accio brick - the lego harry potter comm

From midnight this morning onwards for a week you can get double VIP points at the lego store. (Registering as a VIP is free and gets you a cute keychain, too. 😉 Even if you never use the points, you might, so it's worth a shot either way.) They changed the VIP system a while back making it non-trivially more complicated, but I checked it at the time and calculated the standard VIP rebate for the leading currencies all as upwards of five percent of what you spend now off your next purchase (so double means upwards of 10%), but it can be difficult to follow the base maths so 1) I'll spare you and 2) I'm not revisiting that determination regularly; exchange rates are a pain in my backside. Additionally, these rebate systems are always a little problematic. They're designed to keep you coming back, there's always a minimum amount to get that rebate, the points eventually expire... Yada yada. As systems go, lego's is far from the worst, but a straight forward discount would obviously be better. For someone who used to buy the Creator Modular sets and / or the Winter Village sets every year, it still worked out advantageously for me, and it's certainly proved even more worthwhile since the rekindling of the HP series. 😃 Mileage varies obviously. ( Read more... )

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In other news: Target is offering the Harry and Hermione bundled maxifigure set for half price, and I'm positively green with envy. 😢 If you're in the US and these were on your shopping radar, I'd say get them now.

The MBoM is available once more at the US lego.com store.



If you wanted it, get hopping, because they run out quickly. Purchase over $75 dollars of Harry Potter legos and it will automatically be added to your cart. In addition, they've extended the offer for either the Fire Helicopter or Police Water Scooter lego City Polybags, you can add them to your carts for free. (Use code FR29 for the City Fire Helicopter or PC29 for the Police Water Scooter at checkout.)



Nifty. Now let's talk lego arbitrage for a moment. First and foremost, make sure you're registered as a lego VIP user. It's free and it gets you upwards of five percent of anything you spend off your next purchase. There's virtually no effort involved, the points are good for about a year and a half, and even if you have no purchases planned, it doesn't hurt to do this 'just in case'. (Plus, there are freebies. I got a snazzy keychain recently. Most satisfying. 😊)

Next, even if you have all the HP lego sets you wanted and didn't care about the MBoM (😮 it's okay, we can still be friends), selling the MBoM on ebay in the states currently nets you upwards of $40 (as long as it isn't an auction <- do NOT go to auction atm). Set a price or best offer. You may need a bit of patience to find a buyer depending on the price you set, but you can place up to 200 ads per month for free, so it doesn't cost you anything but patience to wait. When putting your order together, you should also consider the average prices of lego sets in stores, or sets that are only available at the lego S@H and select wisely. For example, 40419, the Hogwarts™ Students Acc. Set, is $15 on the lego site and often sells for over $20 on ebay. (Here in DE, it's only available at the S@H, ebay and amazon marketplace, which drives the price. Check your country by googling availability.) That right there means five student sets for $75, completely resold at present rates, along with the MBoM nets you upwards of $65 profit on ebay (and you can throw in the City poly bag, too). Ebay will charge 10% of the "final value" in fees (note: without an ebay shop, that includes shipping and handling). Hanging on to the sets and doing this at a later date almost always gets you better prices, too, but this model is if you didn't want to sit on the sets for any length of time.