That's considered a box set. If it says "Special Club Price", then CH counts it as a box set.

That's it, then. Thanks!

So if I want Spike Lee do I have to bite the bullet and pay shipping, or do you think I can wait it out for a different code with free shipping?

I think that you'll have to bite the bullet. BMG has taken firm grasp of CH and I don't ever see them offering free shipping on box sets again. The BMG Music Club has free shipping offers all the time, but they have always excluded box sets form the deal. The only way that you're going to get free shipping on box sets is to join one of their special clubs. For DVDs, it's www.ch.com and for CDs it's www.yourmusic.com . For DVDs, you will get a 40% or more discount off of list price. For CDs, they charge you $5.99 for single discs and $11.99 for double discs. The only problem with these two clubs is that it's mandatory to buy items every month or two.

804410 is also buy 4 get 1 free; got it in another e-mail. FWIW (which isn't much).

The offer details aren't correct but it works in the shopping cart.

To the best of my knowledge, this isn't true for the DVD CH.com accounts. I have had one for quite some time and have never purchased more than the required committment back when I first opened the account.

Even with free shipping, 40% off isn't as good a deal as buying sets with a regular account, when one considers the almost free enrollment discs one gets. The relative cost of an MSRP $59.95 set usually works out to about $25 through the regular DVD club and that's way cheaper than CH.com (or anywhere else, usually).

I realize that you know this, but others here need to realize that while free shipping is nice, it isn't necessary to get some terrific deals. Don't get put off by the shipping charge for sets. When one considers the value of fulfillment credit, sets are often a very good deal anyway.

It may be time to dust off my "relative cost" calculations!

^
Good point on the shipping. Here's a good example of my fulfillment order from this go around with a boxset.

$29.96 4497004 Bogie & Bacall - The Signature Collection (4 titles)
$FREE (use code 808966) 4450409 V For Vendetta (Two-Disc Special Edition)
$19.95 Pre-Order 4475307 Double Indemnity (Legacy Series)
$3.98 2740702 The Last Waltz Special Edition
$FREE (Buy 4 get 1 Free -no code needed on my account) 0223602 Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
$6.48 2209104 Fallen
-$5.00 off /webdvd
+6.99 shipping(B&B Boxset)
---------
$62.36(9 titles[B&B counts as 4])+12.89(7 enrollments)=$75.25/16=$4.70each

Granted, without the shipping it would have been $4.27each, but good deals can still be had. You can't get all of this stuff for less than $5 anywhere.

Used enrollment code K7Q to get 6 initial's for $18.62 shipped. Just placed my fulfillment order which included Inside Man & (4) DVD's from the $3.98 section, and I used both the $5 web discount and code 808966. 808966 gave me two free $3.98 DVD's and free shipping on the entire order. Final breakdown:

$18.62 - Enrollment (6 DVD's)
$27.22 - Fulfillment with extras & discount (5 DVD's)

Total $45.84 / 11 DVD's = $4.17/each

Thanks for the offer codes!

Ok, I'm something of a newbie to this. I enrolled and got 6 DVDs for $0.49, then I bought a 7th DVD for $9.95.

Now, from here what is the absolute best way to take get the best bang for my buck. I see the codes listed in this thread, but where do you put in the codes? Anyone willing to just give me some general advice about all of this?

When you first login to your account on the web, the banner at the very top should display your current offer - mine currently says "DVDs up to 50% off!".

Click on the "Details" link on that banner, and then scroll down to the bottom of the resulting page. There should be a box labeled "Enter Your Online Code".

First of all, sign in at columbiahouse.com/webdvd. This will get you an additional $5 off of your first online order of $30 or more. Secondly, click onto the details link of your default offer that's located at the top of the page. When the next screen appears, scroll down to the middle of the page and input the code into the box that says "Enter Your Online Code". You're now good to go. Just follow the advice that's already been provided in this thread and you'll do fine. BTW, the $5 web coupon will be deducted from one of your titles. Don't worry, if the title is $19.95 or higher before coupon, it will still count as one towards fulfillment.

The best code right now is 808966. Read though this thread for some examples of how people have used it and past codes, I have an example a couple posts up. You might also get some good b1g1 examples from the BOGO thread. It should be on the first page of threads still. There may be better codes coming, but sometimes it's just better to take what's available so you can fulfill,cancel and rejoin, then if a better code does come around, you can use it on the next account. I usually only fulfill if there is a code that offers some sort of B1G1 and/or free shipping, and that's usually quite often enough.
Good luck, welcome to the madness of CH.

That helps a lot, thanks! I'll read through this thread, and the Q&A one (that I just noticed). I'm sure I'll be back with more questions though.

If I buy Gattaca (2183903) do you think that there's even a chance it'll be the correct one? Or how about The Hills Have Eyes, Bridge on the River Kwai LE, or My Fair Lady SE? It says two-disc in the titles, but in the details it says only one disc is included.

There's been postings that they are only sending out the fullscreen versions of Gattaca nowadays. You're best bet might be to try to pick up the Superbit title at Best Buy for $10. I only know of one version of The Hills Have Eyes which is the one I purchased through them and is the 2 discer, you are looking for the '77 version right? As for Bridge on the River Kwai and My Fair Lady, they have both the single and double disc versions available, just make sure you select the right one, #'s 2519601 and 3085008 respectively.

There's a glitch affecting the enrollment site that sets the Number of Discs field to 1 for every title they carry regardless of the actual number. However if you log into the member's site, the details page should list the correct number of discs.

Why aren't more people involved in this? After going over a few things I see situations where the average price per DVD ends up as low as $4 and the highest I've had it so far is around $6 or so, depending how how you go through with everything. Knowing how people at DVDTalk are it seems like just about everyone would be into this.

This exact same thing goes through my mind quite often, especially during the DDD 20% sale when I see people buying these titles for like 15 or 16 bucks and being excited about it. I mean, even when I fucked up and made an enrollment order with a "buy 4 in the next 2 years" deal, the average came out to $7.xx Which is still much better than $15.

I think that a lot of people are fearful of signing up in a mail order club. They act like they're taking out a second mortgage when they join.

I know what you mean, I was extremely hesitant the first time I was going to sign up. But since then I have been addicted to it. Columbia House is the DVD lover's crack!

I'm going to guess no based on my experience with The Thirteenth Floor. If you haven't checked it out, I have a thread going about this here.

You have to factor in the free shipping that DDD has, although I am a frequent customer of CH (I am currently working on my Columbo collection), I like DDD because they carry the Disney titles I want and CH does not, sure wish they did though.

I'm ordering V for Vendetta, King Kong SE, and the Goblet of Fire SE. All are $24.95 titles. I can't seem to make two of them full price titles in order to take advantage of 808966. When I follow the link to make two of them full price, the popup only allows me to select 1 as full price. Basically, it only lets make take 1 full price, 1 half price, and 1 free, which is less than optimal use of 808966 (I want 2 full price for fulfilment credit, 1 free, free shipping on 3).

I encountered the same problem just a few days ago, trying to get Vendetta, Lord of War SE, and War of the Worlds LE. The glitch seems to be connected to the $24.95 price for some reason. If you substitute a lower priced title for one of them, then you're able to add it as a "full price" commitment, and still get one of the $24.95 titles free.

You could probably call them and get them to change it manually for you, but considering the recent difficulty of reaching a phone CSR, and that I find it better not to deal with them when using a rogue code if you can help it (they usually get either confused or suspicious), I would suggest changing one of those selections for a $19.95-22.95 title. That's what I did, anyway. You can always get the other one next time.

I would suggest changing one of those selections for a $19.95-22.95 title.

That did the trick. Thanks! That's a weird glitch, though. Why would they have any code on their site that is specific to a 24.95 price? I did notice some pricing changes during the current offer: LotR: RotK Extended is priced at 29.95 instead of the 22.95 it's been at for a few months. It would have been one of my fulfillment titles if not for that.

^The Columbia House website is notoriously glitchy. We have just learned to work around it, as others suggested above. And offers come and go, you may find LotR: RotK Extended on sale again someday.

Last I heard, CH uses mainframe computers that run COBOL. Building a website that can handle their complex codes and offers, as well as that constantly changing catalog, seems to be more than their programmers can handle.