- Joined
- Jul 11, 2006
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Across the web, the reporting on this VIP Black Card promotion for those who purchased the 75192 Millennium Falcon in 2017 seemed to have been spotty and widely inaccurate, in the end.
My (U.S.-based) experience was that:
The first notification of any kind about this promotion came in the form of an e-mail from LEGO on Thursday May 3rd at around 1PM (not much notice, imo). The subject line referred to this as "your latest VIP Black Card offer", which I find weak. This is the "latest" in a series of what? Two, as I recall? And one of those was just a purchasing window of double points in February. We're halfway through this extravaganza and it's amounted to nearly nothing at all.
The email announced the "free Y-Wing limited edition Blue Print", which I could get with a Star Wars themed purchase over $35. And the message provided a personally unique 10-digit code that it instructed I would use at checkout, with online or in-store.
No mention was made anywhere about the size of the Blue Print. It ended up being 8.5"x11".
The smaller details get muddier. The fine print of the email states the offer is valid for purchases in-store/online/by phone "from 04/05/2018 to 07/05/2018". This is troublesome in the U.S., where the common date format here leads one to believe that they are meaning April 5th through July 5th. I'm guessing they really mean May 4th through May 7th. But no one here would commonly think of that, when reading this date in an email from a large company doing business in the U.S.. When I asked about it during my in-store purchase, the employee looked it up in the company documentation they were provided and showed it to me. And that sheet clearly read that the promotion ended May 6th. So who's to say what the "07/05/2018" in the e-mail was about? Was the author thinking of midnight on May 7th as some deadline? The wording does not accomplish that. The wording used would mean that May 7th was completely included. I'd be curious what the cases ends up being on the ground. But that raises the next issue of remaining quantity.
Large U.S. LEGO stores like the flagship stores in New York and other major cities got a grand total of 5 Falcons each in September upon launch. Other lesser stores got 2. I can imagine that number could have varied a bit at out-of-the-way stores (to the extent that LEGO has any that are much out-of-the-way in the U.S.). In November 2017, there was a second quantity of Falcons that came in to fulfill waitlists before becoming available to walk-in customers. That quantity was rather small as well, but more than 5 in most locations. There was very little, if any stock for walk-ins at most locations at that point for the remainder of 2017. So, even accounting for those who got a Falcon online, I was very surprised to see what a huge stack of these Y-Wing prints was sitting behind the counter at my local store this weekend. If the print was to be available on the spot in stores (without being mailed afterwards) to Black Card holders, there didn't seem to be any way to control who might walk in to any LEGO store location expecting a poster. So, LEGO clearly made an amply large quantity of them and slathered each store with a what seemed to be easily 100 or more in plain view (with who knows how many more out of sight).
So, it seems obvious that there will be tons of leftovers of these. What's going to happen to those? Will they really be returned to corporate and/or destroyed. I highly doubt that. I was left feeling like they will make their way out, without any consistency as to who/how/when/why, and that the exclusivity of this tiny promo will be pointless. The similar colorful promo prints for the Falcon itself were handed out freely long after the Force Friday II promotion ended, just for the asking at more than one store I visited last fall. And it's very common for old promos to continue to bleed out until the stock is exhausted. In fact, I was given another Darth Vader Pod from April 2018 with my May 4th purchase of over $75, thrown into the bag along with my BB-8 and the Y-Wing print (if the fine print on that email is read strictly, one might wonder if the poster was even to be combined with these other fgwp's [free gift with purchase] at all). It's great to let people have those things if there are enough to go around. But in the case of the Y-Wing print, it would seem to be awkward and poor either way it's handled. It would feel ugly to destroy or withhold the remaining prints. But allowing them to be obtained by non-Black Card holders just further undermines the already nearly valueless incentive that the Black Card has been.
Oh, and btw, the e-mail notified all Black Card members that they were automatically entered into a raffle for an 18k gold R2-D2 minifigure. Again, weak to the point of nonexistent as a measurable benefit for having the Black Card membership.
I'm wondering what other people found in their travels. Did your store seem to have lots of the Y-Wing prints lying around? Did the store have anything to say about what might happen to the leftovers? Did other stores have Vader pods or older items that got tossed into May the 4th purchases? Were the terms of this offer different around the world? Beforehand, I saw numerous reports stating the the print was going to be free with ANY Star Wars purchase, without a minimum. That certainly wasn't the case for me. Was that totally erroneous reporting, or was there anywhere where that was the case?
My (U.S.-based) experience was that:
The first notification of any kind about this promotion came in the form of an e-mail from LEGO on Thursday May 3rd at around 1PM (not much notice, imo). The subject line referred to this as "your latest VIP Black Card offer", which I find weak. This is the "latest" in a series of what? Two, as I recall? And one of those was just a purchasing window of double points in February. We're halfway through this extravaganza and it's amounted to nearly nothing at all.
The email announced the "free Y-Wing limited edition Blue Print", which I could get with a Star Wars themed purchase over $35. And the message provided a personally unique 10-digit code that it instructed I would use at checkout, with online or in-store.
No mention was made anywhere about the size of the Blue Print. It ended up being 8.5"x11".
The smaller details get muddier. The fine print of the email states the offer is valid for purchases in-store/online/by phone "from 04/05/2018 to 07/05/2018". This is troublesome in the U.S., where the common date format here leads one to believe that they are meaning April 5th through July 5th. I'm guessing they really mean May 4th through May 7th. But no one here would commonly think of that, when reading this date in an email from a large company doing business in the U.S.. When I asked about it during my in-store purchase, the employee looked it up in the company documentation they were provided and showed it to me. And that sheet clearly read that the promotion ended May 6th. So who's to say what the "07/05/2018" in the e-mail was about? Was the author thinking of midnight on May 7th as some deadline? The wording does not accomplish that. The wording used would mean that May 7th was completely included. I'd be curious what the cases ends up being on the ground. But that raises the next issue of remaining quantity.
Large U.S. LEGO stores like the flagship stores in New York and other major cities got a grand total of 5 Falcons each in September upon launch. Other lesser stores got 2. I can imagine that number could have varied a bit at out-of-the-way stores (to the extent that LEGO has any that are much out-of-the-way in the U.S.). In November 2017, there was a second quantity of Falcons that came in to fulfill waitlists before becoming available to walk-in customers. That quantity was rather small as well, but more than 5 in most locations. There was very little, if any stock for walk-ins at most locations at that point for the remainder of 2017. So, even accounting for those who got a Falcon online, I was very surprised to see what a huge stack of these Y-Wing prints was sitting behind the counter at my local store this weekend. If the print was to be available on the spot in stores (without being mailed afterwards) to Black Card holders, there didn't seem to be any way to control who might walk in to any LEGO store location expecting a poster. So, LEGO clearly made an amply large quantity of them and slathered each store with a what seemed to be easily 100 or more in plain view (with who knows how many more out of sight).
So, it seems obvious that there will be tons of leftovers of these. What's going to happen to those? Will they really be returned to corporate and/or destroyed. I highly doubt that. I was left feeling like they will make their way out, without any consistency as to who/how/when/why, and that the exclusivity of this tiny promo will be pointless. The similar colorful promo prints for the Falcon itself were handed out freely long after the Force Friday II promotion ended, just for the asking at more than one store I visited last fall. And it's very common for old promos to continue to bleed out until the stock is exhausted. In fact, I was given another Darth Vader Pod from April 2018 with my May 4th purchase of over $75, thrown into the bag along with my BB-8 and the Y-Wing print (if the fine print on that email is read strictly, one might wonder if the poster was even to be combined with these other fgwp's [free gift with purchase] at all). It's great to let people have those things if there are enough to go around. But in the case of the Y-Wing print, it would seem to be awkward and poor either way it's handled. It would feel ugly to destroy or withhold the remaining prints. But allowing them to be obtained by non-Black Card holders just further undermines the already nearly valueless incentive that the Black Card has been.
Oh, and btw, the e-mail notified all Black Card members that they were automatically entered into a raffle for an 18k gold R2-D2 minifigure. Again, weak to the point of nonexistent as a measurable benefit for having the Black Card membership.
I'm wondering what other people found in their travels. Did your store seem to have lots of the Y-Wing prints lying around? Did the store have anything to say about what might happen to the leftovers? Did other stores have Vader pods or older items that got tossed into May the 4th purchases? Were the terms of this offer different around the world? Beforehand, I saw numerous reports stating the the print was going to be free with ANY Star Wars purchase, without a minimum. That certainly wasn't the case for me. Was that totally erroneous reporting, or was there anywhere where that was the case?
