LEGO VIP Program

Crowkillers

Not that it should matter, but this order wasn't $400, it was just under $200.. Our last one from the first week of September was $400 and that one DID NOT have the points added...

Crowkillers

Legoboy said:

^ As I did with my set orders last week.

This was the first part order that I can recall getting a tracking number for though...

Legoboy

My two September RP orders were for approx. £40-50 each.

Crowkillers

Here is what the new invoice looked like:

Legoboy

I have never had anything like that.

Not that TLG T&Cs are worth much these days, but regarding VIP points.....

"5. Eligible purchases are defined as any service or merchandise available for purchase, excluding gift cards and replacement parts. Points will be earned on purchases made with gift cards at the time the gift card is redeemed. Excluding replacement parts purchased via Consumer Service."

Crowkillers

To be honest, I don't know why Lego wouldn't give V.I.P. points with part orders... They make more money selling parts individually than they do selling those same parts in sets...

Crowkillers

Legoboy said:

I have never had anything like that.

Not that TLG T&Cs are worth much these days, but regarding VIP points.....

"5. Eligible purchases are defined as any service or merchandise available for purchase, excluding gift cards and replacement parts. Points will be earned on purchases made with gift cards at the time the gift card is redeemed. Excluding replacement parts purchased via Consumer Service."

They must be putting the pictures on the invoices to help the brick pickers at Lego from picking the wrong items... I know a few people who got their orders in with parts that were nowhere near what they were supposed to be...

madforLEGO

Well I just called LEGO(in US) and clicked on the Replacement parts prompt and they ask you for your LEGO VIP number. Not sure if they are doing this for VIP points, or if they are doing it to try to track your purchases or it is just how their system is setup.
I also notice they now have a prompt that explain that there are x people in the queue and that they have x LEGO reps available to assist people.
Now you would think since their system is this advanced that you would think that they could have more than one song playing all the time.

scottwb2010

Looks like @Crowkillers may have got lucky, but then @madforLego says they asked for his VIP number, so this may be something new Lego are doing ie giving points for buying replacement parts which I hope they are. I personally think they should give points, if you are buying the parts rather than calling to ask for a replacement part that was missing etc which you would get for free anyway.

Bosstone100

They may be giving VIP points but also starting to track how often people are using the replacement parts site. I have heard of at least a couple of people being denied replacement parts.

CCC

You give them an address. Surely that is better to track purchases, otherwise just don't give them a vip number.

Crowkillers

Bosstone100 said:

They may be giving VIP points but also starting to track how often people are using the replacement parts site. I have heard of at least a couple of people being denied replacement parts.

Why would they deny parts..? Lego makes more money selling individual parts.. Unless they tracked resellers of parts, but then Lego refers people to bricklink...

cheshirecat

Why do you think lego makes more from selling individual parts? Sure they sell them at a higher price but theres a whole added layer of work which is probably highly inefficient.

binaryeye

Excuse the basic question, but how do double VIP points work?

a) Points earned are doubled.
b) Points used are doubled.

I assume points earned are doubled, but this isn't made clear by anything I can find on LEGO's website.

CCC

Points earned are doubled.

binaryeye

Thanks.

I've seen folks here refer to them as if they're a discount on the set being bought, so I wasn't sure.

chromedigi

They are, effectively, since money is fungible. Apply your points next time you buy something.

binaryeye

chromedigi said:

They are, effectively, since money is fungible. Apply your points next time you buy something.

Money is fungible, but VIP points aren't. It's an incentive to purchase more, not a discount. ;)

I understand why someone who buys from LEGO often would consider it a discount, but I'm not that someone.

Bumblepants

^The smart side of my brain says 'no, it isn't really a discount' but the other side says 'yeah, but you know you want to trick your future self into making another order of sweet, delicious Lego right?

Paperballpark

I look at it as an extra 5% off. I'll always spend more on LEGO in the future anyway, so I'm accumulating the points so I can get a hefty amount off one of the really expensive sets (Ewok Village and Opera House).

CCC

It's not quite 5%, as at best you pay £100 to get £105 worth of Lego. Outside double points of course.

Paperballpark

huh? If I buy £100 of LEGO, I get £5 free (well, £5 off more LEGO). To me that's 5% off. I'm not sure where you've got £105 from?

JamesJT

Spend £99.99 and you only get 99 points, use 200 of your VIP pionts then you only get 89 points (bescause you only spent £89.99).

Paperballpark

^ I think you get 99.99 points for a 99.99 spend, they're just rounded down so it looks like 99 points.

So if you spend 99.99 in one trip, and then 99.99 in another, I believe it shows you as having 199 points, rather than 198.

graphite

Paperballpark said:

huh? If I buy £100 of LEGO, I get £5 free (well, £5 off more LEGO). To me that's 5% off. I'm not sure where you've got £105 from?

Because thats the way it works. You got £5 free lego, not £5 off. So like he said you paid £100 for £105 of LEGO which works out to a 4.76% discount. If you had paid £95 for £100 in LEGO it would be 5% off. It has to do with the difference of a discount vs a credit towards another purchase. Just the way the math works out.

AdeelZubair

Normally: For every £100 you spend you get £5 to spend on more Lego.

Double VIP Points: For every £100 you spend you get £10 to spend on more Lego.

Its more like free money :D

chromedigi

binaryeye said:

I understand why someone who buys from LEGO often would consider it a discount, but I'm not that someone.

I believe you are the way you say you are, but something tells me that if you frequent Brickset, you will go back and buy from LBR or [email protected] again. Maybe you'll pick up some PAB. Your not-quite 5% discount comes with deferred gratification. Of course, that deferral may occur within minutes... :)

Oh, dear. I said "may."

hoyatables

Now that coupons on exclusives have gone away, I think that Double VIP may be the best time to pick them up -- until and unless one of two things happen:
1) We see that Amazon Walmart etc are going to ignore the new policy, or
2) We think that there's a reasonable chance that LEGO will put the set on sale (as they often do with the Winter Village sets after,

Diggydoes

What if Lego decides there won't be Double VIP on exclusives?!? Oh my...

binaryeye

chromedigi said:

I believe you are the way you say you are, but something tells me that if you frequent Brickset, you will go back and buy from LBR or [email protected] again. Maybe you'll pick up some PAB.

Sure I'll buy something directly from LEGO in the future. It's just that the future is likely to be far enough away from any given purchase that I can't consider VIP points to be a discount on that purchase. If I were buying something every week, I probably would consider it a discount.

Over the last ~16 months of being out of my "dark ages", I've bought ~45 sets, and only one was purchased directly from LEGO. That was #7965 on May 4th because I wanted the promo and the set wasn't available elsewhere for more than a few dollars less than RRP. In general, there are very few sets I have interest in that can't be purchased from a non-LEGO vendor for less, so there isn't much reason for me to buy directly from LEGO (the exceptions being TRU exclusives, curse them, and PAB, which isn't particularly relevant considering I'm about three hours from the nearest store).

LegoMom1

binaryeye said:

chromedigi said:

They are, effectively, since money is fungible. Apply your points next time you buy something.

Money is fungible, but VIP points aren't. It's an incentive to purchase more, not a discount. ;)

I understand why someone who buys from LEGO often would consider it a discount, but I'm not that someone.

I have to agree with @binaryeye here. A "discount" occurs at time of purchase, therefore, when points are redeemed, they can be looked upon as a "discount" at that time. But since the purchase earning the points does not at this time get the "discount" with this item, the current points being obtained with the current purchase really should be considered a future credit.

DoubleD

Most of the time if there are not promos giving out, you can find the sets on sale for more then the 5% from the VIP points.

CCC

graphite said:

Paperballpark said:

huh? If I buy £100 of LEGO, I get £5 free (well, £5 off more LEGO). To me that's 5% off. I'm not sure where you've got £105 from?

Because thats the way it works. You got £5 free lego, not £5 off. So like he said you paid £100 for £105 of LEGO which works out to a 4.76% discount. If you had paid £95 for £100 in LEGO it would be 5% off. It has to do with the difference of a discount vs a credit towards another purchase. Just the way the math works out.

Correct. You can sit at top table in math(s) class.

klatu003

Here is another wrinkle. VIP points act as cash in Lego transactions. When used they reduce the sale amount used as the basis for sales tax and rewarding new VIP points. So, using them during double VIP periods is slightly less *rewarding* than using them at regular times. [Assuming you are going to be buying bricks from TLG in the future anyway.] I like to use them for PAB cups.

chromedigi

klatu003 said:

I like to use them for PAB cups.

Funny... I like to use PAB to accumulate points for use against sets. Each to their own, I guess.

cmrt1014

Back to the original topic: I had ordered some parts through Bricks and Pieces in late September. Had a hard time as I wasn't receiving the confirmation emails with an order number to call and pay. On Friday, I finally received confirmation emails. In the meantime, I had called in and ordered. As stated above, it asks for your VIP number as you go through. The CS rep told me that, No, you will not earn VIP points on this parts order. Well...I just checked my VIP account due to different purchase, and there was the order and points for the parts all itemized out. (Note that while the order was in process I was only able to get order status on it if I was NOT logged into my VIP account.)

Crowkillers

cheshirecat said:

Why do you think lego makes more from selling individual parts? Sure they sell them at a higher price but theres a whole added layer of work which is probably highly inefficient.

Take an average 1000 piece Technic set that costs $125 at the store and then take that set's inventory and order all of the parts from Lego.. You'll pay twice the amount and there is no packaging/instructions involved... Lego easily makes more money selling parts individually for a set rather than a set itself... Plus all of the profit goes to Lego since there is no second party selling them...

Legoboy

^But all of the parts are picked by hand aren't they? I'd hate to think of the time required to pick out a 1,000 part Technics set.

Crowkillers

Yes parts are picked by hand, but you also have to take into account that there is no packaging or instructions.. Even if you paid someone $20 an hour(Which I doubt they are) to pick parts, you would still be making more money on the parts...

Crowkillers

The Lego 42009 Crane Truck is a $220 and parts out for over $400 on Bricklink and many of these are prices waaaay less than the parts cost if you were to buy them from Lego....

GIR3691

It's more expensive because it's much more logistically complex. The higher cost to the consumer is a result of increased cost to the producer. It's not just a higher profit margin in an otherwise identical business model. It's cheaper to sell sets that are machine-packed on a mass scale than to hand-pack random lots by individual order, or even programming machines to do it. Why do the more complex, more expensive method when you can make such a good profit doing it the easy way?

Crowkillers

If Lego were not making a profit by selling parts to the consumer, then they wouldn't be doing it...

If I call up Lego and order just the 2L Black Pins(500), 2L Blue Axle Pins(113), and 3L Blue Pins(214) from the 42009 set, it would cost me $120 which is more than 1/2 of the cost of the set and I am no where near the meat and potatoes of that set...

Those parts could be picked and counted in about 5 minutes... That is a huge profit on those parts compared to someone buying the actual set and getting them...

I am not saying that machine packed sets isn't the proper way to make money for a company, just about everything we buy in this world is mass produced this way from cars to toys... My point is that Lego most definitely makes money selling picked parts...

Aleydita

There's definitely a profit there but the costs of providing this service are much more than a wage or two. There's transport, storage, insurance, losses, logistics, IT, etc. All of this for what is I expect a tiny proportion of their sales.

I doubt profit is their prime motivator behind offering such a service anyway, I expect they're just hoping to keep customers happy enough to come back again and again. It might also give them a way of keeping tabs on what bulk-buyers are purchasing and this info might be brought into the decision making process about what pieces/colours make it into future sets.

Xefan

As much as anything it's probably that the service is immensely helpful in helping people build custom Lego creations which are excellent advertising in themselves.

For the previous decade or two where I really had nothing to do with Lego (other than playing some of the video games) I probably still saw a news story about some impressive Lego creation at least once or twice a year, and it's that sort of keeping a brand in the public mindset that builds brand reputation. I suspect many of those news story creations I saw were made possible with bricks from their parts services.

Zeldafanatic15

I wanted to ask to see if anyone else has had this problem with their VIP account.

I went in Friday to a Lego retail store to buy my wife's Christmas gift, since I had $15 in VIP points and the $10 holiday gift certificate. They scanned my card and told me it was cancelled or expired, I honestly can't remember which one they said. They then looked up my account by my email, which came up a different ID number, but also cancelled. I have never cancelled it, and when I log in to my account, the main page shows me my points and rewards amount, but when I go to the account page, it doesn't show a balance, but I can see my purchase history. They told me I had to contact CS.

When I did, they said they showed my account cancelled but couldn't explain why. He couldn't even see my account history. He told me I would have to start a new Lego ID and he said he was setting up a new VIP account with $15 reward dollars. I made a new Lego ID, linked the new account he gave me, but as of today, still not points in the account.

I'll call them tomorrow to see what can be done, but just was curious if anyone has had something similar happen. They have had to reissue me a new card a couple times at the Lego store, for some reason there always seemed to e problems with my account, but no idea why.

iluvmyelement

That happened to me and after months of trying to figure out why, I finally got a rep who told me that it was because I made purchases through an online cash back site (Bank of America's to be exact). This may not be the reason you got cancelled - but they seem to be very quick to cancel accounts for any reason they feel like.

madforLEGO

Was the account cancelled because you used a cash back site to get Exclusives that are not supposed to be discounted? Again, silly reason, but the only thing I could think of to get you into trouble with LEGO, as I have used sites with portals, like one I cannot mention at the behest of the admins, and not had any issues with my VIP account.

Zeldafanatic15

Never used anything like that. CS was completely baffled. I'll see what happens when I talk with them.

sipuss

Sorry for digging this thread up from a very deep grave, but I have a general VIP program question and didn't find any better place for it.

I recently joined the VIP program (after almost 2 weeks of being unable to confirm my e-mail address...). My question is, how do I order a "VIP early access" set like 10293 Santa's Visit? The product page says "Coming Soon" and "VIP Early Access on this set starts 16/9", but no button to add it to the cart or anything.

madforLEGO

sipuss said:

Sorry for digging this thread up from a very deep grave, but I have a general VIP program question and didn't find any better place for it.

I recently joined the VIP program (after almost 2 weeks of being unable to confirm my e-mail address...). My question is, how do I order a "VIP early access" set like 10293 Santa's Visit? The product page says "Coming Soon" and "VIP Early Access on this set starts 16/9", but no button to add it to the cart or anything.

Ensure you are logged into LEGO.com so its sees your VIP account, If it still does not, I would say to call Customer service as they are pretty good about resolving issues.