alex.moskalyuk

Fool.com story tells how to get online DVD rental from Blockbuster at $16 a month. Basically, sign up for their trial service, then tell them you want to cancel, mention the price being the problem and then see the offer price drop to $15.99 a month for 6 months. Moreover, if you’re a registered member of FatWallet CashBack program (and the registration, like all good things in life, is free), you will get $6 on your account in 90 days after sign-up.

Blockbuster Online DVD rental costs $17.49 a month, you can check out up to 3 movies at any time, and shipping both ways is free. Also, they will complement the online subscription with 2 free rental tickets a month. Why they wouldn’t allow the DVDs to be dropped at offline locations beats me, but I guess with the prepaid envelopes it’s easier to drive to the nearest Post Office box than to the nearest Blockbuster. The Fool.com guys are claiming that the price drop is not worth it when comparing the features of the service:

Whether Blockbuster’s latest attempt at gaining market share will work remains to be seen. It sure won’t be easy — Netflix was able to comfortably grow its subscribers despite a lower-priced Wal-Mart option for more than a year. When the price difference is small, small differences in service start to matter. Although I’ll stay with Blockbuster for that one more month of free service — come on, it’s free — I’ll switch back to Netflix and its $17.99 equivalent plan once the promotional offer expires. Simply put, I think the additional features are worth the extra $0.50.