May the Fourth offers have begun!

@LegoDad_itsforme_ I have the same question. LEGO normally puts a few select sets on sale for 20-30% off but I haven’t heard anything this year

@CCC
Probably right. Oh well :(

Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?

@blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"

It should come back in stock at some point. If you don't need to buy it direct from Lego, Amazon currently has it in stock at retail price.

It’s 12:52am here in Sydney, and while the double points are listed when I add my order with over $169 of Lego Star Wars sets, the Tatooine Homestead still isn’t appearing in my cart, even though the banner at the top of the page is telling me “FREE Tatooine Homestead with purchase”.

This headline had me panicking for a second! Looking forward to (hopefully) getting the deals when they go live tonight here in the U.S.

I’m not too optimistic about the site performance, however…

@blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"

You must not live in the Cincinnati area, since we are the Center of Everywhere. :)

I haven't seen Mos Eisley in our local LEGO store, either. Someday . . . .

Just after I hit send on my posting, it finally appeared in my cart... Phew!

Edited to add: When my order was finally listed in the ‘My Orders’ page, one of the items I ordered is now listed as being Backordered, as presumably it went out of stock during the wait for the Tatooine Homestead to finally appear in the cart. :(

@captaincassianandor said:
" @LegoDad_itsforme_ I have the same question. LEGO normally puts a few select sets on sale for 20-30% off but I haven’t heard anything this year
"

Hopefully, I've been checking Shop @Home and they've basically had the same stuff on sale for about a year now, I might be looking through rose tinted glasses but weren't there way more sales on Shop @Home back in the day (up to around 2018/2019)?

@ozquokka said:
"It’s 12:52am here in Sydney, and while the double points are listed when I add my order with over $169 of Lego Star Wars sets, the Tatooine Homestead still isn’t appearing in my cart, even though the banner at the top of the page is telling me “FREE Tatooine Homestead with purchase”."

Great. Given history, 50 / 50 chance this glitch repeats itself come midnight in North America.

I doubt there will be any sets on discount, due to limited set availability over the last year. In Canada. even Amazon has rarely had any Lego on sale: their sales are usually better (20%+) than Legos (10-20%)

I don't mean to hijack the posts about Star Wars offers and all, but is the next coin available as well?

@SithLord196 said:
" @blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"

It should come back in stock at some point. If you don't need to buy it direct from Lego, Amazon currently has it in stock at retail price."

I'm bummed that it won't be available. I was definitely looking forward to getting x2 VIP points and the Tattoine Homestead set by buying the Cantina today.

@imemine98 said:
"I don't mean to hijack the posts about Star Wars offers and all, but is the next coin available as well? "

It's delayed. They're planning to send another e-mail with new launch date, so it will be madness like with Ulysses, because everyone will be prepared but IT. Good luck! : )

@huw there is a typo in your article. I just called my local US store and the 40451 Tatooine Homestead is a gift with $85 USD purchase. Going in person tomorrow when they open to pick up the Imperial Probe Droid and whatever else gets me to $85.

@bezetkace said:
" @imemine98 said:
"I don't mean to hijack the posts about Star Wars offers and all, but is the next coin available as well? "

It's delayed. They're planning to send another e-mail with new launch date, so it will be madness like with Ulysses, because everyone will be prepared but IT. Good luck! : )"

That’s a bummer. Where did this news get posted?

@supervir2 said:
"That’s a bummer. Where did this news get posted?"

IMO The post you’re replying to is a joke or an attempt to convince you the coin is not launching (or even both). My advice is not trust it either way :)

@ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"

You must not live in the Cincinnati area, since we are the Center of Everywhere. :)

I haven't seen Mos Eisley in our local LEGO store, either. Someday . . . ."

Cleveland here! Nice to know we've got the state covered! Haha

Do you get double vip points in-store too?

Let's see if there are any Tatooine or R2 in stock when I check the US online shop.

@Jackthenipper said:
"
£100 off the Falcon at Smyths as well as a £100 discount on the Star Destroyer at John Lewis. Suddenly double points are a little disappointing...
"

I agree 100%. 75288 AT-AT is £111.99 at most places too! Only reason for me to shop at LEGO.com was for the Tatooine Homestead, but it's not worth £30 to me!

Still waiting for more Bad Batch Shuttle pictures . . .

Hopefully getting the cement mixer...
Tatooine Homestead, here I come!
Those printed/stickered sandcrawler parts will be really helpful for mocs...

@LegoTiger72376 said:
"Hopefully getting the cement mixer...
Tatooine Homestead, here I come!
Those printed/stickered sandcrawler parts will be really helpful for mocs..."

You realise the GWP only comes with Star Wars purchases.

Has 75269 Duel on Mustafar retired or will it come back?

Says Sold Out on Lego GB website.

Got the Imperial star destroyer on hold for me at my local store. Double vip points on that will be nice

@blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"
Mos Eisley sold out from LEGO's online shop within 6 hours or less in the US, and has been MIA ever since. I believe it's sometimes available on Amazon, but it doesn't last long there either outside of the markup resellers. It rivals the 2017 Millennium Falcon in unavailability. It will be back some day, but there's no telling whether that day will be in a week or in a year.

@DOLEGO1986 said:
"Has 75269 Duel on Mustafar retired or will it come back?

Says Sold Out on Lego GB website."
If Duel on Mustafar retires this summer as rumored, it might not come back in stock. Hard to predict. it's still available in the North America region though.

Order made with Tatooine!

The shop was performing quite well here (Germany), however R2-D2 is still unavailable. Managed to get the homestead with the purchase of the two new helmets.

@Nytmare said:
" @blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"
Mos Eisley sold out from LEGO's online shop within 6 hours or less in the US, and has been MIA ever since. I believe it's sometimes available on Amazon, but it doesn't last long there either outside of the markup resellers. It rivals the 2017 Millennium Falcon in unavailability. It will be back some day, but there's no telling whether that day will be in a week or in a year."

It's nuts it's the falcon is always out online. My local lego store said they have always had a steady supply of them and have only been out a handful of times. When I went to finally pick myself up one a few weeks ago they had 10 in stock. They also have a bunch of the cantina sets in stock and have had them every time I went in.

@JPKuiper said:
" @supervir2 said:
"That’s a bummer. Where did this news get posted?"

IMO The post you’re replying to is a joke or an attempt to convince you the coin is not launching (or even both). My advice is not trust it either way :)"

The message was posted on the LEGO Ambassador Network forum, so no it's not a joke. I would agree to check for it anyway, but don't be surprised if it's not listed until a later date.

These sales used to be far far better. Heck at least with the wealth of Battle packs (and some lower cost sets) they used to have, you could build up to the promo and have a bunch of army builders as well, but now? Just sad. LEGO really appears to be trying to kill off the SW line.. Maybe their licensing rights are going to go away at some point and they are just focused on coming up with the most expensive sets they can think up to really milk it for all its worth?
If that is not the case (and LEGO would be insane to do it, but then again they have had this kind of hubris in the past, around the year 2000) , then I would love to know what their excuse is for such a lackluster lower rung fair and this movement toward higher priced sets.

Here for the inevitable LEGO.com failure *eats popcorn*

So, first impressions:
Shop working quite well considering.
No special discounts whatsoever this time.
R2-D2 not available until 1 am.

Underwhelming to say the least.

Done. Although R2 was early by 6 mins, you needed to wait till 00.00 to get Tattoine

@colay said:
"Done. Although R2 was early by 6 mins, you needed to wait till 00.00 to get Tattoine"

Yep, thought I was being smart seeing R2 available at 11:55pm, got my order in, so missed the double VIP's and Tattoine...

@DoonsterBuildsLego said:
" @LegoTiger72376 said:
"Hopefully getting the cement mixer...
Tatooine Homestead, here I come!
Those printed/stickered sandcrawler parts will be really helpful for mocs..."

You realise the GWP only comes with Star Wars purchases."

Oh dang it

Managed to bag final Duel before it went out of stock with GWP without any issues ( hopefully !!)

Can anyone tell me if the online reward redemption codes is emailed right away? I want to redeem one for tonight.

phew, R2D2, '66 Batmobile and Scout Trooper head done - as soon as I get the VIP points, back to get either droid or Venom/Carnage head for a reduced price :)

I think this is really the last time I tried shopping at LEGO online.

In mid-March I redeemed 20 Euro in VIP points towards shopping online and ordered the Creator Porsche in order to get the Amelia Earhart GWP. Everything seemed to go smoothly. I got the order confirmation at LEGO online and thought everything would work as had always been the case before.
But after a couple of days I wondered why I didn't get an email confirmation or a shipping mail. Turns out my order was lost in the system.

Just now I tried to order R2-D2 and use the code I had tried to use when ordering the Porsche. I got an error saying that code had already been redeemed. Of course I tried to call customer service, but apparently they are only available Monday to Friday during normal opening hours.
I then redeemed points for a new rebate and managed to get the order through (including the Tatooine GWP). This time I took screenshots of the confirmation and details, plus I kept the payment message from PayPal, both of which I hadn't thought of doing the last time it went wrong.
Guess what, I again haven't gotten a confirmation email, nor does this order show up in my LEGO account either.

This is it TLG, I have now wasted over 10,000 VIP points for nothing.
Will call customer service on Monday and demand they rectify this. Way to go to treat "VIP" customers.

I thought R2-D2 seemed a bit overpriced so I went with the Probe droid and The Artist Formerly Known As Razor Crest which has a worse price/parts ratio.

At least the Homestead was added without problems.

Ordered the Final Duel which was "in stock". LEGO's website took so long to register the order after being placed that went it went through, it went into "backorder".

Aaaand as usual, the VIP coin isn't showing. So it's the same mess as always.

I'm not even going to bother with R2-D2. I already got the previous one and this one for 200€ isn't worth it.

@Jackthenipper said:
" @Johnny__Thunder97 said:
"No apparent discounts at LEGO.com is a shame... But finalises my decision making...
Just bought 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina on 15% discount from John Lewis- first time it's been on discount as far as I'm aware...
May have 'accidentally' used the wife's £100 John Lewis voucher, so please pray for me."
Good man! I’m sure that’s what she intended it for...
£100 off the Falcon at Smyths as well as a £100 discount on the Star Destroyer at John Lewis. Suddenly double points are a little disappointing...
"

There’s a sign in my comic book shop that says “Your wife called, she said you can buy anything you want”

@AustinPowers said:
"I think this is really the last time I tried shopping at LEGO online.

In mid-March I redeemed 20 Euro in VIP points towards shopping online and ordered the Creator Porsche in order to get the Amelia Earhart GWP. Everything seemed to go smoothly. I got the order confirmation at LEGO online and thought everything would work as had always been the case before.
But after a couple of days I wondered why I didn't get an email confirmation or a shipping mail. Turns out my order was lost in the system.

Just now I tried to order R2-D2 and use the code I had tried to use when ordering the Porsche. I got an error saying that code had already been redeemed. Of course I tried to call customer service, but apparently they are only available Monday to Friday during normal opening hours.
I then redeemed points for a new rebate and managed to get the order through (including the Tatooine GWP). This time I took screenshots of the confirmation and details, plus I kept the payment message from PayPal, both of which I hadn't thought of doing the last time it went wrong.
Guess what, I again haven't gotten a confirmation email, nor does this order show up in my LEGO account either.

This is it TLG, I have now wasted over 10,000 VIP points for nothing.
Will call customer service on Monday and demand they rectify this. Way to go to treat "VIP" customers. "

Good luck with customer service I think they don't exist. :0

The 30556 DOTS Mini Frame gwp ran out in less than 3 days (US, online shop), so it won't be included in May the 4th promo as scheduled.

@Nytmare said:
"Mos Eisley sold out from LEGO's online shop within 6 hours or less in the US, and has been MIA ever since. I believe it's sometimes available on Amazon, but it doesn't last long there either outside of the markup resellers. It rivals the 2017 Millennium Falcon in unavailability. It will be back some day, but there's no telling whether that day will be in a week or in a year."

When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month
Or even your year...

Of course, 21319 Central Perk is still in stock!

US LEGO.com site has already crashed.

Someone already reported it, but yeah, the U.S. LEGO.com crashed.

Less than 1 minute and the site is down...egregious!!!

They made us wait in a line up and the site still instantly crashed!

.....and the site crashed. WHY LEGO????

I should have known that when the clock strikes 11, the Lego website goes down.

As of now on the us site, the cantina, ucs falcon and ucs star destroyer are all in stock. I was wondering if they were stocking up online for the May the 4th rush

I got a queue page and then the error page again.

Got the R2. wasn't too bad tonight. Thanks for the info regarding the VIP points. I was able to redeem them.

Unable to check out once again. :(

@SithLord196 said:
"Really hope that maybe this won't be the usual mess when these goes live tonight here in the U.S."

it's the usual mess :/

Well its working now kinda, I got 10 minutes to go. Perhaps they learned from the Ulysses debacle.

How does it just get worse and worse!?!?

The site is a goner.

I was 600 something on the queue and then the refresh happened and it has me not in the queue anymore. Wonderful.

I'm on the Canada site and my cart has been loading for 10 minutes. Really hope I can finally buy all the sets I've been waiting for!

Wow, 75290 came up and I was able to grab it with a $100 VIP discount I think???

Took a few minutes but eventually I got the R2 and Tatooine GWP.

Finally let me in, was able to place an order for 75308 and get 40451 with it.

Not nearly as terrible as the Ulysses Probe debacle.

Got into the queue and once allowed in - was able to get R2 without any issues. Much better than the previous launches of the past year or so.

Got in pretty quickly and got my R2 and Tatooine GWP.

Finally

Yup, got mine. All good now. Less hassle than the 1/1/21 drop and the definitely less crap than the Ulysses nightmare.

It makes me laugh that so many people talk trash about Lego Star Wars, but it seems to be a major "site crash" contributor upon EVERY release.

Queuing was a little interesting but seems to have worked once I got in it was all good. Looks like most the bigger sets are in stock too!

Is it me or do they have nothing on sale?

If you want to maximize your VIP point earning, remember _not_ to redeem VIP points for discounts if you are already getting double VIP, as is the case with the Star Wars sets right now.

Was finally able to get through and got R2-D2 w/ Tatooine Homestead. Phew!

OK. Looks like it's working. I nabbed the new TIE and X-Wing with a VIP discount. I got an order number from Lego.com but still waiting for the email conformation.

Well I must say I am very pleasantly surprised. When it was my turn to shop I got a 502 error, but then one reload and I was on a barely-loaded website, and a minute later it finished loading and was working.

A bit disappointing to see there is absolutely nothing discounted (aside from Hoth set that has been discounted for months), but I'm getting my Tatooine set. Of course I haven't gotten an email confirmation yet, should I be scared?

Got into the site, and despite not being able to add items to my cart, I was eventually able to nab R2 and the Homestead GWP. Even was lucky enough to be able to use a $20 VIP discount!

Didn't see the queue this time, but took nearly 20 minutes of errors and page crashes to get my order placed...then my sister across the country got her order placed a few minutes later.

Seriously, how hard is it for them to invest in a little more infrastructure to handle the load so this doesn't happen every release day.

Took about 15 minutes but seems like it went through finally. Hope it worked. Screen shot everything. Lego still needs to fix this crap!

@alfred_the_buttler said:
"Well I must say I am very pleasantly surprised. When it was my turn to shop I got a 502 error, but then one reload and I was on a barely-loaded website, and a minute later it finished loading and was working.

A bit disappointing to see there is absolutely nothing discounted (aside from Hoth set that has been discounted for months), but I'm getting my Tatooine set. Of course I haven't gotten an email confirmation yet, should I be scared?"

Probably not. I feel like on one order I've made in the last year I didn't get the email until like an hour later.

Took about 15 minutes but the order is showing under My Orders on the website, so maybe wait 15 minutes and check there? My card is also usually charged right away (or at least a hold placed) so that's a place to check too.

Finally got my orders in. My cart wasn't loading even after 15 minutes so I had to reload the page and wait in line again. Maybe there was a glitch because I added things to my cart before the event started? Anyways my last order said "something went wrong" after I placed it and didn't give me an order number. I wonder if I should try placing it again? I don't want to accidentally get two identical orders!

Edit: Looks like it went through after all. It showed up in my order history. Phew!

@FuddRuckus said:
" @etorres78 said:
"Got the R2. wasn't too bad tonight. Thanks for the info regarding the VIP points. I was able to redeem them."

@MandalorianCandidate said:
"OK. Looks like it's working. I nabbed the new TIE and X-Wing with a VIP discount. I got an order number from Lego.com but still waiting for the email conformation."

You should never spend VIP points during a double VIP period."

Only if you buy from Lego directly on a frequent basis. Otherwise it takes a couple of years to save up for any VIP credits. It's more worth it to get the 20% off from Amazon and use promo gift cards.

@Wellspring said:
"Do you get double vip points in-store too?"

I think this bears repeating, as I didn't see an answer. Does anyone know if in-store purchases get 2x VIP points as well?

@brandobond said:
"Finally got my orders in. My cart wasn't loading even after 15 minutes so I had to reload the page and wait in line again. Maybe there was a glitch because I added things to my cart before the event started? Anyways my last order said "something went wrong" after I placed it and didn't give me an order number. I wonder if I should try placing it again? I don't want to accidentally get two identical orders!"

Check your account and see if there's a charge or pending hold. If so, you're probably good.

It took a while but was finally able to get 75293 Resistance I-TS Transport and my free 40451. A pop-up survey gave me an opportunity to comment on their web site issues.

I was patiently waiting to make my order when about two minutes before midnight, I heard someone upstairs being extremely sick all over the floor. Anyway, to make a long story short, I was able to get R2 and the GWP some times past midnight while cleaning my daughter’s room. I have to say this experience was better overall then when I tried and failed to get the probe.

@The_Chosen_1 said:
" @Wellspring said:
"Do you get double vip points in-store too?"

I think this bears repeating, as I didn't see an answer. Does anyone know if in-store purchases get 2x VIP points as well?"

Now you're making me wonder, but it should. At least I hope so, since I'm planning on going to the store so I can score the shuttle poly... I don't recall them ever making 2x VIP points exclusively in-store or online in recent memory.

It took about 5 tries to get in. 41 minutes later, I have my orders all placed. Unfortunately, I got an error on my first one. Not seeing anything in my order history, I re-placed the order. And now there are two of the same order confirmed.

LEGO needs to get it together. I'm always missing out on special offers because of their endless website issues. They know the popularity of May the Fourth. But every year, it's a fiasco.

@MugenPower said:
" @The_Chosen_1 said:
" @Wellspring said:
"Do you get double vip points in-store too?"

I think this bears repeating, as I didn't see an answer. Does anyone know if in-store purchases get 2x VIP points as well?"

Now you're making me wonder, but it should. At least I hope so, since I'm planning on going to the store so I can score the shuttle poly... I don't recall them ever making 2x VIP points exclusively in-store or online in recent memory."

Yes, I got the ucs falcon at my local lego store during the double VIP points thing a few weeks ago and got double points in store

@MugenPower said:
" @The_Chosen_1 said:
" @Wellspring said:
"Do you get double vip points in-store too?"

I think this bears repeating, as I didn't see an answer. Does anyone know if in-store purchases get 2x VIP points as well?"

Now you're making me wonder, but it should. At least I hope so, since I'm planning on going to the store so I can score the shuttle poly... I don't recall them ever making 2x VIP points exclusively in-store or online in recent memory."

Yes, I bought the ISD in store during the last 2x points promotion and can confirm they do 2x for in store purchases at official Lego stores.

@FuddRuckus said:
" @etorres78 said:
"Got the R2. wasn't too bad tonight. Thanks for the info regarding the VIP points. I was able to redeem them."

@MandalorianCandidate said:
"OK. Looks like it's working. I nabbed the new TIE and X-Wing with a VIP discount. I got an order number from Lego.com but still waiting for the email conformation."

You should never spend VIP points during a double VIP period."

While I'd usually agree, for this period, I'd rather spend $140 than $210. Not too worried about gaining more points right now. Thanks though.

At 8:53pm PST email received that 75290 - Mos Eisley Cantina™ is now back in stock at LEGO.com

Of course I didn't see the email until 10pm.

Went to the shop and .... Temporarily out of stock. We all know what that means.

Sad.

All I wanted was the Cantina.

Bantha poop!

I was able to finally get the Razorcrest that I had been meaning to get. I also got the new helmets and droid that I preordered a month ago delivered today. Looks like someone sat on the box as all three are slightly destroyed. This angers me because I don’t like the hassle of having to send deliveries back and wait for new stuff to come. Arg :/

At 9.00pm on the US site the UCS Falcon, the UCS ISD and the Cantina were showing as “Available now” after weeks or months of being “Temporarily out of stock”. The site was crashing/majorly struggling. I was able to get the Cantina while it was saying “Available now”. By 9.45pm only the UCS ISD was still showing as “Available now”. The UCS Falcon was showing as “Backorders accepted. Will ship in 60 days”. Same with the R2D2. And the Cantina was showing as “Temporarily out of stock”. Then I got an email from Lego telling me that my Cantina order was on Backorder (even though I bought it when it was saying “Available now”. What a joke. They call this the May the 4th event and it’s supposed to last 4-5 days but in reality it lasts like half an hour, for sets that people are really after. Lego has a major IT infrastructure problem and has had a major problem in meeting demand since the pandemic started.

@etorres78 said:
"Can anyone tell me if the online reward redemption codes is emailed right away? I want to redeem one for tonight. "

Yes, I activated mine 10 min before midnight and you receive the code immediately on the Lego website as well as by email.

Ordered 75308 and GWP at 01:00 a.m. through the sponsored link; it was very smooth as there was probably little traffic on the site at that time… Just a shame I've had to stay up until then. But luckily it's Saturday :D

Let's hope the parcel ships on Monday and gets delivered on May the Fourth (to use the US date format for once).

What an unexpected turn of events in the UK.... no queue, what I wanted was still in stock, lots of item limits increased to 5 (incl. new helmets / razorcrest/oh no it's not the razorcrest), no website issues, GWP added seamlessly.... done and already showing as in the warehouse within an hour.. too good to be true... never ever seen it go from in progress to in warehouse so fast during an event/gwp.

The only difference is I didn't bother staying up till midnight as given the last launches couldn't be bothered just to be let down... left it until 8am UK time and everything was fine. Was prepared to miss out if had sold out of items/gwp as frankly couldn't be @rsed and would just pick one up on Ebay, so a pleasant surprise this morning.

Of course still some minor glitches i.e. still no email confirmation arrived yet.

Also, when these ship - this takes me past the VIP points target i've been saving up for so that's good.

@FuddRuckus said:
"You should never spend VIP points during a double VIP period."
May I ask why?

A VIP discount is like money spent. You still get the full double VIP points for the items you ordered.

Interestingly smooth, yet still an issue here in Canada. Unfortunately I slept in a bit and R2 is in backorder status 4 hours into the event, however still able to add to the basket and GWP applied along with double VIP points. Pay with PayPal is broken - error message - yet Secure Checkout worked seamlessly. Not bad all around considering.

Hi there,

Small question, is the Tatooine Homestead GWP to show up in the cart if you select items that qualify and spend more than the required amount?

If i add the R2D2 in the basket it only adds that set, if i remember correctly the gwp are usually also added to the basket.

I think that LEGO definitely needs to look at improving their IT, but I also think people are giving them slightly too much of a hard time regarding it, sometimes at least. LEGO is a massive company and current tech is only capable of so much. Like, I used to play Madden competitively. EA is a massive company. Yet every single time a promo came out, it pretty much always crashed. Waiting 15 minutes or so for it to work properly was pretty expected. Target: massive company. It's crashed on Black Friday two years in a row now. So it's not like this isn't a normal thing for many gigantic companies across the board. Good news is that for the most part, everything is down for everyone else too. So you're not really missing out on anything unless you give up. You're just waiting.

Also, to their credit, the entire site didn't go kaput either. There were parts of it that were always working from launch on. The parts that weren't were the aspects everyone was using at once. Again, they do need to improve it, but in this instance, feels like par for the course to me. Just my two cents.

@djcbs said:
"Ordered the Final Duel which was "in stock". LEGO's website took so long to register the order after being placed that went it went through, it went into "backorder".

Aaaand as usual, the VIP coin isn't showing. So it's the same mess as always.

I'm not even going to bother with R2-D2. I already got the previous one and this one for 200€ isn't worth it."

The VIP stuff is its own separate code and rarely updates when the sites updates. Rest assured, it's all merely visual and everything regarding the double points should be working properly behind the scenes. And if you want proof of that, back when they did the site-wide double VIP points promo last month I got double points for everything I ordered when it wasn't showing double VIP points for anything. That includes a set that was on backorder and one that was for pre-sale.

Any news on the gold coin? I'd prefer to not have to check the website every 15 mins. If it's delayed will we get told when it will go live?

@Fingolfin_II said:
"Hi there,

Small question, is the Tatooine Homestead GWP to show up in the cart if you select items that qualify and spend more than the required amount?

If i add the R2D2 in the basket it only adds that set, if i remember correctly the gwp are usually also added to the basket. "

Yes, normally it should add to your basket, but if it doesn't it still might show up in your order confirmation email. If it doesn't show up there either PLUS if it hasn't been sold out already (!), you can do a couple of things:
- Simply wait for your order to get shipped and check upon delivery if the GWP has been added (= the 'dangerous'option.)
- Call CS after the weekend to have it sorted out (still kind of dangerous since you can't call CS in the weekend...)
- As long as your order isn't in the warehouse you still have the option to cancel it and you might try to place another order to see if the GWP does show up this time?
- Maybe some other option I haven't thought of...?

Good luck!

P.S. When I placed my order around a quarter past midnight -after being placed in a short queue- the GWP did show up in my cart and I could check out without any problems. Got it in the order confirmation email as well and my order is now showing 'in warehouse'. This shopping experience certainly went better for me than last month!

UPDATE:
I'm afraid the Tatooine Homestead GWP has indeed already sold out since it has already been removed from Lego's May the Fourth promo webpage and it doesn't show up anymore in the VIP message banner atop the shopping pages either. And it's only May first for g's sake... Of course I'm glad I got a hold of the GWP this time, but AGAIN supply doesn't meet demand in the slightest! I sincerely feel bad for all the VIP fans that missed out (again)! You have my sympathy (not that that helps you in any way, but still.)
Hopefully they are producing and releasing a couple more GWP copies for you this weekend, fingers crossed!

@etorres78 said:
" @FuddRuckus said:
" @etorres78 said:
"Got the R2. wasn't too bad tonight. Thanks for the info regarding the VIP points. I was able to redeem them."

@MandalorianCandidate said:
"OK. Looks like it's working. I nabbed the new TIE and X-Wing with a VIP discount. I got an order number from Lego.com but still waiting for the email conformation."

You should never spend VIP points during a double VIP period."

While I'd usually agree, for this period, I'd rather spend $140 than $210. Not too worried about gaining more points right now. Thanks though."

Have to agree with @etorres78. The friendly advice regarding spending VIP points in a Double VIP points period from several Brickset members is appreciated. However, while you do miss out on Double VIP points for the part of the price of your order you get off by redeeming VIP points in the first place, getting that discount can make a big difference, especially if money is a bit tight.

I came out of my dark ages about seven years ago and this was the first time I redeemed VIP points when making a purchase at Lego.com. The points have been building up slowly, as I try to make most of my Lego purchase from much cheaper third-party stores, and given the sorry state of Lego's VIP system etc. that has proved a good deal in more ways than one. I do, however, still by directly from Lego at some exclusive release dates, to get good GWPs etc.

The crucial point, though, is that using 10K Vip Points made getting 75308 right now much easier for me, and while I appreciate that I "lost out on" accuring an extra 750 VIP points having those extra points in the bank would make me a much less happy AFOL in a couple of weeks time than what I will be building R2-D2 instead.

I guess this goes for a lot of people, especially these days, and the VIP points will have to be spent at some point anyway, right?

GWP seems to have sold out already here as well... :(

@borntobedarth said:
" @Shropshire said:
"What an unexpected turn of events in the UK.... no queue, what I wanted was still in stock, lots of item limits increased to 5 (incl. new helmets / razorcrest/oh no it's not the razorcrest), no website issues, GWP added seamlessly.... done and already showing as in the warehouse within an hour.. too good to be true... never ever seen it go from in progress to in warehouse so fast during an event/gwp.

The only difference is I didn't bother staying up till midnight as given the last launches couldn't be bothered just to be let down... left it until 8am UK time and everything was fine. Was prepared to miss out if had sold out of items/gwp as frankly couldn't be @rsed and would just pick one up on Ebay, so a pleasant surprise this morning.

Of course still some minor glitches i.e. still no email confirmation arrived yet.

Also, when these ship - this takes me past the VIP points target i've been saving up for so that's good."

lucky you! 10am in the UK, and the Free Tatooine micro-build is sold out already. I didn't even bother to buy anything. Typical Lego, they probably made 20 of those so-called free stuff to lure buyers. Although I like their products, I do despise that company and their business model more and more everyday..."

Dude...you literally waited almost 12 hours to look to see if the GWP was available, during a time where products are limited all over the place and have been for a long time. Of course the free gift for one of if not their most popular promo of the year is sold out. That's not LEGO's fault.

@taylors51 said:
"Any news on the gold coin? I'd prefer to not have to check the website every 15 mins. If it's delayed will we get told when it will go live?"

It's been delayed, but LEGO will have an announcement prior to the release date so that it doesn't just drop randomly. Which honestly after all their site debacles lately, the latter option might honestly be a better one.

So glad i stayed up to midnight got R2 D2 and the GWP and redeemed the code for 6373604 Ulysses Space Probe

On a positive note, I got both r2d2 and the freebie so yey me ??

Barely luchtime and the promotion has sold out again. Same as last year. Utter disaster. Real shame as it was nice set too!

Lego never seems to learn from its mistakes when it comes to having the necessary amount of stock

And they fail again! (Unless supplies of the GWP return.)

I was considering buying the UCS A-wing or Artoo, but this makes it an easy one: I won't buy anything this round.

Tatooine Homestead is no longer listed in the UK store as a perk and isn’t added to your basket when you spend over £85. Does that mean it’s sold out? Gutted if I’ve missed one!

@Bengh_Zeran said:
" @AustinPowers said:
" @FuddRuckus said:
"You should never spend VIP points during a double VIP period."
May I ask why?

A VIP discount is like money spent. You still get the full double VIP points for the items you ordered. "

I'm afraid not @AustinPowers : First, the VIP points discount amount which you redeem is being substracted from your order total. You then only get double VIP points over the remaining amount to be paid.
"
Not on my order.
I added a VIP discount of 50 Euro at checkout, bringing the cost of R2-D2 down to 149.99 from 199.99 Euro, and it still states I get 3000 VIP points once the order is shipped which is exactly the double VIP point amount for 199.99 Euro.

Just got my email from TLG advising that R2 was on backorder. Unreal.

@Wrecknbuild said:
"May the Farce be with you!

@TheBrickGuru24
In previous years availability used to be much better. It doesn't need to be so exclusive. For such an event there isn't much else left. No offers, only double points for items that are generally much more expensive at Lego online.
And trading the points for VIP exclusives proves to be rather difficult as well."

I agree the availability stinks these days. However, there is not much LEGO can do about it. It's all tied to the pandemic, the limited number of employees they have and the limited number of supplies they have to create their products. When I worked at the distribution center I mentioned above, we ran out of a lot of stuff when the pandemic hit. Fast. And it's important to mention that the company I worked at is much smaller than LEGO (although still a nationwide service) and a bit more niche. And our sales still jumped up 300%. That along with limited replenishment meant a whole lot of backorders for a very long time (and a heck of a lot of complaints for "slow service", even though we literally worked 52+ hours a week at points). In short, I have seen first hand the type of things LEGO is dealing with right now, and we don't even come close to the amount of orders a company like LEGO gets. I fully emphasize with them in that aspect.

It looks like my order in the US just went through and included the GWP. Good luck to others that are also ordering this morning!

As of 7:50 am eastern time Tatooine GWP is still being automatically added to US carts.

@Klontjes said:
"I was on the fence about buying Vader's Castle and had a look this morning. No GWP, which I naively expected still to be available... So only the double VIP points left, which is not much of a May the Fourth (mind you, it is only May the First) perk. Off the fence and no Vader's Castle. I'll try and find it somewhere else with a discount. Lego will still make money of it, but it doesn't help. Pre-orders and extra bonus sets are the only reasons why I buy on lego.com anyway.

Although I can sympathise with anything that has to do with the pandemic, I still think this is a bit silly. All the hoopla about May the Fourth and the GWP and it is sold out waaaaay before May the Fourth even starts. Surely it musn't be that hard to predict supply and demand? And if you can't supply think of something else... We'll be bombarded with mails, adverts and banners about May the Fourth for another three days and it is over before it even started."

Only thing that could have completely worked imo is some sort of digital GWP, i.e., unlimited. But that would have surely enticed a lot less people and brought about a lot less sales. It's pretty much a lose-lose for both sides.

I mean, I genuinely wonder what people would have said if there hadn't been a GWP at all. Is that truly better? Or would people rather at least had an opportunity to snag an exclusive set, given they were on around the time that the promo dropped (and it appears that they may still be available in at least parts of the US in fact). Maybe people here can supply some feedback on that. I myself would choose the latter, but I am also on the younger side and spent a good portion of my high school years as a competitive Madden player staying up late or setting my alarm to do various things in the game, so I know I definitely differ from others in that regard.

@MainBricker said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" I agree the availability stinks these days. However, there is not much LEGO can do about it. It's all tied to the pandemic, the limited number of employees they have and the limited number of supplies they have to create their products."

There is something Lego can do about it, produce more of a set! I have never seen Lego release so many new sets (particularly aimed at adults) as they have in the past year. Essentially Lego should release less sets and produce more of a more limited range, but they are spreading themselves thin due to greed.

It wouldn't surprise me if Lego are rushing out 2022 sets this year to cash in on the pandemic.

Last year the May the Fourth GWP was around for the whole weekend, now it's sold out within hours."

With all due respect, I don't think it's quite as simple as "cancel a set, be able to make more of another one" or the same with cancelling bunch of sets to make a bunch more of a set. But who knows.

Out of curiosity, I went back on Lego.com and chucked two sets into my cart to see if the GWP would still add in. Looks like in the US they are still available.

Will Lego allow you to get more than one GWP if you submit multiple orders to be sent to the same household?

@MandalorianCandidate said:
"Out of curiosity, I went back on Lego.com and chucked two sets into my cart to see if the GWP would still add in. Looks like in the US they are still available.

Will Lego allow you to get more than one GWP if you submit multiple orders to be sent to the same household?"

Yes, the GWP is still available in the US. I ordered one last night at midnight and another just now. I have always been able to place multiple orders in order to receive multiple copies of a GWP, so long as that GWP is still in stock.

@Bagelwolf said:
" @ForestMenOfEndor said:
" @blogzilly said:
"Got about 13 hours to go before I can start ordering here in central Nowheresville, um, I mean Ohio. Looking forward to it. Hopefully can get some upmarked merch to get the GWP.

Do you think, honestly, that the Mos Eisley set will ever be restocked online? I have not seen it return since it first appeared. Is there a stat for how long it was live in the US before being sold out?"

You must not live in the Cincinnati area, since we are the Center of Everywhere. :)

I haven't seen Mos Eisley in our local LEGO store, either. Someday . . . ."

Cleveland here! Nice to know we've got the state covered! Haha"

I guess I need to represent the NWO part of the state. Just a few minutes south of Toledo for me! I wish there was a LEGO store closer than 2 hours away. :(. Have to rely on S&H, Target, Meijer or the occasional amazon find.

Man I feel like a hater, but this wave of LEGO Star Wars is so bland. No risks, nothing exciting. I don't understand why they have been playing it so safe with such a surefire property.

I ordered pretty early on last night, and I still got a backorder notice this morning. That's ridiculous.

@TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @Shropshire said:
"What an unexpected turn of events in the UK.... no queue, what I wanted was still in stock, lots of item limits increased to 5 (incl. new helmets / razorcrest/oh no it's not the razorcrest), no website issues, GWP added seamlessly.... done and already showing as in the warehouse within an hour.. too good to be true... never ever seen it go from in progress to in warehouse so fast during an event/gwp.

The only difference is I didn't bother staying up till midnight as given the last launches couldn't be bothered just to be let down... left it until 8am UK time and everything was fine. Was prepared to miss out if had sold out of items/gwp as frankly couldn't be @rsed and would just pick one up on Ebay, so a pleasant surprise this morning.

Of course still some minor glitches i.e. still no email confirmation arrived yet.

Also, when these ship - this takes me past the VIP points target i've been saving up for so that's good."

lucky you! 10am in the UK, and the Free Tatooine micro-build is sold out already. I didn't even bother to buy anything. Typical Lego, they probably made 20 of those so-called free stuff to lure buyers. Although I like their products, I do despise that company and their business model more and more everyday..."

Dude...you literally waited almost 12 hours to look to see if the GWP was available, during a time where products are limited all over the place and have been for a long time. Of course the free gift for one of if not their most popular promo of the year is sold out. That's not LEGO's fault."

I know right! You should covert that into nanoseconds, that would be even more impressive. I waited 43,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds at the most freaking busy time of the whole year! Wow, what a moron I am, right, waiting that long between Midnight and 10am? How dare I, sleep between midnight and 10am on a Saturday? Hey, thanks for your input Lego bodyguard. Hope you feel much better now, having put into his place a stranger who does not even know of your insignificant existence because he dare say something non-positive word about your Lego God."

You're complaining that you didn't get a limited set after waiting ten hours. Ten! Countless people stayed up or set an alarm to get it. It's your choice and your choice alone that you didn't, and therefore your choice to potentially miss out. Getting an exclusive product typically requires some sort of sacrifice, no? People don't camp outside of stores for hours upon hours for nothing. But what you're essentially doing is the equivalent of walking into that store the morning after said product that they were camped out for dropped at midnight, and complaining it wasn't there anymore.

Especially during a pandemic when supplies are clearly limited in a lot of areas all over the place at no fault of the company's and have been for a while, this is easily one of the most Karen posts I have ever seen."

This is the most karen post I've ever seen on a toy forum. Wanna see a Karen? Look in the mirror mate

CA$110 for the homestead

@TWRAddict said:
"I ordered pretty early on last night, and I still got a backorder notice this morning. That's ridiculous. "

Had the exact same happen. A high demand item and not surprising. Look at it from the bright side: your order went thru at least whereas the item is out of stock now for everyone who waited to buy today.

@Klontjes said:
"I was on the fence about buying Vader's Castle and had a look this morning. No GWP, which I naively expected still to be available... So only the double VIP points left, which is not much of a May the Fourth (mind you, it is only May the First) perk. Off the fence and no Vader's Castle. I'll try and find it somewhere else with a discount. Lego will still make money of it, but it doesn't help. Pre-orders and extra bonus sets are the only reasons why I buy on lego.com anyway.

Although I can sympathise with anything that has to do with the pandemic, I still think this is a bit silly. All the hoopla about May the Fourth and the GWP and it is sold out waaaaay before May the Fourth even starts. Surely it musn't be that hard to predict supply and demand? And if you can't supply think of something else... We'll be bombarded with mails, adverts and banners about May the Fourth for another three days and it is over before it even started."

Well said! Less promotional pushing is advised. And once you are loaded into the website after 'waiting in queue', it should let you do your ordering. In an ideal Lego world of course :)

@Dude45 said:
"In Sweden they give you a free imperial shuttle set while stocks last, but ONLY if you physically visit a store. Given that the Covid-19 situation is very serious in Sweden it’s disappointing that they try to incentivize people to crowd up at stores. "

Lego is a business. All they care for is profits. They wouldn't even know what integrity and ethical mean

@bezetkace said:
" @imemine98 said:
"I don't mean to hijack the posts about Star Wars offers and all, but is the next coin available as well? "

It's delayed. They're planning to send another e-mail with new launch date, so it will be madness like with Ulysses, because everyone will be prepared but IT. Good luck! : )"

Sure looks like that! Almost prefer them to do a random unannounced drop in the VIP rewards section just like how they started the coin series back in January with the Castle Coin.

It looks like LEGO gets absolutely crushed with orders within the first 30 minutes (per region), then the number of orders drops off a cliff for the remainder of the night. They kind of set themselves up for it, 1) from the way they hype their promos, and 2) by frequently running out of stock on popular items so everyone feels like they have to get their order in before everyone else. If LEGO decided to improve those two things, it would mean less stress on their customers, less stress on their website store.

@The_Cellarer said:
" @etorres78 said:
" @FuddRuckus said:
" @etorres78 said:
"Got the R2. wasn't too bad tonight. Thanks for the info regarding the VIP points. I was able to redeem them."

@MandalorianCandidate said:
"OK. Looks like it's working. I nabbed the new TIE and X-Wing with a VIP discount. I got an order number from Lego.com but still waiting for the email conformation."

You should never spend VIP points during a double VIP period."

While I'd usually agree, for this period, I'd rather spend $140 than $210. Not too worried about gaining more points right now. Thanks though."

Have to agree with @etorres78. The friendly advice regarding spending VIP points in a Double VIP points period from several Brickset members is appreciated. However, while you do miss out on Double VIP points for the part of the price of your order you get off by redeeming VIP points in the first place, getting that discount can make a big difference, especially if money is a bit tight.

I came out of my dark ages about seven years ago and this was the first time I redeemed VIP points when making a purchase at Lego.com. The points have been building up slowly, as I try to make most of my Lego purchase from much cheaper third-party stores, and given the sorry state of Lego's VIP system etc. that has proved a good deal in more ways than one. I do, however, still by directly from Lego at some exclusive release dates, to get good GWPs etc.

The crucial point, though, is that using 10K Vip Points made getting 75308 right now much easier for me, and while I appreciate that I "lost out on" accuring an extra 750 VIP points having those extra points in the bank would make me a much less happy AFOL in a couple of weeks time than what I will be building R2-D2 instead.

I guess this goes for a lot of people, especially these days, and the VIP points will have to be spent at some point anyway, right?"

Very interesting discussion! Ultimately it depends how often you buy from LEGO wesbsite. If it is even more than twice a year, from a financial perspective it would be counterproductive to spend points during DBL VIP days as one is literally spending against oneself if that makes sense. To each their own of course :)

And the R2D2 is out of stock already, because of course it is.

@ShadowBlue93 said:
"Barely luchtime and the promotion has sold out again. Same as last year. Utter disaster. Real shame as it was nice set too!

Lego never seems to learn from its mistakes when it comes to having the necessary amount of stock"

Sorry to hear. It varies a lot per region. The promo has sold out in Europe but the big SW sets are still available to order, whereas in NA region the promo is still there but all of the big SW sets are out of stock. Lose-lose scenario, but hey after three such repeats May the Fourth Time be with us! ??????

I find it hilarious that on their website, Lego are still promoting this as; The ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ event, when all it now is, is double VIP points. They even have a countdown clock to show how special they think this all is.
It was a better promotion last month when they had double points on every Lego theme and not just Star Wars.

@magpie9 : indeed, calling this "The ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ event" is so laughable it beggars belief.

What kind of "event" are they talking about? It's not even May the Fourth (let alone May the Second) yet, and other than double VIP points, which can be had several times a year, there is absolutely nothing. Zero, nada, null.
And to add insult to injury, in the US most of the interesting Star Wars sets appear to be out of stock anyway.
They should call this "The ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ disappointment" instead.

@AustinPowers said:
" @magpie9 : indeed, calling this "The ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ event" is so laughable it beggars belief.

What kind of "event" are they talking about? It's not even May the Fourth (let alone May the Second) yet, and other than double VIP points, which can be had several times a year, there is absolutely nothing. Zero, nada, null.
And to add insult to injury, in the US most of the interesting Star Wars sets appear to be out of stock anyway.
They should call this "The ultimate LEGO® Star Wars™ disappointment" instead. "

As unfortunate as it is perhaps, that last line did make me laugh ;)

@axiom4t2 said:
" @MugenPower said:
" @The_Chosen_1 said:
" @Wellspring said:
"Do you get double vip points in-store too?"

I think this bears repeating, as I didn't see an answer. Does anyone know if in-store purchases get 2x VIP points as well?"

Now you're making me wonder, but it should. At least I hope so, since I'm planning on going to the store so I can score the shuttle poly... I don't recall them ever making 2x VIP points exclusively in-store or online in recent memory."

Yes, I bought the ISD in store during the last 2x points promotion and can confirm they do 2x for in store purchases at official Lego stores. "

If it even matters anymore, I can confirm that I did receive 2x points for my in-store purchase.

I have read a number of comments regarding the queuing system that pops up on the Lego site and until last night I had not experienced it.
However, what I was finding was that while I was in a queue, if I went to a second window I was getting straight in whilst the first window was still queuing. Did anyone else find this?
I just saw it more as a ‘cue’ to open a new window, rather than a ‘queue’ to sit in.
Hate to think how much that increases site traffic if everyone did the same.
Certainly seemed like a flawed feature

As of 2:40pm EDT, I can confirm that I was still able to qualify for the GWP in the US, and received my order confirmation ten minutes later still showing the GWP. I already qualified for one after midnight, but I had an idea for something that requires parts from this GWP, so I figured I’d see if they were still up for grabs. If I missed out on the spare, no big deal, but I’ve still got a small backlog of SW sets that I’ve been holding off on buying for this specific weekend.

@AustinPowers:
You don’t earn points when you spend points. To earn points, you have to either spend money or use gift cards (which is why you don’t earn points for buying gift cards). So, if I pay cash for a $100 set, I qualify for $5 in rewards with the points I earn. If I pay cash on the same set with double points, I qualify for $10 in rewards instead. If I have enough points saved up to buy one $100 set without paying cash, doing so during double points means I just gave up earning an extra $5 in points. So, during double points, and especially in those rare times when they offer triple points, you should _NEVER_ spend points (in this case it’s fine to spend them on non-SW sets, since double points doesn’t apply to anything else, but you might want to split your order). I’ve only done it once, under the VIP Red program, because I absent-mindedly told the cashier to use all my available points and paid for my order before I realized double points was in effect. Fortunately, I was only spending about $5-10 in points, so I didn’t lose that many in the process.

The lone exception to this is if you are short on money and need to use the points to qualify for a GWP, or to buy a set that has limited stock remaining before it gets retired. In those cases, the lost points are worth less than the cost of buying the GWP or set on the secondary market.

@MVives:
It should absolutely work that way. If there are only 100 copies left when you pull up the page and add it to your basket, by the time you get to your cart and submit your order, how many hundreds of other shoppers do you think might have beat you to it? Would you rather have your order get cancelled outright, processed without the missing item (and any GWPs it would have qualified you for, plus possibly incurring shipping charges if the remaining order falls below the spend threshold), or hit a brick wall before you can actually submit the order? In the latter case, maybe you repeatedly get to your cart only to find out that yet another set has sold out and prevented you from earning a GWP, until you eventually do have enough available sets to complete the purchase and the GWP is sold out. I’d much rather find out my set is backordered, but that I still qualified for the GWP without any problems.

@borntobedarth:
Now you’re just lashing out at people who didn’t do anything wrong. When someone tries to give you advice on how to avoid having this same problem happen again in the future, you don’t punch them in the face and insult them.

@ShadowBlue93:
Anyone who has been paying attention to previous launches and wasn’t waiting to place an order at midnight hasn’t learned from past mistakes, either. December’s skating rink was so overproduced that people reported getting it in lieu of the VIP Vintage Car when it sold out (which took less than 40 hours in the US). But if you pay attention to the chatter, you can get a feel for which promos are likely to be gone in a flash, and May 4th is one you don’t sleep on.

@MainBricker:
It’s not just “greed”. There was a time when they only launched new products one or two times each year, but retailers pressured them to do so more often. Why? Sets sold really well during the Christmas shopping season, and when new sets were launched...and then just lingered on shelves during the other 2/3 of the year. This is the source of a lot of clearance sales, since nobody wanted to pay full price to buy those sets and they had to unload them, sometimes at a loss, to make room for new sets before the initial blitz was over.

Now they launch new sets monthly, with a theme like SW having at least four launch dates per year. Large sets have proven attractive to a new class of customer, so the only reason to _not_ cater to them is if you hate money. There’s no reason to rush 2022 releases out a year early, though. You can’t sell more than you can produce, and their stock levels show they’re not running much of a surplus right now. Pulling new sets forward just means they can’t produce as many copies of sets that are already behind demand, and in a year they’ll have a shortage of new sets available to produce. Besides, doing this would seriously jack up their part production, as it would require making a larger range of elements than their system is tuned to handle.

@TheBrickGuru24:
I wouldn’t. I delay purchase of SW sets so I can qualify for May 4th GWPs. It used to be really rough in years past, as I always tried to grab three of any promo minifigs, which meant I had to sometimes find other stuff to buy when my wish list was tight to begin with, and they put stuff on sale for the promo weekend.

@MandalorianCandidate:
In my experience, yes. I have two copies of Charles Dickens, and I even got a second Vintage Car sent to me by itself when I placed an order within about 1.5 hours of it ceasing to show up in carts on January 2nd. That said, they used to say there were purchase limits that were never enforced if you split your order to get around them. Now they are strictly enforced for online orders, but not for GWPs...so far. At some point, that might be coming, too. And we won’t know when that is until it happens.

To the people saying never use vip points during double vip point periods, you must place a lot of orders with Lego! I only make purchases during promotions (double vip and usually a gwp). Thus, if I didn’t also redeem points at the same time I would never use them.

Also, is there a good guide to vip points somewhere? I much preferred the old system where there was just a drop down menu in the checkout to redeem them. Now it seems there is a lot of conflicting information about it. I redeemed points for a voucher a day early because people said it takes 24 hours to get the code but I got it instantly. People said the code expires after 30 days but the voucher I got said it lasts 60 days! Some web sites say your points expire if you don’t purchase for 18 months but others said you can redeem points instead of making a purchase to reset the timer. Very confusing!

And did I imagine a promotion where redeeming points for a voucher got a voucher worth double the usual value? I swear I saw that in the vip rewards center one time but I didn’t understand how the vouchers worked and was afraid to redeem. But maybe I was just confused because the point values changed from the old program.

@PurpleDave said:
" @MVives:
It should absolutely work that way. If there are only 100 copies left when you pull up the page and add it to your basket, by the time you get to your cart and submit your order, how many hundreds of other shoppers do you think might have beat you to it? Would you rather have your order get cancelled outright, processed without the missing item (and any GWPs it would have qualified you for, plus possibly incurring shipping charges if the remaining order falls below the spend threshold), or hit a brick wall before you can actually submit the order? In the latter case, maybe you repeatedly get to your cart only to find out that yet another set has sold out and prevented you from earning a GWP, until you eventually do have enough available sets to complete the purchase and the GWP is sold out. I’d much rather find out my set is backordered, but that I still qualified for the GWP without any problems."
My understanding is that some (many? most?) retailers will reserve the items for you briefly during the checkout process. In other words, if you start checkout with the items, and complete it promptly (a few minutes), you will get them. No out of stock, no backorder, even for popular items.

I have purchased many "hot" items this way from other retailers, items that sell out within minutes. The Shopify e-commerce system used by a lot of retailers handles it pretty well. LEGO routinely drops to backorder or doesn't provide GWP that were in the checkout.

Yes, having the backorder fallback is much better than finding out later that you won't get the items, but a checkout hold system would be more predictable and customer-friendly. They really should apply the backorder option to GWP, though... so many stories here (and personal experience) of GWP in checkout not being provided.

@PurpleDave : if what you say is true (I don't doubt you, but I speak from experience) then LEGO has made a mistake, because I definitely got the notice that I will get 3,000 VIP points on my order once it gets shipped.

In any case, my only reason for buying from LEGO directly is interesting GWPs, preferably coupled with either double/triple VIP points and/or good discounts - like those that used to be a staple of May the Fourth events in years past that actually deserved the name "event".

@MVives I think that particular online cart feature is the rare exception. For the vast majority of online retailers I've had experience with, they clearly state that "having an item in your cart doesn't reserve it" (or something to that effect).

@AustinPowers said:
" @PurpleDave : if what you say is true (I don't doubt you, but I speak from experience) then LEGO has made a mistake, because I definitely got the notice that I will get 3,000 VIP points on my order once it gets shipped.

In any case, my only reason for buying from LEGO directly is interesting GWPs, preferably coupled with either double/triple VIP points and/or good discounts - like those that used to be a staple of May the Fourth events in years past that actually deserved the name "event". "

I think I have noticed in the past that at checkout the full points value was noted as will be earned once shipped.
Once it was shipped the relevant deductions were made based on points redeemed codes used and could be seen on my account purchases pages

@borntobedarth:
No, you didn't, but you clearly need some. At best, a quick explanation for how to avoid ending up in this same situation again (and you should be grateful that people are actually trying to be helpful, when they could just be laughing at your misfortune). At worst, maybe a year or two of psychiatric therapy to calm you down before you lash out like that in front of a real person who maybe takes it a little more personally than anyone here has.

@brandobond:
So, yeah, I forgot to include that as an exception. If you only buy during double points and you plan to cash them in for rebates, there's really not any other option.

In terms of how points work, there's probably something buried on their VIP site, but they haven't done a great job of making changes known.

So, under the old system, I think it was one after points were earned that they expired, unless they were spent first (first earned was first spent). Now they only expire if you let your account lie fallow for too long. I know for sure they said that regularly earning points would keep your account refreshed so you could save them up indefinitely. I don't remember hearing about cashing in points being able to reset the timer, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Once you spend points, you do get the code immediately. In fact, the confirmation page that pops up showing that you successfully purchased a code includes the code, so you can take a screenshot, photo, or write it down. Once you've got confirmation, your code is valid for 60 days. If you don't redeem it, it sounds like they'll refund your points. This might allow you to redeem points to keep your account active, and then let the code expire to get them back, if you _REALLY_ don't buy from them that often. The one exception to this (and I've never tried, so I can't say for sure) might be the digital rewards like coloring pages. Buying one of those might be a done deal because it's the one time they can just give you the reward immediately.

If you accidentally claim a reward that you didn't want (this is most likely to happen with the rebate codes, since there are two types available, and you might also find out that whatever you planned to spend it on went out of stock before you could buy it), I believe you can call up their phone line and have someone roll back your purchase of any unused codes.

Any code that is available online should be something you can claim over the phone. However, in-store the only code you can claim is one for in-store purchases. To do this, you have to have them open up your account and submit for a code _BEFORE_ they start ringing up your order, or they'll have to void it so they can enter the VIP site to request a code for you.

If you claim a code for a physical reward, the only way to redeem it is to make a purchase online, and you are limited to adding one such code per purchase. If you claim codes for rebates, you can spend as many of them as you want. If you use $20 in rebates on a $19.99 set, I have no idea what happens, whether it will prevent you from doing so because you'd be overspending, if you lose the penny because you overspent, or if the penny will revert back to an equivalent number of points that go back into your account.

In terms of value of points, spending $100 still earns you points worth $5 in rebates. It's just the quantity of points that has changed, giving one point roughly equivalent value anywhere in the world. This has two effects. It now means that you don't lose or gain value when you earn points in one nation and spend them in another. It also means that when they post physical rewards they are assigned the same point cost worldwide, and it takes the same value in spending to earn that number of points.

Points are non-transferable, but I have not yet learned if reward codes are (i.e. can a code be claimed through one VIP account, and redeemed through another).

If you have specific questions that you can't get answered here, you can always call up the LEGO.com phone line and ask them.

@MVives:
I've seen people request that be added to Bricklink, but that would be too easy to abuse, as Sellers would then be able to load up entire store inventories in a cart to prevent anyone from buying those lots, and push Buyers towards their own store where they could price rare items as high as they want. It would also jack up the price guide, as things would be blinking in an out and the current price listings would fluctuate wildly as a result.

If someone submits a request for a quote, I could see maybe leaving the items reserved until they accept, decline, or let the quote expire, but again it would be entirely possible to lock up someone's inventory with bogus RFQs.

In terms of a site like LEGO.com, if it's not a problem that they reserve items that you place in your cart, it's not necessary to do so. And if it's necessary that they do so, then it would be a problem if they did. If you show up, spend 2-3 hours shopping would you say it's fair that you may have tied up the last remaining copy of a set that you ultimately chose not to buy at that time, when dozens, hundreds, or thousands of potential buyers got sent away empty-handed?

Reverting to backorder is fair to everyone. It doesn't unduly punish the latecomers by forcing them to jump into the same frenzy the next time the set is available to purchase, but it also doesn't punish people who are just there to make a quick purchase by preventing them from accessing dwindling stock.

@AustinPowers:
Have you checked your points activity afterwards to see if it matches up? Certainly under the VIP Red system, taking a rebate lowered the payment that you'd earn points based on. I've almost never redeemed Blue points for rebates, so I don't have any such activity that's recent enough to check, and I don't plan to have such do so in the future anyways. But that doesn't mean I'm not curious to see how things shake out once the order ships.

@PurpleDave & @AustinPowers to clarify a couple of points on the VIP points, from experience:
- The points shown at checkout are only an estimate (it's written on the website somewhere). True points are issued when items ship, less deductions for redeemed reward vouchers & then double points. The other week on double points, checkout only indicated the single points but I got double points on shipping. Likewise, checkout when I use a voucher will indicate full points but I'll only get the points for the price less the voucher value
- The checkout process prevents checkout with a cart value (including shipping) less than the value of the voucher even by a small amount. You have to go over the voucher value to be able to spend it, there is no refund of excess value. That's the biggest annoyance with the voucher system.

@PurpleDave:
Thanks for your detailed response! Can you (or anyone) confirm if Lego has ever had a promotion where vouchers were available for less points (like either half price point costs or double value vouchers)? If so, what was the occasion? As I mentioned, I am pretty sure I saw something like that once but I didn’t know how long before vouchers expired and didn’t anticipate any upcoming purchases.

@PurpleDave: I'll keep an eye out for it and let you know. At least the confirmation email has arrived now, even though it is one day late.

@brandobond said:
" @PurpleDave:
Thanks for your detailed response! Can you (or anyone) confirm if Lego has ever had a promotion where vouchers were available for less points (like either half price point costs or double value vouchers)? If so, what was the occasion? As I mentioned, I am pretty sure I saw something like that once but I didn’t know how long before vouchers expired and didn’t anticipate any upcoming purchases.
"

Yes, last November's VIP weekend had 2 offers on 2 different days: a half-price (in points) £/$20 voucher and a half price £/$5 voucher. You could only redeem 1 of each.

@legozhad said:
"Happy May the 404 page. "

Hahahaha

I confirm mate: last time I bought (a month ago), I spent points and I earned points

@Brickstor said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @Shropshire said:
"What an unexpected turn of events in the UK.... no queue, what I wanted was still in stock, lots of item limits increased to 5 (incl. new helmets / razorcrest/oh no it's not the razorcrest), no website issues, GWP added seamlessly.... done and already showing as in the warehouse within an hour.. too good to be true... never ever seen it go from in progress to in warehouse so fast during an event/gwp.

The only difference is I didn't bother staying up till midnight as given the last launches couldn't be bothered just to be let down... left it until 8am UK time and everything was fine. Was prepared to miss out if had sold out of items/gwp as frankly couldn't be @rsed and would just pick one up on Ebay, so a pleasant surprise this morning.

Of course still some minor glitches i.e. still no email confirmation arrived yet.

Also, when these ship - this takes me past the VIP points target i've been saving up for so that's good."

lucky you! 10am in the UK, and the Free Tatooine micro-build is sold out already. I didn't even bother to buy anything. Typical Lego, they probably made 20 of those so-called free stuff to lure buyers. Although I like their products, I do despise that company and their business model more and more everyday..."

Dude...you literally waited almost 12 hours to look to see if the GWP was available, during a time where products are limited all over the place and have been for a long time. Of course the free gift for one of if not their most popular promo of the year is sold out. That's not LEGO's fault."

I know right! You should covert that into nanoseconds, that would be even more impressive. I waited 43,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds at the most freaking busy time of the whole year! Wow, what a moron I am, right, waiting that long between Midnight and 10am? How dare I, sleep between midnight and 10am on a Saturday? Hey, thanks for your input Lego bodyguard. Hope you feel much better now, having put into his place a stranger who does not even know of your insignificant existence because he dare say something non-positive word about your Lego God."

You're complaining that you didn't get a limited set after waiting ten hours. Ten! Countless people stayed up or set an alarm to get it. It's your choice and your choice alone that you didn't, and therefore your choice to potentially miss out. Getting an exclusive product typically requires some sort of sacrifice, no? People don't camp outside of stores for hours upon hours for nothing. But what you're essentially doing is the equivalent of walking into that store the morning after said product that they were camped out for dropped at midnight, and complaining it wasn't there anymore.

Especially during a pandemic when supplies are clearly limited in a lot of areas all over the place at no fault of the company's and have been for a while, this is easily one of the most Karen posts I have ever seen."

This is the most karen post I've ever seen on a toy forum. Wanna see a Karen? Look in the mirror mate"

Buddy, I'm not the one whining that I didn't get something I wanted when I didn't actively do anything to get it. I've missed out on many things before because I wasn't there when they were first available. And I didn't complain, I just accepted the fact that I wasn't there in time. Do all the people who set an alarm/stayed up and were there at the moment it dropped not technically deserve it more than you? It's all up to you at the end of the day. And it's nobody's else's fault but your own if you take the risk and decide to not be there

@PurpleDave said:
" @borntobedarth:
No, you didn't, but you clearly need some. At best, a quick explanation for how to avoid ending up in this same situation again (and you should be grateful that people are actually trying to be helpful, when they could just be laughing at your misfortune). At worst, maybe a year or two of psychiatric therapy to calm you down before you lash out like that in front of a real person who maybe takes it a little more personally than anyone here has.

@brandobond:
So, yeah, I forgot to include that as an exception. If you only buy during double points and you plan to cash them in for rebates, there's really not any other option."

"[...] a year or two of psychiatric therapy [...]"-> Is that type of language really necessary? Is Brickset turning into Mumsnet where grow-up men blast others for having a different opinion or for saying anything negative about Lego?

@Johnny__Thunder97 said:
"No apparent discounts at LEGO.com is a shame... But finalises my decision making...
Just bought 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina on 15% discount from John Lewis- first time it's been on discount as far as I'm aware...
May have 'accidentally' used the wife's £100 John Lewis voucher, so please pray for me."

You're toast. I hope you get to put the Cantina together before she kills you.

@TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @Brickstor said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @Shropshire said:
" "

lucky you! 10am in the UK, and the Free Tatooine micro-build is sold out already. I didn't even bother to buy anything. Typical Lego, they probably made 20 of those so-called free stuff to lure buyers. Although I like their products, I do despise that company and their business model more and more everyday..."

Dude...you literally waited almost 12 hours to look to see if the GWP was available, during a time where products are limited all over the place and have been for a long time. Of course the free gift for one of if not their most popular promo of the year is sold out. That's not LEGO's fault."

I know right! You should covert that into nanoseconds, that would be even more impressive. I waited 43,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds at the most freaking busy time of the whole year! Wow, what a moron I am, right, waiting that long between Midnight and 10am? How dare I, sleep between midnight and 10am on a Saturday? Hey, thanks for your input Lego bodyguard. Hope you feel much better now, having put into his place a stranger who does not even know of your insignificant existence because he dare say something non-positive word about your Lego God."

You're complaining that you didn't get a limited set after waiting ten hours. Ten! Countless people stayed up or set an alarm to get it. It's your choice and your choice alone that you didn't, and therefore your choice to potentially miss out. Getting an exclusive product typically requires some sort of sacrifice, no? People don't camp outside of stores for hours upon hours for nothing. But what you're essentially doing is the equivalent of walking into that store the morning after said product that they were camped out for dropped at midnight, and complaining it wasn't there anymore.

Especially during a pandemic when supplies are clearly limited in a lot of areas all over the place at no fault of the company's and have been for a while, this is easily one of the most Karen posts I have ever seen."

This is the most karen post I've ever seen on a toy forum. Wanna see a Karen? Look in the mirror mate"

Buddy, I'm not the one whining that I didn't get something I wanted when I didn't actively do anything to get it. I've missed out on many things before because I wasn't there when they were first available. And I didn't complain, I just accepted the fact that I wasn't there in time. Do all the people who set an alarm/stayed up and were there at the moment it dropped not technically deserve it more than you? It's all up to you at the end of the day. And it's nobody's else's fault but your own if you take the risk and decide to not be there"

OK so the rule here is "if you miss out on a promo, it is entirely your fault so don't complain, don't whine and don't say anything negative about Lego or you'll be toasted by other members and labelled a karen"? I got it! Thanks for letting me know mate!

@brandobond:
@DoonsterBuildsLego:
I believe you could actually claim four codes at a time, for $20 and $5 on website purchases, and again for $20 and $5 on phone/in-store purchases. There were limited quantities available, though, so if you don't jump on them, they would sell out. A new round of codes were made available each day for the duration of the event, so that was four codes per day, for however many days the promotion ran, if you wanted to commit to using that many. I know I grabbed at least one $5 code, mostly because it felt like spending points on Double Points if I didn't, but I would have burned through a serious chunk of points if I tried to claim as many as I could, and then I might have run out of points before the Ulysses launched, and not have enough to go after that last coin.

@Brickstor:
If you read back through the string of associated posts, @borntobedarth complained about missing out on this GWP in spite of months of articles indicating that you have to act quick on some of these deals. A few people, including myself, responded with honest advice, and were verbally abused for our troubles. I get that these are stressful times, but the vitriol involved in those responses are what sometimes leads to news articles about one individual getting beat up, or worse, when they happen offline.

Other people have also complained of missing out because they waited until they got up the next morning, and didn't react with such anger when people advised them to stay up for midnight launches in the future. For as long as I've been reading this site, even before I signed up for an account, I don't remember anyone responding that badly even to responses that may have deserved it.

@Brickstor:
No...but unless you're new here (and it looks like you might be), there have been tons of articles that discuss problems with product availability, especially over the past year. May 4th GWPs tend to go quick more often than not. GWPs in general have been known to sell out in far less time (there was one a few years back that you could earn with just a keychain, which I don't think lasted even an hour). Availability during the last year in particular has been problematic for many sets. Sometimes people have missed out on things even when they showed up at the right time, because the site was acting up and they didn't manage to get in before it was too late. Other times, in Europe specifically, people got locked out of promotions solely based on what country they were located in, as the supply was gone before they were even allowed to see that it had been there.

So, promos come and go, and many times a few people seem to complain that they missed out because they thought it would last a lot longer than it did. People advise them on how things work. Sometimes people act grateful for the advice. Others just take their lumps and try to make sure they're ready so it doesn't happen again. Getting verbal abuse like you see in this thread isn't very common, and not even a little welcome.

You should still be able to get one, if you haven't already. It's 9:50pm EDT in the US (where you're located according to your post tags), and I can still get it to add to my cart. In Europe, for some reason supply of GWPs and VIP Rewards items seem to be in much shorter supply these days, which I don't understand (and which I readily agree is not fair). For those who did miss out, there have not yet been any listed on Bricklink. It's up for BIN of $35 (free shipping) on eBay, so it's not outrageously priced like the Ulysses ended up, and anyone who really wants one can get it for a lot less than it would have cost to earn one with purchases.

Mostly, learn from this experience. If there's a GWP that you _REALLY_ want, don't sleep on it. Ever. Either you'll wake up and see that it's still available, or the resale prices will be astronomical because it did sell out that fast. You've been duly warned, so going forward you can't say you weren't warned.

@Brickstor said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @Brickstor said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @Shropshire said:
" "

lucky you! 10am in the UK, and the Free Tatooine micro-build is sold out already. I didn't even bother to buy anything. Typical Lego, they probably made 20 of those so-called free stuff to lure buyers. Although I like their products, I do despise that company and their business model more and more everyday..."

Dude...you literally waited almost 12 hours to look to see if the GWP was available, during a time where products are limited all over the place and have been for a long time. Of course the free gift for one of if not their most popular promo of the year is sold out. That's not LEGO's fault."

I know right! You should covert that into nanoseconds, that would be even more impressive. I waited 43,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds at the most freaking busy time of the whole year! Wow, what a moron I am, right, waiting that long between Midnight and 10am? How dare I, sleep between midnight and 10am on a Saturday? Hey, thanks for your input Lego bodyguard. Hope you feel much better now, having put into his place a stranger who does not even know of your insignificant existence because he dare say something non-positive word about your Lego God."

You're complaining that you didn't get a limited set after waiting ten hours. Ten! Countless people stayed up or set an alarm to get it. It's your choice and your choice alone that you didn't, and therefore your choice to potentially miss out. Getting an exclusive product typically requires some sort of sacrifice, no? People don't camp outside of stores for hours upon hours for nothing. But what you're essentially doing is the equivalent of walking into that store the morning after said product that they were camped out for dropped at midnight, and complaining it wasn't there anymore.

Especially during a pandemic when supplies are clearly limited in a lot of areas all over the place at no fault of the company's and have been for a while, this is easily one of the most Karen posts I have ever seen."

This is the most karen post I've ever seen on a toy forum. Wanna see a Karen? Look in the mirror mate"

Buddy, I'm not the one whining that I didn't get something I wanted when I didn't actively do anything to get it. I've missed out on many things before because I wasn't there when they were first available. And I didn't complain, I just accepted the fact that I wasn't there in time. Do all the people who set an alarm/stayed up and were there at the moment it dropped not technically deserve it more than you? It's all up to you at the end of the day. And it's nobody's else's fault but your own if you take the risk and decide to not be there"

OK so the rule here is "if you miss out on a promo, it is entirely your fault so don't complain, don't whine and don't say anything negative about Lego or you'll be toasted by other members and labelled a karen"? I got it! Thanks for letting me know mate!"

You missed "after waiting for 10 hours" after "If you miss out on a promo". And then that would exactly be the rule, just like it would be everywhere else. They're acting like a child who didn't get their way. And a Karen. And so are you.

@PurpleDave said:
" @MVives:
I've seen people request that be added to Bricklink, but that would be too easy to abuse, as Sellers would then be able to load up entire store inventories in a cart to prevent anyone from buying those lots, and push Buyers towards their own store where they could price rare items as high as they want. It would also jack up the price guide, as things would be blinking in an out and the current price listings would fluctuate wildly as a result."
I am not talking about _cart_ reservation... that is not practical. I am talking about _checkout_ reservation. With some systems (probably Shopify, but can't confirm), once you start checkout, you have X minutes to get exactly what you are paying for.

With LEGO that is not the case: you click the "place order" button at the end of checkout, with certain items in stock, and there is a chance _after you paid_ that some items will simply disappear from your order (GWP) or will not actually ship for weeks / months (backorder). To be clear: you submit payment, they take payment, and they don't deliver what the customer expects. Yes, their terms and conditions allow this, but it does not lead to happy customers, as evidenced by many of the comments in this giant thread. I have _rarely_ had this problem with other retailers, even with similarly popular items.

@TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @Brickstor said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @Brickstor said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @TheBrickGuru24 said:
" @borntobedarth said:
" @Shropshire said:
" "

lucky you! 10am in the UK, and the Free Tatooine micro-build is sold out already. I didn't even bother to buy anything. Typical Lego, they probably made 20 of those so-called free stuff to lure buyers. Although I like their products, I do despise that company and their business model more and more everyday..."

Dude...you literally waited almost 12 hours to look to see if the GWP was available, during a time where products are limited all over the place and have been for a long time. Of course the free gift for one of if not their most popular promo of the year is sold out. That's not LEGO's fault."

I know right! You should covert that into nanoseconds, that would be even more impressive. I waited 43,200,000,000,000 nanoseconds at the most freaking busy time of the whole year! Wow, what a moron I am, right, waiting that long between Midnight and 10am? How dare I, sleep between midnight and 10am on a Saturday? Hey, thanks for your input Lego bodyguard. Hope you feel much better now, having put into his place a stranger who does not even know of your insignificant existence because he dare say something non-positive word about your Lego God."

You're complaining that you didn't get a limited set after waiting ten hours. Ten! Countless people stayed up or set an alarm to get it. It's your choice and your choice alone that you didn't, and therefore your choice to potentially miss out. Getting an exclusive product typically requires some sort of sacrifice, no? People don't camp outside of stores for hours upon hours for nothing. But what you're essentially doing is the equivalent of walking into that store the morning after said product that they were camped out for dropped at midnight, and complaining it wasn't there anymore.

Especially during a pandemic when supplies are clearly limited in a lot of areas all over the place at no fault of the company's and have been for a while, this is easily one of the most Karen posts I have ever seen."

This is the most karen post I've ever seen on a toy forum. Wanna see a Karen? Look in the mirror mate"

Buddy, I'm not the one whining that I didn't get something I wanted when I didn't actively do anything to get it. I've missed out on many things before because I wasn't there when they were first available. And I didn't complain, I just accepted the fact that I wasn't there in time. Do all the people who set an alarm/stayed up and were there at the moment it dropped not technically deserve it more than you? It's all up to you at the end of the day. And it's nobody's else's fault but your own if you take the risk and decide to not be there"

OK so the rule here is "if you miss out on a promo, it is entirely your fault so don't complain, don't whine and don't say anything negative about Lego or you'll be toasted by other members and labelled a karen"? I got it! Thanks for letting me know mate!"

You missed "after waiting for 10 hours" after "If you miss out on a promo". And then that would exactly be the rule, just like it would be everywhere else. They're acting like a child who didn't get their way. And a Karen. And so are you."

I get it: everybody who disagrees with you is a karen.

@PurpleDave said:
" @MainBricker:
It’s not just “greed”. There was a time when they only launched new products one or two times each year, but retailers pressured them to do so more often. Why? Sets sold really well during the Christmas shopping season, and when new sets were launched...and then just lingered on shelves during the other 2/3 of the year. This is the source of a lot of clearance sales, since nobody wanted to pay full price to buy those sets and they had to unload them, sometimes at a loss, to make room for new sets before the initial blitz was over.."

It is mainly greed. Lego are a business after all, so profit is their top priority just like every business. If they can keep their fans happy while making lots of profit then great. But if they have to sacrifice one between profit and fans... We all know what they will pick.

@Brickstor said:

"I get it: everybody who disagrees with you is a karen."

What's a Karen? Is she related to little Timmy?

Don’t know if this has already been posted or not, but as an FYI; I just got back from the LEGO store at the Mall of the Netherlands near The Hague. Spent over an hour waiting in line. R2D2 sold out yesterday at noon. They still have “sufficient” stock of the Tatooine homestead and the shuttle. So I got myself a storm trooper and scout trooper helmet and some CMFs.

@MVives:
That still leads to the problem that every time you open up your shopping cart, you'd probably lock up available stock, even if you don't bother to complete your purchase. If people found out about this, I guarantee they would abuse it, by initiating the checkout process repeatedly, to prevent the items from selling out, while they continue to shop. It'd also be needlessly complex for a company that can't even keep their site functioning properly during major launches.

@Brickstor:
You can currently buy it sealed on Bricklink now for under $25 at the low end. It's not an unreasonable price, compared to the Ulysses. It's actually about what the set would retail for, based on a piece count of 217. eBay prices are a bit higher, but shipping is either free, or posted so you know your final price up front.

Whether it's a worthwhile GWP or not is a personal matter. They used to offer just a minifig for nearly the same spend threshold ($75 vs $85 in the US), which resulted in just as many complaints, from getting "just a minifig" to "this minifig should be in a retail set".

This year's event is nothing like you describe. Sure, the GWP sold out right away in Europe, but it's 11:45am, EDT in the US. I can still get 40451 to show up in my shopping cart. You can still qualify for a free copy if you are indeed living in the US, as your post header says. On this side of the pond, it's been more than a full day since UK/EU reports of it being sold out, and it's still available here. So, you're complaining that it's a terrible GWP, and that the event was a disaster because it sold out before you could get one, even though it's still available in the US. So what gives? Are you really in the US, or are you trying to hide something?

Sale prices were a way to help clear out old stock to make way for new, but this past year demand has spiked while supply has fallen. Part of this is due to the Mexican plant being completely shut down for a while about a year ago, and some of the European supply having to be diverted so the shelves wouldn't be completely bare over here. Part of it is due to pandemic guidelines restricting the number of people who can be in the factories, so there are less people trying to keep up with the same amount of work. Part of it's due to a portion of their production capacity being diverted to make face shields that they've been providing to hospitals to help keep front-line workers safe while they try to save lives. And part of it is just that people have been spending a lot of time at home and not spending money elsewhere, so they've picked up on LEGO sets as a way to keep idle hands busy and restless minds sane(ish).

But none of that is the real issue here. @borntobedarth showed up and complained about missing out. A few of us responded with advice on how to avoid having the same problem in the future. @borntobedarth then responded violently to every single person who tried to be helpful. _YOU_ then waded into the situation and attacked every single person who was involved except the one who started making personal attacks in the first place. If you walk into a room and immediately punch everyone who already has a bloody nose, it's a bit duplicitous to complain about any "abuse" that comes back your way.

We live in a golden time where we are absolutely spoiled with choices and Lego is no different. We should consider ourselves extremely fortunate to be in a position to even participate in this experience regardless of whether we always get what we want. Lego as a company is ever growing and learning, though perhaps not at the pace some of us would like. Well, tough luck. Life goes on and tomorrow is a new day. Celebrate it with the ones who care and step away from the ones who don't. Life's too short for endless rhetoric back and forth.

Happy May the Fourth everyone!

@Majorasblaze said:
"It’s sad how much people have been conditioned by the FOMO culture LEGO are seemingly more engaged with recently, and rush to defend it. The idea that you’d need to have bought before 9 or 10am on the first morning of an event to get the GWP is so laughable and as an ex-employee not the company behaviour I recognise."
That's interesting, because as a customer I too don't recognize the company I once loved anymore.

8:30am EDT, May 3rd in the US, and 40451 is still adding to cart. I can’t imagine people just aren’t buying SW sets in North America, since all the big ticket items that had been TOOS blew through the stock they held in reserve for this event. I’m not personally affected by it, but I’m really curious why it has now lasted two days longer in the US than in UK/EU. I know the US knocked Germany out of the top spot in 1999, with the launch of the Star Wars theme, and that Germany has really dropped off the face of the planet in terms of overall sales in the two decades since, but last I heard, Europe as a whole was still a bigger market than North America. Maybe that’s changed?

@PurpleDave : all I can say from personal experience and as the go to expert many colleagues, friends and family ask for help when it comes to LEGO, I have noticed a sharp drop in popularity of LEGO as a toy for many people here, kids as well as parents.
The perception is that the products are getting both more expensive as well as less attractive each year. Our tastes are different to begin with from what LEGO can pass off as aspirational in countries such as the US or China.
It doesn't help that the best offerings in LEGO's lineup are those that are not to be found in the general consumer catalogue.
The vast majority of customers doesn't know about stuff like Creator Expert, 18+, Exclusives etc. All they see is what is available in normal toy retail shops.
Perhaps it is indeed different in other parts of the world, but over here kids' favorites are still themes like knights, wild west, pirates, trains, construction equipment, farms and police/fire/ambulance.
Most of these themes save for the last are notably absent from LEGO's lineup, contrary to Playmobil for example, or Schleich, or Bruder, all of which are huge sellers and extremely popular here.
The only common denominator appears to be the popularity of Star Wars toys, which despite the lackluster efforts of the latest movies is an evergreen fan favorite.

Add to that the ever more (and more public) scandals that put TLG as a company in a very bad light, and you have the perfect recipe for dropping sales.
As it seems TLG has simply given up on the German market and has turned their attention to other markets such as the US or China as mentioned.
I don't think it is a coincidence that companies like Cobi, BlueBrixx, CaDa, Qman, Xingbao, MouldKing etc. are gaining noticeable traction over here, by filling exactly those gaps in LEGO's lineup that are popular here.

@Majorasblaze said:
"It’s sad how much people have been conditioned by the FOMO culture LEGO are seemingly more engaged with recently, and rush to defend it. The idea that you’d need to have bought before 9 or 10am on the first morning of an event to get the GWP is so laughable and as an ex-employee not the company behaviour I recognise."

Unfortunately that's the state of collectible nowadays. Once COVID has been majorly dealt with it will be interesting to see if the levels of FOMO dips or if people will keep buying out every pack of pokemon trading cards they can find!

After LEGO let us down with their May the Fourth "event", at least we can count on Amazon for some awesome deals, such as

75300 TIE Fighter for 23.98 instead of 39.99 Euro
75276 Stormtrooper Helmet for 36.59 instead of 59.99 Euro
75267 Mandalorian Battle Pack for 9.58 instead of 14.99 Euro

as well as several others not shown on the standard Amazon discount page here on Brickset.

@AustinPowers:
I'm well aware of why German tastes have changed. But here's the thing. When the US first exceeded Germany in total purchasing, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean nations by no means equaled the purchasing power of the rest of Europe excluding Germany. I even heard that, when Clikits was launched, they were looking at shifting some/all production to China, but realized that because Europe was still their biggest market, whatever they saved on production was lost on transportation. In the US, it's different, since they can just load up huge ships and send them across the Pacific. There really isn't an easy path from China to Europe.

So, the thing I don't know, and that I'm now curious about, is if total North American consumption has actually exceeded Europe. It is now just after midnight, it's possible to place an order on May 4th that qualifies you for the May 4th promo in the eastern US, and it's still available. We made it through three full days without running out, while UK/EU stock sold out in less than half a day. So, is Europe buying that much more than North America that you guys blew through your GWP allocation that fast, or are you just getting a smaller pile to begin with? Maybe it's both?

The weird thing is, they're not even chasing business in the US anymore. They've got it, and aside from stuff like the 18+ branding (which absolutely works), it's really just about not losing market share. When they started shifting their focus to China and Asia in general, they shut down the community liaison department in Enfield, but kept Europe's equivalent in operation. The only explanation we got was that they didn't feel the need to focus attention on North America/the US anymore. They stopped accepting US applications to the LEGO Certified Professional program, and pushed for more international membership, even as existing members dropped out of the program. The result now is that there are only three LCPs in the entire western hemisphere (and two are Canadian), while there are eight each in Europe and Asia, one in the Middle East, and one in Australia. So, the US is where the most sales take place, but it's no longer where the strongest growth occurs, and that means certain resources get diverted elsewhere.

It took half a century for Germany to stop being a major focus for new product development, and we're really only 30 years into US dominance of their product offerings. The trick is, though, that as long as one of our biggest exports is our culture by way of licensable Hollywood productions, I don't think we'll be facing a similar fate 20 years from now.

@PurpleDave: thanks for the heads up. Didn't know about TLG shifting focus away from the US that drastically, at least in terms of liaison to the community and LCPs.

Your last paragraph got me thinking though.
As Hollywood influence appears to be diminishing slowly, not in a small part due to the effects of the pandemic, with cinema losing versus streaming (and production for the latter becoming more international), maybe we will indeed see a future where varying regional dominance like in the past will become, well, a thing from the past.

It’s now 8:38am, EDT, and May 4th has hit the International Date Line West. I can still get the Homestead to show up in my cart in the US. Anyone in Europe who’s in the Ambassador program should be pressuring them for answers on this.

@AustinPowers:
I understand some of the logic involved. When the LCP program got started, I think it was about half a dozen people from the US (most of whom I’ve actually met at least once), one guy from the UK, and one from Australia. So there really was a gaping void in terms of international coverage. But in hyper-focusing on world growth, they basically abandoned the US segment and let it collapse.

For community stuff, where most European nations have one LUG, the US is just way too huge to function under a single LUG. Many states have more than one, and it wouldn’t shock me if over half of the LUGs in the world are located in North America (Canada has quite a few as well). I don’t know if they’re all still active, but I know of four just from the Chicago area.

One of the main concerns TLC has is that they’re worried they’ll have to mediate territorial disputes between neighboring RLUGs, but they don’t really understand the situation here. My own state started out with one LUG when I joined, but in 2010 we did 26 shows, and twice we had displays set up simultaneously in four locations. We were turning down shows because people just didn’t feel like traveling to the other side of the state when they could do as many as they wanted within an hour of home. The next year we split off a second LUG, and pretty soon a third split off, and then a fourth split off of that one.

My LUG still does 20+ shows a year (last year we only managed five, and this year will probably be no more than five), and we still turn down events because our schedule is just too packed at certain times of the year. Some of the other multi-LUG areas are the result of wanting different formats, like if there’s an established LEGO Train Club in the area, but a group of people wants to do sculptures, or Mindstorms, or non-train genre layouts. Whatever the case, they freaked out at how fast LUGs tend to pop up in the US (and Canada) and probably part of why they stepped back a bit in their community outreach here was because they can’t exactly forbid people from forming new LUGs, but they don’t have to encourage it either.

At the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, Kevin once told me there’s a Korean LUG (I’m assuming South over North) with a membership that exceeds 10,000. That is a situation that I would think warrants splitting off new LUGs, or at the very least forming local chapters just to make the logistics easier to manage. But they probably prefer that because they only ever have to deal with _one_ organization, and they know they’ll never get dragged into a turf war.