Our washer was acting up and we were a few weeks from the 5 year extended warranty expiring.

Called in the Geek Squad...

They said it was “all fuqued up”.

Received full price paid on the unit.

Went to store and picked brandy new one.

I was expecting a pro rated amount... but received the full amount.

Finally, something worked out the right way.

Bought new 5 year warranty...and the price on that dropped quite a bit from last time.

 
We had the same recent experience with A.J. Madison. We had bought a Maytag dishwasher from them a couple of years ago, along with the 5 year warranty. They replaced the control panel once under warranty, then it started going bad again. They said a second replacement, along with the first, would exceed the price of the dishwasher, so they refunded us the full purchase price. We used the money to buy another machine from Lowes.

And General Electric did a similar thing for a microwave that was six weeks out of warranty.

Contingent upon purchase of another GE product they refunded the purchase price of the original unit. So a replacement cost me about twenty dollars difference out of pocket.

Best Buy has been upping their game, recently. I'm guessing somebody finally figured out that if they didn't learn from Amazon, they'd be buried by them.

Most times BB has prices equal to or lower than Amazon's, and local stock. Yes, I'll drive to any of the three or so closest BBs if their price is good and I want it RIGHT NOW.

I've even found BB to have prices competitive with Costco, at times. Only thing is Costco's return policy. Nobody has a return policy like Costco's.

As an aside: Home Depot and Lowe's I've also found to often be price-competitive with Amazon. And the last time I ordered something from HD, it was there the next day. I like to give my business to Amazon's competitors when I can. I like Amazon, but they need competitors.

I do not recall a Best Buy warranty ever failing me when it came to replacement.
They do limit the items covered under warranty now. Beats, Fitbits, and a lot of other items are no longer covered.

Here is mine:

Went to Best Buy to get a bitchin' audio system for my ride. Bought a Sony MDX-400 head unit ($1200 in 1993) and an XMC-1000 six channel amp ($450). The graphics generator, video display, and two remote CD changers came a few months later. I also bought the $19 four year warranty. Jamming a pair of 15s and 10 speakers was my concert hall on wheels. It took a while to load the playlist from all of my CDs onto the head unit to show up on the display, but having a playlist on a screen for three disc changers was not common 25+ years ago.

Three years and eleven months later, the MDX-400 wouldn't play the recorded discs, but it would play the prerecorded discs. Took it back and they honored the warranty. Came back at one week intervals and they told me when it was at the local/regional/state/national repair center. Ultimately they sent it to Sony in Japan (!) to have it repaired. $19 well spent.

quote:

Beats, Fitbits, and a lot of other items are no longer covered.

Doesn't surprise me. I used to have to replace the Beats units on display weekly, they just fell apart, absolute junk. Plus we got a lot of returns that were "counterfeit swaps".