Blockbuster Total Access Trial

I took my two Blockbuster Online rentals to my local franchise store (one was sent back by mail on Tuesday), and I was the first one to swap out mailers for movies. They simply scanned the envelopes, and I was able to quickly check out with two new movies. However, at my store the mailers are only good for 5 day rentals, not new releases. This limits the value of the Total Access program, as I've seen most of the 5-day titles in the store.

I checked my queue this morning and I have 5 movies out on a 3-out plan. The two I checked in have not cleared my queue yet, but I'll check it later today.

Has anyone else tried the Blockbuster Total Access Program?

Comments

[Petri]

I started my free trial yesterday and look forward to seeing if the service can compete with Netflix.

[bbv_employee]

The BBV you went to must be a franchise. The one I work at (corporate-owned) works for any movie in the store.

[mikek]

BBV,

Yes, I identified it as a franchise in the story. According to the latest numbers, almost a third of all domestic stores are franchises.

- Mike

[Petri]

Is there a way to tell if the store is a franchise or not?

[Rusty Ramrod]

I exhanged one BBO disc for An Amercian Haunting last night.

[Dusty T]

Those movies will stay in your queue until they are check back in at the Distribution Center. Both BB stores I have went to let's you choose any movie. So it must be a franchise.

[domc]

I went and rented a new release yesterday.
Clerk says I can rent any movie in the store new or old. No games though.

[hall]

"Is there a way to tell if the store is a franchise or not?"

One unofficial way to tell is if they don't honor the "no late fees" that BB started a while back.

[eazyguy52]

Well, let's see. I sent my three movies in the mail on Monday. They checked in one on Tuesday and sent one out on Tuesday. This is Friday and I haven't received it yet. The other two that I sent out weren't checked in until yesterday and the replacements weren't shipped until today and not due to arrive until next week, one on Monday and one on Tuesday. So what do I think of Total Access?

Ask me when and if I ever get any films to turn back in. I'll be sticking with Netflix.

[BoB]

"

"Is there a way to tell if the store is a franchise or not?"

One unofficial way to tell is if they don't honor the "no late fees" that BB started a while back."

Not always true as some franchises do honor the no late fees. Look at your receipt. It should say if it is a franchised store or not.

[Rusty Ramrod]

I know I sound like a BB fanboy, but I am not, I am just a fanboy of services that deliver what they claim. While neither NF or BB do, this new program is the s**t I tell you.

Two movies came in this morning (Concerts actually) watched them and took them back to the store tonight. Exchanged for 2 new releases for the weekend and my queue now shows 4 other movies on the way (I'm on the 3 out plan, so I have no idea why 4). Rock on!

[type-cast]

This service will be great, if they can keep enough titles on the shelf. I can't wait to get my next shipment of movies, so I can try this. I returned 3 before the program began. This is like having a Movie Pass at every BB store in the USA. Take a mailer in, get more movies. I'm thinking of quitting Netflix in the next month or so. Blockbuster is jumping ahead in the value department once again.

[Snowyowl]

I returned a BB Online movie this morning and took out a 2-Day Rental [in the Syracuse area].

I then asked about franchise v. non-franchise store status. The BB employee told me that in New York State virtually all the stores are corporate-owned, including this store.

On another note, the movie I returned to the store two days ago is still in the shipped queue.

[zeggman]

I checked in 2 discs and got 2 free rentals for any title. It was almost 24 hours before Blockbuster said they were shipping the next titles in my queue, but with the 2 rentals from the store, I wasn't as impatient as I might otherwise have been. I just received 2 more in the mail, which will probably mean I'll be back at Blockbuster tomorrow sometime.

The odd thing with these latest two I received in the mail -- instead of "postpaid" they're sporting stamps, on both the envelope to me and the envelope back to the distribution center. This makes no sense to me -- they're PAYING postage on the individual disk, and then shipping it back in bulk themselves? So they're paying twice. Not to mention which, I'm getting twice the rentals, by getting a DVD in-store and another in the mail.

It almost seems like there's some kind of "Brewster's Millions" thing going on over at Blockbuster, where they're going out of their way to slash profitability. Not that I'm going to question it too hard; I've got some kind of "Magic Christian" thing going on at my house, and if they want to sell champagne at 4 bottles for a nickel, I'll buy as many as I can before the doors close.

[zeggman]

It occurs to me that the reason they're going with postmarks may be to get information on "when did you mail it back?" of the sort Netflix can't get from me because I never reply to their surveys. If that's the case, I hope the postmarks on their side are less smudged than the postmarks on my side; otherwise, it's going to be a very labor-intensive process to tease a date out of some of them.

I did get some useful information on my end, though. One of the DVDs BBO said they shipped on 10/27 wasn't postmarked until 10/31 (the same day I reported that I hadn't received it, and asked them to re-ship it). The replacement was postmarked yesterday, November 3rd; Blockbuster's email said it was shipped 11/2 in the early afternoon, so that's a bit closer. I will put the original and the replacement in the same envelope when I redeem them at the store -- don't want to be double-dipping here -- but I thought it was an interesting data point.

[BBQChicken]

I went to Blockbuster today at around 6:00 PM. I got two free rentals from returning two online DVDs and one from my two monthly coupons (I signed up a while back). They allowed me to rent any movies in the store. However, I checked my Q as soon as I was home and the two movies were still in there. Seeing that it's late, it would be understandable if the new movies weren't shipped out in time but I thought the old two would be immediately removed from my Q.

[Rusty Ramrod]

As pointed out somewhat inelegantly to me in a different thread the BB FAQ states it may take some time for the store scanned ones to clear your queue, but they claim it opens up a queue spot right then none the less. It remains to be seen if that is the case, yet I'm on the 3 out plan and there are 4 movies in my shipped queue, so perhaps it is true.

Of course, since they don’t immediately clear the queue these questions come to mind:

- What happens if the disc is "lost" after you drop it off and it is scanned in? Lost could be actually lost somehow, pilfered by an employee, misplaced by the USPS, etc.

- One of the options at BB is to report a disc as "I returned the DVD but it has not cleared my queue." So the question is, can member consistently report a disc that is dropped off and scanned in with this tool?
The disc *has* been returned and it has *not* cleared the queue?

Tonight I returned a disc and got another. I took my queue list this time and found one off it, then came home and manually removed it from my queue. It’s too bad they can’t tie together the accounts and when a disc was rented at the store it would automatically take it out of your online queue.

[darkbros]

I returned two discs to my local BB store I frequent, and they are not a franchise store
(44th and Shields, OKC, Ok), on Thrusday.
They scanned them in, and I checked the que on the laptop they had in store.
Didn't clear.
I told the clerk I would give it 24 hours, no big deal.

I checked Friday afternoon, still didn't clear.
I emailed Customer Service about the issue, gave them the store ID, and the movie titles.
Saturday I got an email back, they were cleared and the next two were set to ship out
Sat. They said it was a bug in the rollout,
and should be fixed over the course of " a couple of weeks". They also remined me to have at least 30 movies in my que ( I usually keep about 15 or so, as I juggle currently between NF and BB) to insure something will ship, as short wait and long wait movies will
delay anything getting sent out.

[Edward R Murrow]

Since this is the 'Hacking Netflix' site, how can I get my Netflix ratings into some sort of TEXT, XML file so that I can import my 2,000+ Netflix ratings into BBO ratings?

I know that Netflix makes it easy to cancel so that we will come back (they hope), but how about an 'Export queue/ratings' button to some sort of file that I can then send to BBO to import into my account?

Or maybe BBO and Netflix should both support an EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) initiative for us?

[John]

1.) We use stamps in stores, distribution center uses pre-paid. This, I'm guessing, prevents envelope abuse (mailing things elsewhere using BB Online mailers). We tally all stamps used and keep inventory on them, along with the lists of movies we send out. I can assure you we don't research where things are mailed from... all envelopes hit the trash bin after we (stores who ship BB Online rentals) check them in on the Online Connection terminal.

3.) Corporate stores let you use the envelopes on EVERY movie in the store. I don't know why franchise stores are screwing their customers like that.

2.) The movie might not visibly clear your queue when you return it to the store, but your next rental will ship immediately (or at least the next business day). This is why some people have more than 3 rentals. Once DC receives the DVD it officially clears your queue. I was working this past week and returned some online rentals in the AM and within the hour my next rental was shipped.

[John]

I just realized that my numbering is out of order.

[Rusty Ramrod]

"I was working this past week and returned some online rentals in the AM and within the hour my next rental was shipped."

Nice, thanks for the "straight from the horses mouth" info. Nice to know what really happens on the front lines.

Seems sort of confusing for the customer though. Our visible queue should show the movie gone right away when scanned in and maybe make some cool sound like:

http://simpsoncrazy.com/burns/media/sounds/excellent.wav

or perhaps

http://www.reelwavs.com/movies/sounds/happy_gilmore/happy23.wav

Then some backend non-visible queue could clear after the disc actually gets there. Which still begs the question, what if something happens to the DVD between the time the BB store checks it in and it gets checked in at the distro?

Since you work at BB, what has been the general customer reaction to the program thus far?

[Snowyowl]

Got my first "Blockbuster has received... thanks for returning..." email from BB Online and the movie has been removed from my 'Shipped Movies.' This was for a movie I returned to a store last Thursday morning: there's a weekend in there, so that's about two biz days.

In addition, I checked 'My Account' and they still have free weekly rental coupons there... you just have to go hunt them down. I printed one out for this week!

Just over the eCoupon space, they're emphasizing the 'Now use your envelope as a coupon at your local BLOCKBUSTER store' in a red box, but the coupons look like they'll be there for at least two more weeks [in gray, like before].

[corey3rd]

I signed up for the BB deal on Saturday. On Monday, they shipped just 1 of my three titles and it won't arrive till Weds. So far I'm really unimpressed. You think they'd at least start throttling me after I've paid instead of during the 30 free days.

[XVarX]

I can't say I've truly experienced Total Access just yet. During week one, Blockbuster did send out three movies on Tuesday, received them by Friday.

Saturday afternoon, I returned them to a Blockbuster store, got three rentals, though the in-store selection is sparse, I doubt I'll take much advantage of the free in-store rentals ever.

I have yet to see anything else shipped out today, so if they opened up spots on my queue, I have yet to see any indication. Frankly, had I just sent them back in the mail Saturday afternoon, BB would have received the DVDs and sent out three more. At least under the old system.

Perhaps they utilize less labor, fewer hours, for the distribution centers. Or maybe there has been such a huge push for new subscriptions, they current staff can't keep up with the old pace.

Or maybe when you return DVDs to the store on a weekend, it doesn't open up a spot on the queue like it does weekdays when returned on weekdays.