Do they release all the offers at once? Or are they drop fed throughout the weekend?

Been waiting almost a year for Lion Dance, I'm on it!

@AustinPowers said:
"Somehow, last year's offers were quite a bit more enticing, to me at least.
Unless there are some surprises over the weekend, I am going to save quite a bit of money this year by not buying anything around Black Friday / Cyber Monday. "

Yep me too, was expecting a discount on Disney castle or slim chance of haunted mansion discount but without those I wouldn't go spending this year, daft really as I would most likely add a Xmas set or too and some hidden side but need the Star buys to get started ??

Nothing for me (assuming it's the same offers in every country?) - I'll do my Black Friday shopping elsewhere.

Not super great this year :/ no Modular sale??

Thanks for this article.

Yes, same here in Italy.

..and in Norway, buhuu

and in Spain ...

Same in the netherlands...

what are the offers?

@Mister_Jonny said:
"According to Eurogamer, Aldi (in the UK) are selling the Millennium Falcon tonight for £60. No word on which version that is...

EDIT: It's the Rise of Skywalker one! Talk about a bargain..."

They sold out so fast I reloaded the page and all stock had gone.

Half price vip vouchers...

But only 1 esch, and only £5 worth...400 pts instead of 800, good as long as you plan to shop something in the next 60 days...

@Synthia1980 said:
"Have I missed something? What is the deal here in the UK? I can’t see anything listed on the Black Friday discount at Lego that I can’t buy somewhere else for less, despite the 20% discount? "
You need to go to the normal sale and deals page and click on deals or whatever it’s called...

It's not a good black Friday when the thing I'm most impressed about is the £6.99 Christmas Reindeer Ornament coming back in stock!

Sets reduced to only a bit more than the usual Amazon price don't really cut it.

Surely the good stuff's on it's way for the Weekend/Cyber Monday..... pretty please.

@sjr60 said:
"It's not a good black Friday when the thing I'm most impressed about is the £6.99 Christmas Reindeer Ornament coming back in stock!

Sets reduced to only a bit more than the usual Amazon price don't really cut it.

Surely the good stuff's on it's way for the Weekend/Cyber Monday..... pretty please.
"

No, that's it. Lego.com sales are generally pants and the best discounts are normally had elsewhere. Generally speaking the sets on sale are likely to be end of life.

Best thing on sale is probably the VW camper, its seldom discounted elsewhere and Huw hinted its going end of life.

Worst Black Friday company sale - no Black Friday gift like brick or minifig! Sent a load last weekend as it said - “get double points this weekend and spend them on at our “Black Friday Sale” x Well that didn’t work as I had an email that my items were back ordered though they hadn’t been when I ordered them - John Lewis has barracuda bay, the rollercoaster & a few more at 20% off x

To be honest Argos were the best this year - got AT-AT and DC ironman Helmet for -33% - The Aldi Falcon was no chance !

Barring a surprise restock of sets that are currently showing Out of Stock or Sold Out I probably won't be making any purchases this weekend. Already placed two orders last weekend so I already have the Dickens GWP set. I already bought the Hidden Side set I really wanted and it is now Sold Out so I'm glad I didn't wait for a possible discount this weekend. Reports of what is on sale in Europe I can already get at those prices or better from other sources. Hoping something is left for me to buy when the Skating GWP is offered.

I spent a fortune last year with all the great deals they had on larger sets.

@PurpleDave : why against me specifically? It's an insult to any customer. Are the offers different for you? Do you actually find any of them attractive in any way? If so, care to explain why?
Or are you simply defending anything TLG does? Are you that much of an undiscerning fanboy?

That the offers over the last few years were better both in terms of the actual amount of discount as well as product selection on offer is a fact, not my personal opinion. Just check what was available last year, or 2018, and then tell me why this year's offers aren't pathetic in comparison.

I kinda wish I'd bought something last weekend, as I do really like the Dickens set and I was hoping that there would be something good on offer like there was (for me at least) last year. Guess I'll make do with 25% off the T-rex at Argos

Just the Camper Van from lego.com for me.

I did also pick up 70676 from my local Tesco for 50% off. They also had a Friends set and a City Fire station for half price (both reduced to £30 I think).

@AustinPowers said:
"This is truly pathetic.
Not a single exclusive set at a discount like over the last few years. And those sets that are discounted not only are standard fare but can be had for far better discounts at Amazon and elsewhere any day.

And exclusive VIP point rewards? Nope as well. The only interesting thing, the wooden minifig for 9,000 points, showed as sold out right from the beginning. Or did they have like 5 or so that were sold out after ten seconds?

LEGO is really taking the smeg this year.
One would have thought they would do the best offers ever after a year of lockdowns that must have brought them some of their best sales periods ever, but no, apparently they don't give a toss. Honestly, WTH? "

Why would they offer “the best deals ever” just because of Lockdown?

Black Friday really hasn't meant much at Lego for years now it seems. Just a few random sets, mostly not all that interesting. I'd like the Dickens set, but honestly there's not $150 worth of Lego I want at the moment.

It’s a shame that the Chinese New Year Temple Fair is sold out. I don’t follow the details as much as a lot of people here, so I don’t know how to estimate what may be “temporarily out of stock” or “sold out”. I’m sure there’s previous patterns to observe or something.

US site has Tantive IV on sale page and wind Turbine Anyone else seeing these? Prices won't update yet though

Saturn V not on sale.
Mobile Crane not on sale.
Other interesting Technic sets, not on sale.

What's the point?

Worthless.

It's 12:05 in the U.S., and nothing. No sales, no deals. How long does it take for this to go live?

Wow Lego, just wow. The site is lagging badly and it's not showing the sale prices..also every single set I'm interested in is sold out. Nice. On the plus side, my wallet is still happy.

None of the sets on the "Save up to 20% on these selected sets" page are shown with any discount at all. Is the sale pricing not loaded properly into their US web server?

The entire VIP page is gone as well, this is pretty bad

The number one Toy company in the world is have website problems.
Again.
No surprises there.

The entire VIP page is gone as well, this is pretty bad

Honestly, what a dud. I know we shouldn't have expected much based on the other countries and their releases, but these are almost all sales we've seen on other sites in the last few weeks or months, often with a bigger discount or money back or coupon clipping or whatever.

The entire VIP page is gone as well, this is pretty bad

I am now in the Q Hue was talking about, I am number 505 in line just to see the site.

OH wow. Lego site may be having serious issues - I can't get into my VIP account now and says it's been deleted. What on earth is going on.

D.O.A. in the US. Yikes. If this wasn’t their regular I’d give it a break and assume covid played a role but since this has been the S @H website M.O. I’m not surprised. Even better I get an error that says they can’t find my account. Hooray!

I'm getting an error message on the VIP page saying that my account may have been deleted and can't be recovered. Hopefully this is just a glitch, because otherwise I'm going to be pretty furious!

My VIP page is still in tact, so probably just an overload where it can't find the info.

@GoldenNinja3000 @ogel_chicago

@ogel_chicago said:
"OH wow. Lego site may be having serious issues - I can't get into my VIP account now and says it's been deleted. What on earth is going on. "

Mine says the same. I’m hoping it’s hit some default error page, I can’t think of a scenario that would’ve deleted it, barring something catastrophic. I’m not too worried.

I just got sent to a queue with about 500 people after reloading since midnight.

ETA- but still no price changes once in.

I ordered the Colosseum here in NA and the site worked just fine. The promo items were added as well. Maybe I got lucky with getting the order in?

My page is showing 54 sets on the Black Friday sale, but they don't show any discounts on those sets.

Congratulations again Lego. Worst web service ever.

@imemine98 said:
"I ordered the Colosseum here in NA and the site worked just fine. The promo items were added as well. Maybe I got lucky with getting the order in?"

That one has been up since midnight. Nothing in the 20% discount page is showing any discount. :(

The sets that are 20% off are showing up with list pricing, but after you place your order, check the order status and you will see the 20% off showing as a discount on the total purchase price.

@imemine98 said:
"I ordered the Colosseum here in NA and the site worked just fine. The promo items were added as well. Maybe I got lucky with getting the order in?"

If the biggest Lego doesn't work at full price on release day they should just close up shop. Have fun putting it together. I am on the fence on it.

@tonywheeler said:
"My VIP page is still in tact, so probably just an overload where it can't find the info.

@GoldenNinja3000 @ogel_chicago"

Yep, I hope so too. I'll give it some time. Gotta get over the initial SHOCK. I feel like Cookie Monster but with Lego....LEGO MONSTER. RAWR.

I guess all the Xtra sets are on the way out since they are coming up on the sale page that doesn't have actual sale prices yet. I even tried adding something to my cart to see if the discount would show in the cart but it still came up full price. I think it took quite a while for the sale prices to show up last year too.

They threw me out so now I'm in the wait queue again.

Volkswagen is showing the discount now. Maybe we will get them one by one.

Buncha nothing. Lame "sale". Not a true holiday sale, let alone Black Friday worthy. Oh well.

Everything should be good now

@B_Space_Man:
You can look up their "Retiring Soon" page, but currently the only items on that in the US are the NXT and six TLM2 sets, all of which are already out of stock.

@AustinPowers:
20% off sets in the US include:
75253, 75244, 10268, 853967, 75243, 10220, 76131, 21317, 75241, 41380, 21039, 21316, 40174, 41378, 75238, 75239, 40305, 40172, 75965, 40386, 40431, 40391, 40418, 40378, 40419, 853920, 40359, 41169, 40373, 40344, 40385, 40377, 40380, 40422, 853911, 853912, 40381, 40197, 853840, 853841, 853989, 853921, 41903, 41912, 40313, 40310, 40376, 41916, 41908, 40309, 40341, 40375, and 40312

VIP rewards offers include $5 coupon for LEGO.com for half points, $5 coupon for phone/store for half points, and the wooden minifig for 9000 points (yes, I could have activated a $5 off coupon for half points, bought one wooden minifig for 20% off with the coupon, and burned most of my points on a second one, but it doesn't interest me that much). There's also an raffle you can enter for 0 points to win 1,000,000 points. These offers are limited to one per account, as far as I can tell.

Redeemed points for a $5 off a LEGO.com purchase. Hopefully there will still be something available to order when the Skating Pond GWP goes live next week. I might order a few accessory packs if they're still available in the morning.

Entered the 1,000,000 point sweepstakes also.

I actually think this was a decent sale. The sets that are discounted are all different from what has been discounted at Target over the past week, which was pretty much everything you’d want. Of course that means that only the sets you don’t want are discounted. Had I not already got the Tantive IV I may have considered purchasing it, but as it is, I bought plenty from Target that I don’t need to worry about purchasing Legos until the new Mandalorian set comes out.

Oh well, nothing for me online at this time. The US lego site developer or administrator needs to take the full responsibilities on the buggy site earlier. Hope they can do better next time.

@woosterlegos:
I'm seeing most of the $10 and under sets have been updated to the sale price, plus a couple in the $10-20 range. My guess is one person is having to give up their evening to go through and manually flip everything on the list over to 20% off. If you order something on the list that's not currently showing a discount, I have no idea if it'll automatically adjust it later on, but I believe you can call LEGO.com to have them do it after the fact.

@Soundwave765:
Of course it's lagging. Everyone's been watching the countdown clock. I actually had my cart full ahead of time, but I had to boot some stuff over to my wish list before it even triggered the addition of a Dickens GWP. I figured it'd be safer to overload my cart and move stuff out if none of it got discounted, and none of it did.

@gizzmo55:
There was a Black Friday page with a countdown clock that stopped loading properly for me once the clock ran out, but the VIP Rewards Center still works fine.

@karrit:
Honestly, they sounded cool when they were first announced, but I've barely bought any. I don't think I've even remembered to look through them when I needed to pad an order to trigger a GWP. I've picked up a couple just to get a single part out of them, and that's about it.

I'd been hoping some of the "out of stock" items would reappear for Black Friday, but no such luck. I'm in no rush to get the Collosseum, and the only sale item on my wishlist seems to be the Ideas Mickey Mouse set--which is pretty low on my wishlist, frankly. I wonder how many $5 vouchers at half-price they'll let me buy? But even that can wait a day or two.

@PurpleDave The specific scenario I’m interested in is something like the Chinese New Year Temple Fair vs the Elf Clubhouse. One is sold out and one is temporarily out of stock. Unless I’m mistaken, both aren’t super old and I don’t know what determines how many they plan on making. Hopefully I’m making sense.

I wish they’d allow preorders for more production runs. I wouldn’t mind waiting.

Slightly concerned Chinese new year temple won't come back in stock now. It's due to retire this year anyway

@Volfogg said:
"Last year on black friday I bought another voltron (30% off?), the batmobile, and the disney train (also 30% off) sets and got several free gifts. It was amazing. "

@ra226 : that's what I meant, among others. Over the last few years there were often highly expensive RRP exclusives available at 30% discount, plus great Christmas GWPs like the large rotating tree or Nutcracker (for lower thresholds too).

This year there is not a single exclusive set among the deals (at least here). All the sets on sale are standard fare available everywhere, plus most of them are ones that were highly discounted everywhere all over the year because they are so undesirable.

@PurpleDave : don't you worry, I sure did notice the sarcasm. I use that often enough myself and many people don't get it.

But on this occasion I see no reason for sarcasm. This is simply about a company that doesn't show the care they used to. From general product quality, to suddenly much higher thresholds for GWPs to totally lame Black Friday offers (which apparently ARE different over here versus over at your end). It's just painting a whole picture of them taking their customers for granted. All the while alternative manufacturers are on the rise, both in terms of product quality as well as value for money.
I can honestly say I have never been that put off by TLG since coming out of my dark ages about ten or so years ago.

It's like as if there are two separate identities. On the one hand the set designers, highly talented and sympathetic people who often take their valuable time to relate to us here on Brickset in their much appreciated interviews.
On the other hand there's the marketing team with their often either obnoxious, ridiculous or sometimes purely BS campaigns and claims, plus the corporate end of things that often comes across as driven purely by greed instead of the old motto of "only the best is good enough".
I highly appreciate the former but really detest the latter.

@AustinPowers said:
" @Volfogg said:
"Last year on black friday I bought another voltron (30% off?), the batmobile, and the disney train (also 30% off) sets and got several free gifts. It was amazing. "

@ra226 : that's what I meant, among others. Over the last few years there were often highly expensive RRP exclusives available at 30% discount, plus great Christmas GWPs like the large rotating tree or Nutcracker (for lower thresholds too).

This year there is not a single exclusive set among the deals (at least here). All the sets on sale are standard fare available everywhere, plus most of them are ones that were highly discounted everywhere all over the year because they are so undesirable.

@PurpleDave : don't you worry, I sure did notice the sarcasm. I use that often enough myself and many people don't get it.

But on this occasion I see no reason for sarcasm. This is simply about a company that doesn't show the care they used to. From general product quality, to suddenly much higher thresholds for GWPs to totally lame Black Friday offers (which apparently ARE different over here versus over at your end). It's just painting a whole picture of them taking their customers for granted. All the while alternative manufacturers are on the rise, both in terms of product quality as well as value for money.
I can honestly say I have never been that put off by TLG since coming out of my dark ages about ten or so years ago. "

Why would LEGO heavily discount many large, exclusive sets when they've been consistently sold out at full price since March? Their business has only increased during the pandemic, so I certainly didn't expect the kinds of sales we saw last year, which were insane. The Black Friday deals are much lamer this year, but they've still discounted multiple exclusives in several countries. In the USA, we have 20% off the Vestas Wind Turbine, Tantive IV, Wooden Minifigure, and Volkswagen Camper Van, in addition to discounts on sets that aren't usually 20% off, like Steamboat Willie. These deals aren't the same in every country but it sounds like other countries do have exclusives on sale. Do these deals kinda suck compare to last year? Absolutely. Are they absolute garbage and a sign that LEGO doesn't care about its customers? Not in my opinion. Hopefully next year's sales will be better, but I don't think it's some big unforgivable mystery about why not as many exclusives are discounted this year.

Not a great black Friday sale!!!

More disappointingly order some sets last weekend for Christmas presents. At the time of order one was going to be shipped the 2nd December which was OK it would arrive before Christmas so no panic. Received 2 further emails during this week the 1st stated it would now be shipped 25th December and now the 2nd email states it will be shipped in January 21. Once the bulk of the order arrives I will need to cancel this set and find it elsewhere, in time for Christmas. Will be interesting if they want the 2 promotional sets sent back. Whats a complete joke of company.

Never really understood the rush for 20% off when Bricklink exists.

@squiz18 said:
"Slightly concerned Chinese new year temple won't come back in stock now. It's due to retire this year anyway "

I wrote to customer care 3 days ago to ask if Temporarely Out of Stock means the sets will be back or not, but no answer yet. It is the first time there is so long delay. If they don't answer I'm going to search the set in physical store hoping to find them in december (of course if government authorize to move from my own town)

Got a £5 voucher for 400 points. If they offer 1 each day, that is £20 for the next modular.

@TWP said:
"Same in the netherlands...

what are the offers?"

Pointless

@MartyMcFly said:
"Got a £5 voucher for 400 points. If they offer 1 each day, that is £20 for the next modular."

Can't you only use one code per buy?

@legospaceslug said:
"To be honest Argos were the best this year - got AT-AT and DC ironman Helmet for -33% - The Aldi Falcon was no chance ! "

In the UK Lego are giving only 20% off retail price for some selected items after waiting in the virtual queue, which you may find cheaper at Argos who are giving a 1/3 off. Argos also seem to to have a wider choice of standard themes from Harry Potter Clock Tower, City Passenger Train, Friends Jungle Rescue, Destiny's Bounty, Star Wars Figher Helmet, Technic Stunt Racer etc. Also check out Huws Amazon discounts....

@Ninabrick69 said:
" @squiz18 said:
"Slightly concerned Chinese new year temple won't come back in stock now. It's due to retire this year anyway "

I wrote to customer care 3 days ago to ask if Temporarely Out of Stock means the sets will be back or not, but no answer yet. It is the first time there is so long delay. If they don't answer I'm going to search the set in physical store hoping to find them in december (of course if government authorize to move from my own town)"

"Sold Out" almost always means it is gone, not coming back.

"Temporarily Out of Stock" almost always means it is coming back eventually. You will notice that there are a lot of new sets in this state.

Specifically, Chinese New Year Temple Fair is almost certainly no longer being made anymore, though I did recently see a few of them in my local store. It was on the site for about 10 months, which is not unusual for a seasonal set.

@GoldenNinja3000 said:
"Why would LEGO heavily discount many large, exclusive sets when they've been consistently sold out at full price since March? Their business has only increased during the pandemic, so I certainly didn't expect the kinds of sales we saw last year, which were insane. The Black Friday deals are much lamer this year, but they've still discounted multiple exclusives in several countries. In the USA, we have 20% off the Vestas Wind Turbine, Tantive IV, Wooden Minifigure, and Volkswagen Camper Van, in addition to discounts on sets that aren't usually 20% off, like Steamboat Willie. These deals aren't the same in every country but it sounds like other countries do have exclusives on sale. Do these deals kinda suck compare to last year? Absolutely. Are they absolute garbage and a sign that LEGO doesn't care about its customers? Not in my opinion."

Just for fun, switch your region on lego.com to Germany for a moment and have a look at the sales and deals page. Then tell me which set on offer has any merit compared to the offers from the previous years. The exclusives you mentioned are not part of the deals over here.

And why would they heavily discount some large exclusive sets? Because that's what they used to do on Black Friday. That's what was special about that weekend every year. This year it's not worth the name let alone the hype they were building by bombarding us newsletter subscribers with "get ready for...", "are you curious" etc. mails over the previous weeks. Absolutely pathetic. Over on your end there at least are the sets you mentioned, over here it's totally pointless.

And why were many sets showing as sold out in the US (not here mind you, those sets were readily available most of the time)? From what I heard it was problems with production in the Mexican factory due to the pandemic. As Europe isn't served by said factory there wasn't the same shortage of products.

Do I really want to pay 155 - 175€ for a Modular when I was able to get all of them since 2014 for 90 - 118€? The death of Galeria is really bothersome.

After the Disney Train last year with it's 30% discount months after release I really expected better this year.
I guess at least one aspect of society has gone back to normal earlier than expected.

@Anonym: you are absolutely right. Galeria (when it was still simply Kaufhof) was the best way to get LEGO sets at great prices. I would say more than half of my current collection was bought there. Now that they are only a shadow of their former self, getting LEGO at reasonable prices is more or less down to Amazon and Steinehelden.de. Even Smyths are far less competitive with their sales and deals than TRU used to be on such occasions.

I am happy to have picked up the chess set at a little discount (15% I think which covers taxes). It's a beautiful set and I've been wanting it for awhile. The site was a little glitchy last night, but last week when I placed an order to get the GWP, the site worked beautifully, which was a lovely surprise.

Bought the City train from Argos and another from Amazon as I had a voucher for another 15% off which I’m surprised worked! Got the Technic Lambo for £199 on Wednesday from Amazon, only had it listed at that price for a few hours. So I am happy. My wallet, however, is not as also just picked up the UCS ISD for £495 last week.

Offers just seem to be more about timing, than waiting for a non-event on Black Friday!

Hope everyone manages to pick up something they want, wherever they are!

Remember, it is only a saving if you needed it anyway!

Well I was going to say there surely isn't anybody left in the world who hasn't got VW Campervan, but obviously I'm wrong as it is sold out now

@CCC said:
"This is LEGO saying we don't need to discount our popular stuff to sell at Black Friday. It is selling well enough, so why discount it? But we'll do Black Friday anyway as if we don't then people will complain."

I have to say I completely agree. Lego is having a banner year. The pandemic has been very good for them. Almost half the greater sets have been out of stock almost of the year. Same with exclusives. So everytime there is a gwp and you have to spend $150-200 have to buy a lot of little sized $10-20 sets that only lego sells like lego trophy and so forth to get the gwp. As all the more readily available sets are far cheaper elsewhere. Kohls and target on Vip weekend had an amazing sale. Dozens and dozens of great sets most 30-40% off and some even more. Lego basically had the 2 gwp and double points. Lego definitely thumbs it’s nose all year at us AFOLs seriously most places have something on sale every week. For a company that produces 500/600 sets plus a year and thousand of other products some sets should really be on every month on a changing rotation. A least last few years got 30% off some great sets. Not so much this year. Then things like the stadium, Star Wars mos eisley and Rome colosseum they have a supposed vip exclusive give away first day it’s released but I swear they only have 1,000 of them as they are gone in minutes. Really tickes me off. Spend all this money and then you don’t get what’s advertised.

@mag1982 said:
" @AustinPowers said:
"Somehow, last year's offers were quite a bit more enticing, to me at least.
Unless there are some surprises over the weekend, I am going to save quite a bit of money this year by not buying anything around Black Friday / Cyber Monday. "

Yep me too, was expecting a discount on Disney castle or slim chance of haunted mansion discount but without those I wouldn't go spending this year, daft really as I would most likely add a Xmas set or too and some hidden side but need the Star buys to get started ??"

me to a big dissapointment but brought some good offers from John Lewis last week and Argos today

Heads up if anyone is interested. Lego just emailed saying that tomorrow (Saturday) you'll be able to get 43179 Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse for 20,000 VIP points. Works out at about half price.

Annoyingly, I don't have that many VIP points saved...

@NathanR2015 said:
"Heads up if anyone is interested. Lego just emailed saying that tomorrow (Saturday) you'll be able to get 43179 Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse for 20,000 VIP points. Works out at about half price.

Annoyingly, I don't have that many VIP points saved..."

Its nearer 26% off. The same with Main Square on Sunday.

@AustinPowers said:
" @GoldenNinja3000 said:
"Why would LEGO heavily discount many large, exclusive sets when they've been consistently sold out at full price since March? Their business has only increased during the pandemic, so I certainly didn't expect the kinds of sales we saw last year, which were insane. The Black Friday deals are much lamer this year, but they've still discounted multiple exclusives in several countries. In the USA, we have 20% off the Vestas Wind Turbine, Tantive IV, Wooden Minifigure, and Volkswagen Camper Van, in addition to discounts on sets that aren't usually 20% off, like Steamboat Willie. These deals aren't the same in every country but it sounds like other countries do have exclusives on sale. Do these deals kinda suck compare to last year? Absolutely. Are they absolute garbage and a sign that LEGO doesn't care about its customers? Not in my opinion."

Just for fun, switch your region on lego.com to Germany for a moment and have a look at the sales and deals page. Then tell me which set on offer has any merit compared to the offers from the previous years. The exclusives you mentioned are not part of the deals over here.

And why would they heavily discount some large exclusive sets? Because that's what they used to do on Black Friday. That's what was special about that weekend every year. This year it's not worth the name let alone the hype they were building by bombarding us newsletter subscribers with "get ready for...", "are you curious" etc. mails over the previous weeks. Absolutely pathetic. Over on your end there at least are the sets you mentioned, over here it's totally pointless.

And why were many sets showing as sold out in the US (not here mind you, those sets were readily available most of the time)? From what I heard it was problems with production in the Mexican factory due to the pandemic. As Europe isn't served by said factory there wasn't the same shortage of products. "

I did switch my page over to Germany. You had the Volkswagen and Tantive IV on sale like we did, although the Tantive appears to have gone out of stock quickly. Their hype was overblown, and I agree that the GWP thresholds are too high this year, including in December for the ice skating rink.

Shop the LEGO black friday sale, where every set you want is out of stock! But first, wait in queue accessing a site where nearly everything can't be purchased! Save 50% on these VIP awards that no one wants! Get what might be the ugliest christmas tree set ever AND COVID free with $40 in-store purchase!

I've just received my package from last weekend, which includes the Charles Dickens set 40410. I'm usually not that fussed about gifts-with-purchase but I love this one.
Dickens is one of my favourite authors- for me Charles Dickens is Christmas, and Christmas is Charles Dickens. So I'm probably going to keep it assembled, modify it a bit and use it as a bookend. So many comments on this post complaining about Lego not giving enough stuff away for free but this freebie has made my day.
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

@GoldenNinja3000 said:
"I did switch my page over to Germany. You had the Volkswagen and Tantive IV on sale like we did, although the Tantive appears to have gone out of stock quickly. "
How is that possible? I was on the website from midnight up till about 2AM this morning, and these sets never came up.
Same with the wooden minifig for 9,000 VIP points. It showed up immediately after midnight and right from the beginning said it was sold out.
Will check again right at midnight tonight to not miss anything, but from my experience last night I am not getting my hopes up.

@alfred_the_buttler said:
"I actually think this was a decent sale. The sets that are discounted are all different from what has been discounted at Target over the past week, which was pretty much everything you’d want. Of course that means that only the sets you don’t want are discounted. Had I not already got the Tantive IV I may have considered purchasing it, but as it is, I bought plenty from Target that I don’t need to worry about purchasing Legos until the new Mandalorian set comes out. "

must have forgot to put my glasses on

I wonder if we're back in what we believed was the case last year... shared warehouse/stock across Europe and the sale starts earlier there so they get a head start.. it may not be true and was never clarified but that was the BFCM theory last year, i think it was the carousel that when went live was already sold out i.e. not even available for 1 second hence the time zone theory.

They have just emailed what the VIP rewards items will be for Sat and Sun, i'll be staying in bed....

Sat - buildable mickey/minnie - 20,000 points
Sat - VIP tote bag only 1600 points

Sun - city main square - 20,000 points
Sun - Legoland tickets 2000 points

Any ideas if it's going to be different sets at midnight tonight?? As it changed each day in 2019

The way this sale went, just reinforced that I just basically don't care about LEGO anymore. Briefly, tuned back in after a year of frustration and now tuning back out. The company prints money and yet acts as a monopoly and hardly does things without a license anymore. I'm sick of it all. My LEGO budget went to other hobbies this year. Went from buying hundreds of sets, to maybe 6 this year, and my shelf room is now being supplanted with my new hobbies. 100% driven by LEGO as a company acting as not particularly consumer friendly any longer. They don't want to compete for my dollars, fine, it's going to things they can't compete against / have no market presence in.

@bernsa : if you still care about building great sets with bricks you might want to look at the alternatives. It's not like in former times when everything not out of Denmark was mediocre. Quite the opposite. I feel very similar to you and have cut down on new LEGO spending massively this year. But I have not had any problems getting my brick budget put to good use. From old LEGO sets via ebay or Bricklink to many awesome sets from new players, my brickbuilding man cave has never looked as impressive.

@FuddRuckus:
That's the second time I've been called a "professor". The first time, I was a college student, and one of the high school kids there for Model UN almost bumped into me in the cafeteria, and said, "Hey, there, professor dude".

Anyways, GWPs are a sneaky workaround to a huge problem that LEGO Brand Retail has to deal with. The vast majority of their product is sold to and by their retail partners, like Walmart and Target. Walmart almost certainly establishes the MSRP in the US, as they're the biggest brick-&-mortar retailer by far. But you don't compete with your own partners, and The LEGO Company needs Walmart far more than Walmart needs them. If the manufacturer wants to do direct sales, they are often hamstrung on the ability to run sales. VIP rewards are one way to cheat that, by giving everyone smart enough to sign up an effective 5% discount on everything they ever buy. GWPs are another, as giving you a free set with purchase is not the same as putting the purchased sets on sale. Black Friday sales, as you indicate, are usually limited to products that are about to retire, but sometimes they also put yellow-box stuff on sale. Nobody else carries that stuff, so there's no worries about alienating a business partner.

So the Saturday VIP offers went live at 11pm GMT Friday

Thank you for the insightful comments, @FuddRuckus and @PurpleDave .

LEGO doesn't owe its customers anything, so I'm not sure what people are complaining about. Just because there was a big BF sale last year doesn't mean they need to match or surpass it this year. If you're not happy about this current sale, wait for the next one, or spend your money elsewhere.

@Mölli said:
" @MartyMcFly said:
"Got a £5 voucher for 400 points. If they offer 1 each day, that is £20 for the next modular."

Can't you only use one code per buy?"

You can use multiple discount codes per order. A pair of $100 vouchers, for example. But only one code for a physical reward.

@Michael40Plus said:
"So the Saturday VIP offers went live at 11pm GMT Friday"

And what we're they?

@squiz18 said:
"Do they release all the offers at once? Or are they drop fed throughout the weekend?". They have released a couple more today and changed the VIP promos too

@mag1982 said:
" @Michael40Plus said:
"So the Saturday VIP offers went live at 11pm GMT Friday"

And what we're they?
"

As posted previously by @Shropshire plus extra entry to the 1,000,000 point giveaway

@Mölli:
When they first switched to the new VIP system, they did have a limit of one points code per purchase, and if you used a code that significantly exceeded the value of the purchase you were making, I believe you lost the remainder of the discount. It was not a popular change. They have since tweaked it so you can use multiple VIP points codes on each purchase. What you can't do is buy multiple copies of the two half-price Black Friday $5 coupons. You can buy one that's usable on the website, and you can buy one that's usable over the phone or in store. It's possible they might repeat that offer over the next three days, though.

@AustinPowers:
How were you looking for them? When I went onto LEGO.com, I pulled up the Offers & Sale page, then clicked on the Sale button. That just gave me regular stuff that was on discount, but one of the tiles had their Black Friday logo. I clicked on that, and it took me to the page that had all of the Black Friday deals before they had the discount applied. Now that they've all been switched over, they show up with the rest of the stuff I previously got with the Sale button.

Just had a look at the website. Almost everything from the Creator Expert and Ideas categories (the ones that i usually buy from) is either on backorder or completely out of stock.
What's the use of having these Black Friday things if the store is empty?