last week was approved and received the option to pick one or the other.

 
elarcadia said:
1) Your first point is spot on, BB has two bank cards, and you pretty much summed up exactly why one customer will get approved for the no-fee Visa, and another for the annual-fee Visa.

2) Your second point is wrong, BB does still give you the option for an in-store card or an outside Visa card. A customer just last week was approved and received the option to pick one or the other.
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I guess what I should have said was "You no longer choose store or visa ahead of the application."

Under the old system, before entering any financial info the customer would select either "I'm applying for the store card" or "I'm applying for the RZMC/Visa" ... then enter personal info, then get the acceptance/rejection.... instead of the current system of (maybe) getting your choice of card after entering info/being approved.

 
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