VIP early access to Black Friday offers today

Offers for the UK:

Sydney Opera House £237.49
Ewok Village £189.99
Mini Cooper £70.99
Mindstorms EV3 £284.99
Heavy Haul Train £132.99
Deluxe Train Set £94.99
Heartlake Shopping Mall £75.99
The Brick Bounty £75.99
Ariel's Undersea Palace £47.49

5% discount on £100 purchase too. I would have preferred double VIP points and free shipping for the UK!

As far as Black Friday deals in the UK go, this is pretty pathetic. Current Argos 3 for 2 and Amazon deals are much better :o/

Nonetheless, I may try going to my local LEGO Store (I believe the freebie is available tomorrow for VIP's in store too?) to try and get a Gingerbread House, dare I say it looks so good you actually want to eat it? Or at least, it makes you drool? Though I may struggle to part with £60, nothing's pulling me in!

EDIT: Also, wall calendar available in store with £15 purchase, appears to be for all VIP's too.

Double VIP on Saturday 11/21/2015.

Are there any other sets that are going on sale with this? Like, at all? If I can't get a better deal than normal, it kinda feels scammy to pool in $100. (Even though I want this set like chocolate. :()

What's the regular price for the Gingerbread House? Or is it *only* being offered as a giveaway with a qualifying purchase?

Its not working for me (US) added toy shop and scoobie do team pack and no goodies nor double vip showed up. And yes I was logged into my vip. Will keep trying

Ahhh now I see Afghanistan by my name. Im on my "commercial" wifi in my room. Will try again from my Army network. Hope it isnt blocked >.<

Any updates on what the Black Friday discounted items will be in the U.S.? Can't wait for that twenty minutes that they get sold out, a la the infamous Star Wars screw-over.

I'm thinking that things won't start to be on sale in the US until midnight US time?

Nope still not adding to cart for me, nor am I getting double VIP with $104.98 in the bag :(

Ill keep trying every hour or so.

EDIT: Oh, it doesn't start till the 21st? All I saw in the article was "Today" and it was posted on the 20th

Surprise, Surprise.....

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties and your order may take up to 24 hours to process. Please note that if your order qualifies for promotions, they will be applied after we have processed your transaction. Express shipping options and payment using VIP rewards are not available during this time. Product availability may also be inaccurate during this time. Your order confirmation email will be delivered after your transaction has been processed.

If you have any questions, please call our friendly Consumer Service Experts at the number shown at the bottom of this page. Please note that we are also unable to accept phone orders at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks a lot LEGO. This happens every...single...promotion. Use some up those well earned profits to upgrade your web servers. I am starting to get tired of this bologna....

More to the point, if you decide you trust them to add the promotions on (and remove the shipping charge), pressing "Checkout" just takes you back to the front page. Grrrrr....

^ I think Chrome doesn't work too well on their site. Try Firefox.

Remember Huw is posting from the UK so it would have been the 21st when he posted this....

It should be live at midnight EST here in Canada & US, but I see they are having difficulties.
Might have to wait until 3am for it to be good, as the west coast will be on Nov. 21st with the entire country.

Yeah, same as above for me with the customer service being referred to asking to call back during business hours :/

I put in one item (10249) and see double VIP points! then (71206) to meet the gingerbread house req and BAM, technical difficulties

Technical difficulties error for me as well, as always. Interestingly the error only appears once I push my cart beyond the $100 USD threshold when the g-bread house is supposed to be added. Everything's fine under $100.

Same over here, and not even the VIP points are available:
"Oops! We are experiencing technical difficulties and are currently unable to enable payment using VIP Points. If you would like to place your order using VIP Points, please call our friendly consumer service experts on the number shown at the bottom of this page."

And the "friendly customer service experts" are having a good night sleep right now (the answering machine asks to call back during regular business hours).

Well, I placed my order, $104.98 and was charged $12.95 shipping, no gingerbread house, no double VIP, but the wife and I really want that gingerbread house. Immediately sent an email to customer support with order number and stuff. Hope it gets sorted out!

Using Firefox got me through the checkout procedure, with double points credited to my account but no free shipping and no Gingerbread House. Didn't want to wait until those problems got sorted out in case something in my cart sold out, so took the risk they will apply the promotions later on.

Internet Explorer is definitely not working at all (and was squirrely on the Lego site even before the promotion started). And I'm afraid there's no sign of any other discounts except the standard double points, @fulcrumbop.

Promotion isn't showing up for me anymore. In addition, I placed 4 orders while the promo was up but nothing is showing up on order history. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Yeah, that site be messed up. Will try again in the morning. It still amazes me that a company like Lego can have such trouble w/ their website.

FWIW, my order summary showed doubled point counts. No Gingerbread in my cart, and I got charged for shipping, too, but I took a couple screenshots along the way and I'm confident that LEGO.com will sort things out satisfactorily. Just not 100% that it'll happen without intervention from me. Fingers crossed. I'm jazzed about the Gingerbread House...

UK Lego not exactly a great deal 5% on £100 spend and the 11 so called sets are only 5% off. They know with the exclusive gingerbread house they don't have to offer much people will spend. I'll get a cpl winter fun and Santa visit and something else to top up to £60 but that's all

It finally showed up for me. Just placed an order and received gingerbread house, double points and free shipping. For those that have tried, try it again. It should be working.

Started trying at about 2:00am CST. It took me about five tries on my iPhone, but it eventually took and gave me a receipt with the Gingerbread House. I'm not to worried about the points, Lego is really good about fixing that after the fact, but I'll believe that we got the freebie when I see it.

Order placed! I'll never be able repeat my most successful Black Friday sales anyway (Mini Modulars, Sopwith Camel) but I bought the last remaining 2015 sets on my list and added the Paris "Eiffeltower" (is that even the right word?) to reach 125€. I looked at it the whole year but now I gave in and bought it. Used 30€ worth of VIP points as well. :)

EDIT: A bit better discount on the Opera House and I might have bought it!

Order placed (Temple of Airjitzu) with no technical difficulties at all, Gingerbread House free, 5% off, VIP points redeemed for € 25...
An excellent day, thank you LEGO®!!!

Will the gingerbread house be made available for non-VIPS after the 21st?

When I checked the lego site earlier today I noticed that the T&C mentioned this promo would last until somewhere mid-december (was to sleepy to grab a screenshot). Now it says: 'LEGO Gingerbread House (40139) offer is valid for orders online at LEGO.com/shop, in LEGO Stores and LEGO Catalogue telephone orders Saturday 21st November, or while stocks last'

Would make a great combo with the upcoming Doctor Who set :p

I wonder if the Gingerbread House is short-legs minifigure scale? Would make a nice addition to a fairground set up.

Six hours after the promotion went live in the US, I have yet to be able to check out successfully. The promotional item finally added to my cart awhile back, but now hitting the Checkout button from the cart picks from one of the following, at random:

1) Refreshes the page, going nowhere
2) Returns me to the shop.lego.com main page
3) Takes me to a 404 error page
4) Generates a long general error page in numerous languages

Edit! Bless the server spirits! Ten minutes later, a fifth type of error passed, and I made it through to the end of checkout!

"It's free with qualifying orders, but only today and next weekend"

Is this true in Europe?

@ theJang.
Tell me about it!
I've had the hardest time making orders from LEGO.com the last month. You would think LEGO would want to keep their website working during their busiest season!

It says offer on gingerbread house only available today

In the UK gingerbread house will be available from 27 Nov to 18 Dec (while stocks last) according to the Store newsletter

Is the roof's hinge just to get the right slope or does the hinge allow enough access for play purposes?

Oooo a whole 5%. How lucky we are.

I have been trying to purchase online for 8 hours now with no luck. Keep getting a "page not found"

I wanted to get Wall E for a Christmas present for my daughter, I have watched it go from Available to shipped out December 10th to shipped out January 20th. This is so frustrating!

Not working for me either

Worked like charm for me on the Swiss LEGO.com. I had to spend CHF120, however, to get the gingerbread house (CHF200 for 5% discount, but I didn't go there). As far as I can see, there are no other special offers, i.e., all sets are sold at their normal price. But I wanted the last two seasonal sets anyway, and finally got the Elves treetop thingy (plus some other small stuff)...

The checkout was an issue for me as well. You have to sign out and sign back in and then it goes through, well at least it did for me.

Thanks Miro78 that did it! Still cranky about having to wait until Jan. 20th for Wall*E though.

It's really annoying that the threshold in the UK is £60, and the Winter Toy Shop is £59.99!

Had to add another set just to qualify for the Gingerbread House.

It works if you log out and then back in on the lego shop site ( after 50 checkout attempts )

I finally got a WallE, having put it off forever, plus a couple of base plates (you always need baseplates, right?).

I was toying with hiding out for the Doctor Who release to get the gingerbread house, but was worried stocks might run low...

Everything seems to be working fine now on the United States site. $99 Ferrari in the cart with double VIP and gingerbread house and free shipping.

The issues from the initial launch are also fixed. At midnight eastern I added $99 worth of items to my cart, it showed double VIP but no gingerbread house and $10.95 shipping, but I went ahead and ordered. I just got my order confirmation, and the gingerbread house is in it and there's no charge for shipping.

I always get e-mails from Lego about current promotions, but not this time I didn't, about the best of them this year ;)
Hail Brickset!
I finally got Ewok Village and Mini Cooper, they were 10% off (all in), plus Gingerbread House. I can't ask for more.
It's a miracle the site worked, by the way - but only on Firefox!

I managed to get my orders done fine in the uk.. Didn't think the 5% discount worked out very well so did 3 separate purchases of around £65 and the last one used up some points too.. Love this gingerbread house.. But I am supporting one on Ideas which is very cool and made by builder Swan Dutchman. Go check it out, https://ideas.lego.com/projects/87051

Again, the shop is a complete mess, as said by many of you above. Returning to home when you search for sets, not finding items that ARE in stock and so on.
@TheOneVeyronian: where do you see these? It would have helped if you mentioned the set numbers, but anyway, whatever I try I get no results apart from this one: "Sorry, we did not find results for xxx. Searched for air instead of xxx."
The largest toy company in the world and then such a disastrous website.... unbelievable.

I wasn't planning to buy the new winter toy shop as I have the original but happened to be passing the Liverpool store this morning and picked it up on a whim. Most pleased to see a gingerbread house and 2016 calendar put in my bag for free!!! Will have to check my receipt to see if I got extra vip points but now Santa's elves have a little home to go next to last year's workshop! Vouchers in the calendar as well! 8oD

I put in my order in the first hour last night, while it was still the 20th in California. When the email confirmation finally came through this morning (approx. 11 hours later), last night's shipping charge was gone, and the Gingerbread house was there. No intervention required on my part. My confidence was well placed.

Same for me. All is right with the Lego world after a little stumble out of the gate.

Very poor deals in the Uk :-(

I've wanted the F40 for a while so there's a shiny Ferrari on the way with a gingerbread house. No discount at all :-(

I see 10234 Sydney Opera House is temp. out of stock. It was available when I threw my order in earlier

Went to my local store's early opening event this morning to get the Gingerbread House and had an awesome surprise!

Just for showing up, each person/family got a swag bag with
2015 Lego Ornament
Mini-Mini Cooper
Azari's Magic Fire
Han Solo on Hoth
The Winter Soldier
Chima Worriz' Fire Bike
Ninjago Kai Drifter
and a Lego Store Employee figure!

I was very pleasantly surprised! Anyone else have any luck like this?

...cant find $99 worth of legos to buy that i want....stuck at $69...oh, well. I have three kids and they were no help, lol

T&C now reads as follows:

'LEGO® Gingerbread House (40139) is valid for orders online at LEGO.com/shop, in LEGO Stores and LEGO Catalogue telephone orders from 27 November to 18 December 2015, or while stocks last.[...]'

So I guess they should have plenty in stock as was the case with the 40138 Christmas Train.
I'll take my chances and wait until 1 December...

I placed an order, went through without any problems, for $99.97 so got the gingerbread house. It only appeared to be added in when I opened up the order page. No pop down saying it was added in. All seems smooth sailing for me. Its around 11AM here on the West coast USA.

Just bought a Chima set that was nearing retirement. Curious if there will be any actual sets on sale next weekend, because in Canada there is nuthin.

In the US, about the only set on sale is the Pirates Chess set, for $10 off.

@talos: Pirate chess set is 10% off for a few days already, as were a few Chima sets last time I checked. Maybe they're about to be retired?

I was hoping the Pirate chess set would be a few Euros off over the pond eventually, too, but no luck so far.

I was able to order a handful of hours ago in the US without any problems. I couldn't decide what I wanted, so maybe they were able to fix everything during that time of me deciding. But free shipping, gingerbread promo and double points. My Order Status says in Warehouse already. I've never seen it in the warehouse that quickly, very odd.

By the time I checked my e-mail today they had added the Gingerbread House to the order and removed the shipping charge. From now on, whenever it's important to get an order in quickly, I'm firing up Firefox instead of my usual Internet Explorer. Now to see if the House will still be around on December 1, when I go after the Dr. Who set....

Got my order in on my phone no problems. Was able to purchase Christmas presents so I could get the Gingerbread House for myself.

Went to the Lego store today in Sherway Gradens, Toronto. Staff are usually very accomodating but wouldn't split my order (Limited Stock, pah!) so managed to get only 1 Gingerbread House and 1 calendar. I tried all my powers of persuasion but they wouldn't budge.

I thought the offer was only in store... Happy to have the fountain of knowledge which is the Internet :-) So instead I ordered some more online.

Had some minor issues with the checkout page not progressing but after switching from the mobile to the desktop site all was fine.

Would you get arrested for licking a boiled sweet stained glass window?

I always get amazed at a gingerbread house being associated with Christmas. I only know gingerbread houses from Hansel and Gretel, and a story about witchcraft, child abduction and gory homicide doesn't exactly scream "Merry Christmas!" to me, you know?

Thanks to your article I was able to add one of these to my basket yesterday, whilst buying bigger sets for my twin Nephews' birthday due to the discounts. Great photos, I love the roof on this house.

I was also unable to checkout yesterday, to my great dismay. I was very disappointed in the website and gave up after a few hours of un-responsiveness. It was very upsetting to spend a few fruitless hours of seeing my cart and the home page over and over again with neither success nor a gingerbread house...

Someone may have asked already, but is this available in-store too? I need to pop down to Shepherds Bush this week for some Lego pressies, so would be good to pick this up to go with the train.

@Camberbrickgreen

Maybe not arrested, but possibly thrown into an oven...

if online ordering is not working, I just call them and order

The US shop still won't let me check out today. Doesn't look good for Black Friday.

I was having the issue of the freebee not showing in my cart on the 21st, but it turns out that the @$80 worth of bricks and pieces I had didn't count towards the $99. So I added an extra changing seasons set. I just don't understand why bricks and pieces wouldn't count towards the free gift when I know pick a brick does.