Best Buy has released their Black Friday ad today. The surprising thing is that many of the items are available for purchase at full price today. That’s fantastic because you can take advantage of price protection with your credit card. Buy the item today, fill out a price protection claim with the Black Friday ad, get the difference back. Oh yeah — and earn portal rewards on the full price — including the current Holiday Shopping Bonuses. Santa is filling the sled as we speak.
Best Buy Black Friday Ad Link
Some deals are available right now
A number of deals are available right now. Several of Best Buy’s advertised laptop deals can be purchased right now at Black Friday prices. I also see things like this Ring doorbell currently available at the Black Friday price. It’s worth cross referencing your list to see if items you want are available now at low prices.
One example price protection deal
In the Best Buy ad above, you see that TV in the middle? It’s a 50″ Sharp 4K Ulta HD TV. It will be on sale on Black Friday in-store only for $179.99. You could spend your Thanksgiving waiting outside the store….or you could click through the link in the ad and buy the TV right now for full price.
If you use a card with credit card price protection, you can then file a claim to get back the difference. Note that you may have to wait until the physical ad comes out as the online ad doesn’t show the model number in the “Doorbusters” image at the top of this post — but the model number will almost surely be in the print ad that comes in the paper. However, the online ad links through to the TV right now.
I just used a Citi card to buy the TV above. Citi Price Rewind covers a price difference up to $500 (up to $2,500 total per year). In this case, $399.99 – 179.99 = $220. Unfortunately, I’ll pay tax on $399.99 — price protection does not include tax.
Fortunately, the United portal is offering 2 miles per dollar at Best Buy today. This also stacks with the current airline Holiday Shopping portal bonuses. I’m actually going to buy 2 of this TV for a total of $799.98. That should earn me 1600 miles at 2x plus a bonus 2,500 miles for a total of 4,100 miles to sweeten the deal.
Don’t forget that there are simultaneous portal promotions through American, Delta, Alaska, and Southwest. Read about all of them here.
Which card offer price protection?
Lots of cards offer price protection – though be sure to check the terms of the card you use to be sure you understand any exclusions. In this case, I used my Citi AT&T Access More card (no longer available for new applicants, but might be possible for a product change) for the first purchase because I should earn 3x at BestBuy.com. For the second purchase, I’m going to use a Barclay Aviator — because Mastercard offers its own price protection that should be valid on this purchase. Update: The general “Mastercard” protection excludes Black Friday, though Barclaycard had documentation that does not show a Black Friday exclusion. I may go with three purchases to hedge my bets and use both my Aviator and a Chase card.
Will that negate portal rewards?
A major advantage to using price protection right now is being able to take advantage of all of the portal promotions. Since the refund comes from your credit card issuer, not the merchant, it won’t affect your portal rewards. This will make it a lot easier to max out the promotions through each of the portals. I recently gave a presentation about ancillary credit card benefits at the Chicago Seminars and price protection is one of my favorite benefits. More on this to come.
Bottom line
Not every Black Friday deal is a great deal, so do your price research before buying. That said, I suggest getting in on the deals you want sooner rather than later. Best Buy usually doesn’t make as many doorbusters available online before Black Friday as they have this year — and they often begin restricting purchase of Black Friday items in the days leading up to the holiday. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these become unavailable online in the not-so-distant future.
H/T: Slickdeals for posting the Black Friday ad
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DP: My Citi Price Protection Request came through for $220.00 (Citi unfortunately will not pay for tax or shipping). I used my Dividend card for 5% though and I received 500 best buy rewards points, which is good for a $10 gift certificate. My total out of pocket when you consider the $10 as cash was $135.
I purchased the 50″ TV from Best Buy, however, the results of my claim with Chase decided it was no eligible for price protection Black Friday is considered a seasonal sale. I purchase on Chase Sapphire Reserve card.
Had success with Citi Price Rewind. Price differential credited to account already. Here’s a link for the reduced price ad if you need.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zidk3osutj4awqh/Sharp%2050_%20Class%20%2849.5_%20Diag%20_6.pdf?dl=0
Bought the 50″ Sharp TV before Black Friday, submitted a manual request on 23rd, still haven’t heard from them. In your experience, how long does it usually take? Thanks!
Typically a week or two. I definitely wouldn’t expect that a request made on Thanksgiving will be answered over the holiday weekend. Did you use Citi or Discover?
Thanks for sharing. I use Citi AT&T. Will they deny my request given it now shows “sold out” on bestbuy.com?
Read your T&C. I haven’t had that issue with Citi
[…] the 50″ Sharp doorbuster shown above, which I picked up a couple of weeks ago — see: (Get many Black Friday items NOW at Best Buy). Sure, there are always some exciting doorbusters. And it can be fun to go out shopping just for […]
Nice presentation at FTU Expo, btw. On this topic, I have the $1500/month retention offer on the Citi Prestige. Do you have any experience regarding the impact of a price refund on minimum spend? In my online research, I only found one source, from 2015, that mentioned it … in passing – that a refund check would not affect minimum spend. $800+ spend for $360 isn’t too shabby if you’re going to use both TV’s (in your example).
Source: https://singleflyer.com/2015/05/07/citi-price-rewind-benefit/
Thanks.
Great question! I have no idea.
My instinct is that the refund check would not affect minimum spend because the check is actually sent by a third party claims administrator. However, I’m not sure I’d chance messing up a good retention offer on my hunch.
I tried using the citibank price rewind, but I couldn’t find the model number for the 50” sharp tv on the pricerewind website. I did find the tv with different model number. Would Citibank still refund the money?
You may have to do a manual request.
You will have to do a manual request. Should be able to do it with a screen shot of the ad.
Does someone have a copy of the ad/screenshot that I could have? they initially declined the claim saying:
The advertisement provided was not for an identical item. We attempted to locate the
advertisement on your behalf, but it could not be located. Please provide the original advertisement
or screenshot of the online advertisement showing this information.
Slickdeals has it posted: https://slickdeals.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=6243807&d=1511126488
never mind – I called and they claimed denial was b/c it was black friday not anything to do with the ad. so much for chase price protection.
Hi Jeff,
How would you submit a price claim for your product in this case ?
Would you need to get a printed ad from Best Buy and submit that scan ?
Have you done this before ?
To subscribe to comments.
I had success buying the exact same model of TV in my store as well.
It’s possible they might have some kind of reserve limit that they have to keep in stock for Black Friday- I asked to buy one, and the person assisting me had to “go check and see how many they have in stock”- but that’s just speculation on my part. Still might be best to buy sooner rather than later if you’re considering the in store attempt.
Today’s also the last day for the 1% in store Ebates cash back.
Now to swing by after the 19th, pick up the print ad, and make sure the models match- fingers crossed!
Hey, Nick, question for you.
Citi Price Rewind’s page says “To be eligible for the Citi Price Rewind benefit, you must pay for the item at least in part with your Citi card. You will only receive the lesser of the actual amount paid for with your Citi card or the maximum benefit per item.” If I’m reading this right, I only need to put $220 on my Citi card so that I can get a refund of $220 later. My plan is to buy a $210.99 gift card ($399.99 + tax = $430.99) on my Amex to go towards my AmEx $25 off $250 offer, and that should leave $220 to be charged to my Citi card to later.
Any problems with my plan?
That’s a great idea to use this benefit in conjunction with the AO offer. Nick or a FM, I would love your take on if you suspect this will work.
Update – after being late to the online offer and getting the not available in your store message, I decided to visit my local best buy. They did have all the TV’s in stock. I lost out on portal points, but was able to secure the tv with my Citi card. Thanks for the tip!
Did you at least get the eBates 1% in store cash back?
Nick thanks for the info.
Will over at Doctor of credit did a great post on Price Protection Policies Compared: Chase, Citi, Discover & MasterCard
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/price-protection-policies-compared-chase-citi-discover-mastercard/
IIRC, Chase specifically excludes Black Friday sales… which is fine by me — Citi won’t mind my extra spend this quarter, I’m sure.
Out of the game on this one. In store only now and not available within 250 miles of my zip code. Glad to have read the article as I was unaware of this benefit. Thanks Nick.
I’ve never used Citi Price Rewind with a print ad. Do you just scan it and send it in to them?
Same question, can anyone explain?
Am I interpreting Citi Price Rewind policy correctly that the protection is offered per item, and not per purchase? For example, Nick is buying two of those 50″ TVs; if you buy them as a single transaction, are both TVs covered for up to $500?
More to come on this. Discover explicitly allows up to 3 of an identical item for the record.
I just called Discover, they said something about only offering $500 TOTAL back if you buy more than one identical items.
Correct! I did this previously. I ordered 3 of the same product, but the cap you at $500 total for those 3 items if they are ordered all together. You need to create 3 separate orders with 3 separate PP claims and hope they don’t clump them together.
Buy them separately to be safe.
Well, I was about to order it and it just went to “in store only”. Now I have to do what I did two years ago and find someone to sell me one at the store. It was difficult.
Seeing the same thing. I wish I had jumped on this sooner because it looks like making it available online was a mistake by best buy and we were the beneficiaries. If this goes live again please reply.
I have a related question that is more about learning how this works than me going out and doing something crazy – basically, is there a limit to the number of items you can purchase and get price protection on? (Other than the max “protection”?)
In other words, if you have a card that offers up to $5,000 – is that per item, per year, etc? And…could you buy like 15 of those TV’s? I would think the Bank wouldn’t like that but am not seeing any commentary on those kinds of limits so I thought it worth posing.
My wife and I recently expanded our faily, so my ambitions are low this year due to complete and utter lack of time and energy – but I still like to understand how things work 🙂
Limits vary depending on the Card and bank – check the T&Cs in the benefits guide for details for your specific card. I believe Doctor of Credit has a good comparison post.
As Tonei said, limits vary. Post coming later today with more details.
Greg, does this pass your ethics test? Have to admit it does cross the line for me for some reason.
It’s fine. Price Protection doesn’t even require item to be in stock to claim. Plus $500 per item and $2,500 per year limits are so low anyway. Not like you can do millions in claims.
I think I read somewhere that Chase does require the item be in stock and sometimes even calls to verify. Make sure to check the T&Cs for your specific card.
I’ll be as interested as you are to hear Greg’s take, but I’m curious as to what the moral dilemma is for you? This is a published card benefit — like the Citi Prestige 4th Night Free or Priority Pass lounge access, etc. If they wanted to exclude Black Friday sales, they could. Citi and Discover definitely do not. I’ll have a post later today with more detail on all of the major issuers, but in the meantime, I’m curious as to how this runs afoul of ethics for you?
What would be unethical about this? I’m a bit of a prude, but even I regularly use Price Protection on my Citi & Chase cards. One of the niftier features on Chase is that “price” means price separate from shipping and taxes. Buy locally, then use Price Protection to get you the online price.
Similarly, you can buy online from the merchant who can get you the best shipping, and pay the lowest price available.
NICK, I think your article misses one critical point: you don’t need to buy the sale item from Best Buy to get price matched to the Best Buy Black Friday price.
IOW, you can buy the item you find in the Best Buy ad from Target—which may have a lot of them in stock. Just be absolutely sure that the model numbers match….many stores seem to have the manufacturers make a special model number for their specific store.
This is a great idea if you can find the same exact model elsewhere. The trouble with most electronics is that as you mentioned, the electronics are usually exclusive models for each store. But this would work with items that aren’t exclusives. And then you could pick whichever store is offering a better portal reward!
I would be careful with this. Most times, TV manufacturers (and other electronics manufacturers) will release “special model numbers” specifically for Black Friday that may be identical in specs to a model that is currently being sold (may vary by adding or changing a letter at the end of the model). This might be enough to deny any price protection claims.
You’re right about “Black Friday only” models. That’s what makes this deal notable today — usually, those Black Friday only models aren’t available before Black Friday (usually there is a TV or 2 that is already available at full price, but the biggest doorbuster TVs are normally Black Friday-only models). But in this case, Best Buy is linking directly to the exact items in their Black Friday ad and offering them for sale today. You can see in the TV example I showed that the model is “Only @ Best Buy”. You couldn’t buy that TV at Target and then price match here because this is a Best-Buy-only model — but it’s the one they are advertising for Black Friday.
Worst case scenario, if they change the model for the Black Friday ad, I’ll return the TV. I won’t open it before I get the price protection claim.
Anyway you can post a list of cards that do price protection
Its a shame “older” tvs are basically worthless now. So tempted to replace my 55inch sony bought 2 years ago for a flipping 70inch tv!! and for cheaper than what I bought the 55 for smh.
Be careful with Chase – they exclude limited stock deals and seasonal promotions in their terms, so depending on how the advertisement is worded they could use that as grounds to deny a claim. I don’t have any data points though.
Couldn’t you just buy it now at regular price, then on Black Friday bring in the receipt for a price adjustment if its still in the return period? Or is that not possible?
Most stores say limited supply, must purchase at that time.
You can try that, but have you been to a customer service desk on Black Friday? Good luck finding someone in a good enough mood to smile and say hello no less help you get the Black Friday price hours after the doorbuster deals were gone :-). In my opinion, it’s a lot easier to do some clicks online and file the claim.
Furthermore, if you did the price adjustment in store, it could very well negate your portal earnings. At the very least, your portal earnings would likely get adjusted down — but when customer service monkeys with your order, you often lose out on portal rewards altogether. By purchasing online and then doing a price protection claim, you could earn portal rewards on the full price.
I don’t see much advantage to doing the in-store price adjustment. Also note that some of the doorbusters are on Thursday — so I think you’d have to get that in-store price adjustment on Thanksgiving….and, again, I’m not even sure that they man the customer service desk during Thanksgiving. That said, I’ve heard of people doing it before – you’re probably more likely to be able to do it with a coffee maker than the TV that Best Buy only had 8 models of in-store that morning. I’d personally rather do it from home.
Amex doesn’t offer price protection.
I can confirm that Citi cards have price protection for Black Friday sales! used it in the past. Very efficient and painless process
A lot of cards exclude black friday deals and the like from their price protection coverages. Do you know if Amex covers price protection on black friday deals?
Amex has no price protection at all (ever).
Chase, Citi, and Discover do not exclude Black Friday deals.
It looks like Mastercard does exclude Black Friday, so I will update the post — won’t use that Aviator card after all.
Chase excludes “limited quantity promotions, seasonal sales.”
Only certain cards offer price protection on Black Friday, and those tend to limit to $50
True that you have to check the terms, but not true that those that do offer protection limit it to $50. I do Black Friday price protections every year. Never had a problem getting the full price protection with Discover or Citi (up to their limits, which is now $500 each — in the past, Citi only offered $300 and I successfully filed price protection claims up to that limit as well.
Any experience using Chase Cards for the Price Protection?