Before I worked there, I'd just come in and browse and almost inevitably run across something...kinda helps to be a genre fan though I guess.

One thing to do is make special orders a week or so before you know of a coupon, and ask the employee selling them if they are "stock" items or not (meaning whether we can get them straight from a distributor or not) which determines whether coupons are valid on them.

Fangs, quick question. How would this coupon work on one of the Force FX lightsabers? Is it considered a toy or electronics? I love to get 30% off one.

With 30% off that price, it's probably close to the same amount as the ones at GameStop.

I believe they are only considered electronics, but since I think about ONE has sold since I've been there, I've no real idea...
I'll take a look at the box when I go into work tomorrow and see what our sticker categorizes it as.

I appreciate it Fangs.

Gamestop sells them? What price are they there? My Borders carries them for $99 which is pretty good.

Last time i inquired about the program at the Borders here, they told me they didn't do it at their particular store. I will inquire again but i'm not holding my breath.

According to their website, they're rolling it the program out nationwide.

And, yeah, it's not a bad deal. Much better than paying $25 for those 10% off B&N cards where you have to spend $250 just to break even, and even then you'll never actually reach a 10% discount. Even if you spend $1000.00, your discout will max out at 7.5%. You're better off using Amazon.

Reading the fine print on the coupon, it says "One coupon per customer, per day."

With the cards tracking purchases they'll be able to enforce this.

Which kind of sucks for me because I don't live close enough to a Borders store to hit them every day, so I'll probably be limited to one coupon per week. The 5% back at the end of the year isn't attractive enough for me to abandon Amazon's discounts for the bulk of my book purchases.

We usually spend well over $100 a month on books from Amazon, so this doesn't give us much incentive to change. It actually makes it worse because we'd run off a handful of the 25%/30% coupons and load up on mass market paperbacks which aren't discounted at Amazon. Presumably, the card will only let you use one coupon per day per card.

The coupons have always said that.
It is not very strictly enforced and never has been.
Hell, just yesterday someone rang out a guy for two purchases in a row, each using the same coupon....

Probably depends on the staff, location, and the managers.

If they have plenty of traffic coming in from other customers, they may enforce this for other sales at the higher prices. If they are out in the middle of nowhere, they might do it just to get the sale. Like some locations ran the B3G1 last month, while others were B2G1. Probably the same idea.

B2G1 was actually a test market deal. Those sorts of sales are sent down from home office.

We are NOT in the middle of nowhere, either. We hit 107% of plan for fiscal January without blinking, which was 2% higher than the goal the company set. We're right by a college town and make plenty of money, more than a lot of nearby branches. Well. Plenty for a Borders. We're definitely good about making sure of all possible sales.

Just thought I'd mention that I bought something today and with the receipt printed a coupon for 25% off (members) and 10% (non-members) off any one item. if these coupons are going to be a regular thing, between that and the 5% holiday account i'll definately be shopping there more. obviously still spend some more money in the long run, but it's such a more peaceful shopping experience than any best buy, and they have solid foreign, doc, criterion sections, i need that instant gratification.

any word on the lightsaber?

d'oh! we were so slammed with people (any time we put out a 30% coupon this happens) I didn't get a chance to check...I'll make a note for Tuesday when I'm next in. Sorry. Crap.

I had some time to kill while waiting for the Olympics coverage to get back to something I was actually interested in, so I was reading the new FAQ for the Borders Rewards program. Looks like they've changed the program so the PSD won't be combinable with coupons anymore. And neither will the Holiday Rewards Cash. Phooey, I maximized all my Holiday Cash last year in conjunction with 30% off coupons, and now they're telling me I won't be able to do the same this year. As for the PSDs, 10% is just useless by itself, especially when they're putting out 25% and 30% coupons as frequently as they do.

Kinda disappointing.

I was intrerested in the card at first, but what exactly is the point? If you can't combine personal shopping days with coupons, why would anyone be interested in only getting 10% off items when they can get 30% off with coupons or buy the same item online for even less money? Borders has never discounted the price of discs at the two stores I frequent. They charge the full MSRP (and sometimes more). Even with the 30% coupons, I rarely find anything that would be cheaper in store rather than online. Perhaps, I'm missing the point, but I don't see how this program works for me at all.

Awesome. Sounds like my local Borders.

Oh, and my apologies. "Middle of Nowhere" should probably have been stated as "Not Near a Major City".

The Lightsabers are actually coded as DVDs, so yes the coupon will work on it. (I know because I work for Borders, also :-)

And just to clarifiy something mentioned earlier in this thread, the 3 choices of a 'welcome gift' when you complete the Rewards registration online are actually your choice of: A 30% off one item coupon, or a free 12oz cup of coffee or $5 deposited into your Holiday Savings account.

The extra personal shopping day is no longer part of the registration 'welcome'. That was what you originally got during their 'test' over this past year. Now you get your choice of one of the above 3 instead.

However, now you can earn the 10% off your total purchase Personal Shopping Day once every month, if you spend $50 or more, instead of just once a quarter like it orignally was. And yes, the 10% shopping day will work with/'stack' with any of the percent or dollar off one item type of coupons. (however, the PSDs do not work with other percent or dollar off 'total transaction' coupons. Just with the 'one item' type of coupons. And since Shopping Days can be used all day long, even at multiple stores in the same day, if you have 5 'one item' type coupons, then yes, you get the 10% off w/each of 'em. )

And to clarify a couple of other things that were mentioned :

Yes most stores will let you use several of the 'whatever off one item' coupons. They just usually have to be rung up as separate sales. (so be kind to the poor register folks, please, and only bring in a few at a time.... you can always bring more later that day )

And yes, as of 2/21/06 the Borders Rewards card is now nationwide (and in Puerto Rico). So those of you that couldn't get it before then can now sign up if you wish. Just tell the register clerk that you want one.

Lordy, I sound like a company shill, don't I?!? Sorry 'bout that.

And speaking of work, time for me to head out.

Got my card today, along with to tags that fit in keychains and a sticker with my card number.

Excellent, thanks for the information. I just registered, selected the 30%-off coupon, printed out several copies, and will be using them along with the 10%-off PSD discount to pick up some Criterion box sets (which, even after tax, will come out cheaper than during the DDD sale). Thanks again!

No sweat.

My purchases:

The Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection-119.99
Billie Holliday Lady Day set-24.99

I had two 30% coupons.

The coupons brought the Hitchcock set down to 83.99, the Lady Day set down to 18.50.

The 10% personal shopping day brought the Hitchcock set down to 75.59 and the Lady day set down to 16.65.

Pretty good deal even with the extreme MSRP's.

Whoops. That does look like I took offense, doesn't it?

I was just being firm in saying that we're very near a pretty major college campus for the state.

And yeah, it's the group percentage coupons that can't be used in conjunction with them.

Remember, when combining a single item % off with a transaction % off though, you are not adding percentages--you are multiplying them. Thus the maximum amount off is 37%, not 40%. I had to explain that to some co-workers also planning on getting the maximum benefit.
Still. it's 37% and not 30%.

Key phrase in the FAQ tho: "or with percent-off or dollar-off total transaction coupons."

And yeah thankfully no one ever tries to pass off more than two item off coupons on me at a time...beyond that, well, we have to explain Rewards to most customers as is. Don't need lines getting TOO long...

I rather do as well, so I suppose it's really just an indication that they're onto something here...
Then again I spend craploads at work and so I've already got a pretty good pile building up for the end of the year...

Don't worry, they didn't change that part of it . You can still use the PSD with % or dollar off one item coupons and the same for the Holiday Savings account. It's still only the 'whatever off of your total transaction' type of coupons that you can't use them with, same as last year. They probably need to make that a bit clearer in the FAQ.

No problem, my pleasure. Being a bit of a bargain hunter myself, it's always nice to see other people be able to save a bit, too! . So enjoy and print away!