Blockbuster Online ~ Redesigned And With Total Access
Written: Jan 01 '07
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We don't watch of lot of TV around here, but we do watch a lot of movies. We used to have cards to all the movie rental places in town which we frequented. But the big problem we had was returning movies by their due dates. You know how it goes, the movie is due by noon but halfway to work you find it still sitting in the passenger seat. Then heading home all you think about is getting dinner ready, clothes washed, and whatever else you can squeeze in before bed and returning the movie is far from your thoughts. Five days after it was due back you finally return it - only to pay more in late fees than it would have cost to buy the dang thing. So after Shawn and I moved in together we decided to sign up for one of the internet movie rental deals. We opted for Blockbuster because it was a name we trusted.
What Blockbuster Offers
For anyone unfamiliar with the process of renting movies online, it is simple and ingenious. You have the ability to choose movies on the website, they will be sent in an envelope to your home, and then you send it back after you are finished. All shipping is free; all you pay is the monthly fee.
And now with Blockbuster Total Access you have the ability to exchange the movies mailed in a Blockbuster store for another movie. So not only do you get movies sent to your home, you can use them to get movies in the store.
Blockbuster also allows a member or non-member to purchase movies and gift cards on the site. Also you can search for a store near you or browse their database of movies, which is nice if you are sending your significant other out to pick up movies but you don't know what you want to watch. They now have a separate website that deals with games.
Rental Plans and Pricing
$5.99 a month gets you 1 DVD at a time, with a limit of 2 rentals per month.
$7.99 a month gets 1 DVD at a time, with a limit of 3 a month.
$9.99 per month still only allows for 1 at a time, but with unlimited rental each month.
$14.99 a month gets 2 DVDs at a time with unlimited rentals.
$17.99 a month gets you 3 DVDs a time with unlimited rentals.
$23.99 allows 4 movies at a time with unlimited rentals.
* All plans allow for in-store exchange and give an online, printable coupon each month for a free in-store game rental. These are the current plans and the corresponding pricing options. While they have stayed pretty consistent, they are subject to change at any time. All major credit cards and e-checks are accepted and will be automatically billed monthly.
How It Works
Signing up is simple. You choose a plan, they ask for the basic information - email address, credit card info, billing/shipping address - and you create a password. Now you can search for a specific movie by title or for a specific actor by name. You also can browse movies by movie categories, collections, new releases, top online rentals, or award winners. Most of these give additional options. To give an idea: selecting movie categories gives such results as action and adventure, comedy, drama, etc. From there, clicking on drama gives options of courtroom dramas, crime dramas, tragedies, etc. There are endless ways to browse, with as many categories and sub-categories that are available.
Once you have found something you would like to rent, there is a clickable button that allows you to add it. This will put it in your queue. You can fill your queue with as little or as many movies as you like. Blockbuster recommends having at least 30 so that there will be no delays in getting movies to you. From your queue you can view which movies have been shipped out, and what movies are on your list. You can delete movies from you queue, as well as arrange their order. Each movie will also show availability status; some are immediately available and some have a short or long wait. Also is you save a movie before it has been released, the release date will appear if it has a known date of release.
The top available movies are sent out during business hours and an email will be sent to you letting you know. Blockbuster states that DVDs usually arrive in 1-2 business days. After receiving a movie you can take as long as you need to watch it. There are no due dates or late fees. You simply watch it when you want, even if it takes a while. When you are done you now have two options of returning it: mailing it back or exchanging in-store. To mail it back, you just seal it back up in the envelope and drop it in the mail.
To exchange in-store for another movie, simply seal it back up and head to the store. Then hand those in at the checkout after you have picked out new rentals. Keep in mind, though, that do this you need a membership to the Blockbuster store that you are going to (if you don't have one, you can get one), and that normal due dates and late fees (er, extended viewing fees or whatever they are called now) will apply to these movies. They also have to be returned to the store when you are finished with them. After the online movies have been returned to the store, more movies from your queue will be shipped. Blockbuster will always email you when they have received the returned movies.
Online you also have the option to see the average rating a movie has and rate movies that you have seen. Based on your ratings, Blockbuster will recommend movies to you. They say the more movies you have rated, the better recommendations you will have. From the site you can browse through the movies it has selected for you.
Customer Service
You can contact Blockbuster Online through email any time and get a response in a few hours. There is also telephone support available weekdays during business hours. They do have an extensive FAQ, which will answer most questions one may have.
My Thoughts
It's going on two years since I started with Blockbuster Online and I have been pretty happy with them. The internet makes a whole lot of things much more simpler, and renting movies is no exception to that. The ease of being able to grab a hot new release right out of your mailbox and returning it the next morning while still in your pajamas in incredible.
The selection on movies online is also incredible. Currently Blockbuster states that there are over 65,000 titles to choose from. Plus with new movies coming in each week, there is enough to keep you busy. I particularly like the fact that you can save movies that are still in theatres, so you don't have to worry about when it is coming to DVD - it just stays in your queue until it's released. And not only do they carry regular movies, they have tons of television show boxed sets that you can rent. One of my favorite shows years back was X-Files. I thought several times about buying the boxed sets of all the seasons, but that adds up to a lot of money. But with Blockbuster Online I have been able to re-watch many of the episodes without spending a fortune.
Although the selection of movies is big, it can be time consuming to browse through. Often I find myself looking on other websites to find good looking movies. Blockbuster Online also usually only lists upcoming releases for the next week, so I check out other places for upcoming releases in the next few weeks. Then, after having a title to search for, I can find it on Blockbuster to save to my queue. This works out best for me, so I don't have to log on every week to see what's coming soon. I just stock pile my queue once a month or so and let the movies come to me. Then if there is anything I missed I am able to find it in the store when I exchange them.
As far as navigation other than movies, it is pretty good. A mini version of your queue is on all pages other than the help section. With that you can view the movies you have out, the movies on the top of your list, drag movies in out out of it, change the order of the movies, and click on it to be taken to the full queue page. This is a big improvement over their previous layout. Links for recommendations, ratings, and your account information are on every page. As well, you can get to help section, shopping cart, store locator, and just about everywhere else from any page you are on.
Most pages load quickly, other than some with many graphics and the queue page. When you have a lot in your queue it will take some time to load. I also find it very slow when trying to change the order in which movies are sent. While the new way it is set up is, by far, a big improvement on how it used to be, it is still in need of some work. Before you could only change the numbers next to the movie, then click a button. The page would refresh with the new order, but if trying to do several at a time things would mess up. Now they have a drag and drop feature that is great in theory, but poor in execution. It takes longer for the page to refresh itself, so trying to move multiple movies around can be tiresome. Plus the order tends to get messed up still on occasion, leaving you no better off than to begin with.
Customer service has not been the most helpful. After moving we had a mess with our mail. Ours was being forwarded to the couple that used to live here and sometimes even being returned to sender. After several conversations with the post office, and a visit or two, we have finally seemed to get things straightened out. During that time, a few movies from Blockbuster have appeared to disappear in the mail. We never received them and they never got sent back. I started to get worried that they may think we were stealing the DVDs, so I sent an email explaining our situation. In that email I stated that our address listed on our account was correct, as I had checked it several times to make sure it was updated. The response I got was basically a we're sorry, we cannot control the postal system, please make sure your address is correct on the account. This was followed by a detailed explanation of how to update our account information online. This was our first, and only thus-far, problem and the only time dealing with customer service, but I was not quite happy with the response I got. Even though it was timely, it just felt more as a hurried brush-off response.
Shipping times have been great for the most part. Every now and then it will take a movie more than 3 or 4 days to get here. I read on the website once a while back something about older and less popular movies are sometimes slower because they are not held at each shipping location, which is consistent with the movies that have taken longer to get here. Other than that I usually receive them in a day or two from when they are shipped. They have a shipping location in St. Louis, which I only live a few miles from. I think if our mail did not come so early in the morning I would get them a day faster (I also live a block from our post office and apparently we are the second house of the day for our postman).
Overall, despite the few drawbacks, I have been very pleased with Blockbuster Total Access. Their website could use a few improvements, but I don't mind bearing with it for the advantages it has. I would hope that customer service is more helpful for a bigger problem - being told to do something that I stated I already did is rather pointless. But our mail seems to be in order and I have had no problems with our last few movies. While our plan at $17.99 a month might be a bit high for those that do not rent a lot of movies, there are plans that would suit any need. For us, $17.99 not only gives us lots of movies to watch and free game rentals that Shawn loves, it saves us tons of money in late fees that we would be paying otherwise. Plus, we don't fight over who has to return the movies.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: Brandi
Location: Illinois
Reviews written: 96
Trusted by: 120 members
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