Les Jones: Blockbuster Rewards Program

December 23, 2005

A&E > Blockbuster Rewards Program

A few weeks ago I signed up for Blockbuster Rewards, and now I'm buying some of the cards to give as stocking stuffers. You buy the card for about $10 ("prices may vary", says the blurb) and it's good for one year.

In return, here's what you get:

Your first movie or game rental free.
One free non-new movie or game rental every month.
One free non-new movie or game rental for every rental made Monday through Wednesday.
One free (new or non-new) movie or game rental when you rent five movies or games in the same month, up to two free rentals.

If you rent from Blockbuster, you'd have to be crazy not to get the rewards card. It pays for itself in no time.

I'm pretty sure we've got Netflix to thank for this. I have Netflix, too, and like it for getting old movies and obscure titles, but it's nice to zip down to the video store and get something on the spur of the moment. Right now Melissa and I are plowing through dozens of episodes of The Shield. We're getting caught up on the old episodes via TiVo and Blockbuster so we'll be ready for the new season that starts in January.

If you're renting tons of movies every month, you might also like the Blockbuster Movie Pass, which is an in-store unlimited rental plan. It's like Netflix, but without the shipping time (hooray!) or selection (boo!). I signed up for it last Christmas and got a lot of use out of it for about six months. Once I ran through all of the old movies I wanted to watch in the store I cancelled Movie Pass and signed up for Netflix so I could rent from a bigger catalog of movies.

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Comments

We signed up for the Blockbuster mail program (much like Netflix). We get two DVDs at a time for $11.99/month (roughly $13 after tax). The nice thing is the two in-store free rentals a month. It's hard to get the high-demand new rentals in the mail, but you can always print out the coupon & get it from the store. Two is usually enough for us - there aren't many more movies than that coming out worth watching.

Posted by: Brian at December 24, 2005

So they give you two in-store rentals per month now? Cool. When I looked at it before and it was only one. That's pretty tempting. Like I say, I like the online stuff for the selection, but being able to bop down to the store any time is mighty nice.

So you're pretty happy with Blockbuster.com? I might switch to get the in-store rentals.

Posted by: Les Jones at December 25, 2005

Yes, I'm getting two a month. Plus, you can get game rentals with the same coupon (which is great since I'm a gamer as well). They also include coupons for popcorn and/or used DVD's.

One month, though, we got *four* coupons. I'm not sure what happened then. Perhaps it was a bug, but all of the printed coupons worked without a hitch.

I understand Blockbuster doesn't have *quite* the selection Netflix has (especially in the foreign films department) but my wife and I have been quite happy with our account with them.

Posted by: Brian at December 26, 2005

Cool. They have a free trial, so if nothing else I can sign up and compare the selection. If it's comparable, I'll probably switch.

P.S. We watched Donnie Darko last night. Really good movie.

Posted by: Les Jones at December 28, 2005

BLockbuster is now giving four coupons a month with their DVD Rental Service Online. I have it and it has a great selection plus coupons at the same price as netflix.

Posted by: N at June 28, 2006

I have not been getting my two free rental per month. I have some catching up to do. Do I need a coupon or two to get my free rental?

Posted by: Len Lee at August 10, 2006