Make It A Blockbuster Night…..I Don’t Think So

The other day I was at my resident Blockbuster picking up the newest and hopefully greatest (although not lately) and as I was browsing the candy I overheard something very disturbing.  The rewards program is changing.  That is right, I said changing.  For all those like me that purchased the membership so that you didn’t have to pay the ridiculous rental charges ($4.29 when last checked) get ready to pay those charges when you renew.  Yes they are doing away with the $2.99 a video, but you will still get your free rental Monday thru Wednesday when you rent a new release and you will still get your 6^th rental free.  

Now on the surface this still looks like you are getting a great deal but if you rent videos like I rent videos (and if you are here then you probably do) this isn’t such a good deal.  At least not when compared to the other deals out there.  I mean I could rent a movie on On-Demand cheaper.  Granted I wouldn’t get the extras that are so much fun, but I wouldn’t have to pay $4.00 a gallon to drive to Blockbuster either.

It’s just funny to me that they would change the program at a time when everyone is getting into renting movies.  Even Itunes now rents movies and their cheaper too.  You also have Netflix and Blockbuster on-line and if you rent a lot of movies then all of these are a better deal; even Blockbuster’s on-line program.  Think about it, you can rent 2 DVD’s at a time with unlimited rentals thru the month for only $16.99 in Blockbuster’s on-line program and $13.99 with Netflix.  If you rent 4 movies at $4.29 that is a little over $17.00 and most of us rent more than that in a month (I times I do that in a week).  Plus with Netflix if you have the right program you can also want unlimited movies on-line.  So in actuality you could watch as many movies as you wanted for that $14.00.  What was Blockbuster thinking?

Look I happen to love my Blockbuster.  I could hang out there for hours just figuring out what I might want to rent and they always have those like 4 for $20 deals that I happen to eat up, but $4.29 a movie plus gas to drive there seems a little steep when I could rent unlimited and find my movies in the mail.  Talk about Christmas every day; I think that’s for me.