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swo17 wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 7:03 pm 30% off through 2/16. In lieu of a 50% off sale?

It looks like it’s only on select (romantic) titles, so hopefully not!

They've done this in April/May before, just a month post-Spring sale, so doing it a month pre-sale wouldn't be much different. If it's just Valentine's Day titles, that's heartening. Most likely means the 50% sale will occur where it's been lately in mid-March

If we are going by releases to guess when the flash sale will be, this coming Tuesday could be it, as Mildred Pierce UHD comes out. If not Inland Empire later in the month could also be likely

It hasn't been later than March 10 in at least the last eight years and usually earlier in the month, so my bet is on the 7th, but who knows, maybe they'll wait to include the Lynch what with the recent Valentine's Day sale spliced in there

Do the gift cards have a time limit? I have one that’s approaching a year, March 6 to be exact.

FrauBlucher wrote: Tue Feb 28, 2023 1:32 pm Do the gift cards have a time limit? I have one that’s approaching a year, March 6 to be exact.

I've never seen one expire

One of mine expired, think it was around 18 months old.

When do the vouchers usually get emailed?

Also, if I use a gift card voucher and it drops me below the free shipping threshold do I still get free shipping?

FrauBlucher wrote: Sun Mar 05, 2023 11:10 pm Also, if I use a gift card voucher and it drops me below the free shipping threshold do I still get free shipping?

I don't believe so, and they usually come the day before I think? So Channel subscribers might get them tomorrow or next Mon

Welp, another Tuesday and no flash sale. Next stop, the 21st.

FrauBlucher wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:30 pm Welp, another Tuesday and no flash sale. Next stop, the 21st.

It'll either be on the 21st, or they're skipping it. This is the latest it's been maybe-ever, but I was wondering if they'd wait for the Lynch to get released. Makes total sense. They could always pull what they did with Pan's Labyrinth and move Inland Empire's release up a day and launch the sale on Monday

Wouldn't be surprised if they're no longer doling out $10 gift certs and/or forgo the 50% sale altogether since they laid off 20% of staff and physical media sales ain't what they used to be.

I did contact Criterion last week to ask about my $25 e-gift. Do I still qualify for free shipping using it during the upcoming flash sale. You would think they would have said we are not having a flash sale at that point. For those interested, the answer was yes.

BTW...Any relation between swo17 and jwo17?

They must make a lot of their money from these sales though, and that's probably what's driving them to put it off til way later than they usually do. Whereas in the past (when the business was ostensibly more financially-durable) they might've not cared about holding a sale the week before a big release, here they're guaranteeing all the Lynch-enthusiasts buy from them direct and not Amazon et al, which they'd surely do instead of waiting months for their next sale. Maybe I'm wrong and they make just as much or more money from selling to retailers than to direct customers, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works, and if I'm right, it would be silly not to capitalize on that sale-release overlap

Similar to Frau’s point, someone on Reddit (consider the source, but still) said they confirmed via email that Criterion is continuing to hold two flash sales per year. But anything’s possible, they could’ve changed the time of year or day of the week or whatever else presumably… I wouldn’t be surprised if the 21st happens, personally.

jwo17 wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:42 pm Wouldn't be surprised if they're no longer doling out $10 gift certs

I could see this. With the Channel being close to 5 years old they may feel this is no longer beneficial

They are probably still mad about the last flash sale when I stacked four $10 subscriber gift certificates in one order and got three discs (including the Raging Bull UHD) for less than $10 each.

Gonna do it again with my 500 loyalty points, too.

(Don’t be mad Criterion, I have paid standard store price for many other items and am a Channel charter subscriber!)

I'm still holding out hope that they're aiming for the 21st, to coincide with the month's big release.

The earliest it’s been was February 13th, and the latest thus far was March 10th, which is a pretty significant difference. So I’m not jumping to the conclusion that there just isn’t a flash sale this year, because it’s not like they’ve ever been all that consistent with exactly when it is other than sticking to sometime in February or March. And yes, they do tend to have the sales coincide with highly anticipated releases, so doing it on the 21st to coincide with Inland Empire would make all the sense. I’d honestly be a little surprised if it didn’t happen next week.

The plot thickens: my $10 gift card just arrived.

I also got a gift card, though I keep getting a message saying that the gift certificate has already been used. I already have 6 other gift cards on there, so I'm guessing that there a limit to the number of gift cards that you can use?

Nope, same for me. Must be an error, I’m sure they’ll rectify.

Looks like they sent the same code to everyone by accident.

Also, shouldn't the guessing thread be open?

Does anyone know if gift certificates count towards reward points, or do only hard earned US dollars apply?

I believe the latter