Blockbuster Online Review

Blockbuster Online is the most fully featured online movie rental service.

Overall Service: Excellent
Customer Support: Excellent
Price: $17.99 per month for 3 DVD plan
(2-week free trial, $9.99 first month)

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Blockbuster Online has established itself as the leading online movie rental service for a number of significant reasons. Blockbuster Online carries a huge number of movies, over 75,000 at last count. More importantly, it carries the widest selection of popular mainstream titles among any service. It also gives you the broadest format selection, offering Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies that will fully utilize the capabilities of your HDTV.

As a customer, you merely have to select a queue, or "wishlist," of titles you want to watch. Blockbuster Online mails out a preset number (according to the plan chosen) of movies to you, which you can watch at your leisure. Upon your returning the movies through the mail, the next movies on the queue are mailed out.

Delivery

Shipping for deliveries is free. Blockbuster's movie deliveries are fast and efficient. You can typically expect to receive any given movie at the top of your queue in one or two business days.

Blockbuster Online takes advantage of the postal scanning system to speed up your delivery of new movies; the next movie in your queue is immediately sent out whenever a movie you are returning has been scanned by the post office. Other services typically wait until a returned DVD has physically arrived back at their shipping center before sending out your next movie, which can potentially cause delays.

Returns

Shipping for returns is free, and you are provided with a convenient return envelope for each movie you rent. You can return one movie at a time, and can even return two or three DVD’s in one return envelope should you happen to misplace an envelope.

There is no time limit to how long you can keep each movie, so feel free to keep a rental laying around until you have the time to watch it. There are no late fees applied.

And now with Blockbuster's new "Total Access" program, you can also return any movies to the nearest Blockbuster store in your area, at which time you'll receive an instant free rental on the spot. And once the store employee scans your return into the computer, your next title on your queued Blockbuster Online list is sent out by mail automatically.

Note: In-store rentals are subject to the time limit and late fee policies of the particular store you patronize.

Concerns and Benefits

Early in 2007, Blockbuster Online users reported some issues with movies not being delivered on time and some movies arriving in non-working condition. Blockbuster CEO John Antioco acknowledged the problem and Blockbuster Online technicians have since resolved the issue.

Coming as good news to frequent renters, Blockbuster will not "throttle" your rentals ("throttling" refers to the practice of slowing down the shipping rate of movies in your queue if you are renting many movies each month), allowing you to watch as many movies as you want.

Plus, Blockbuster delivers two free movie rental coupons every month to your email (which you can print out on your home printer), so you get access to even more movies. The coupons can also be used in stores to rent games, which is a great savings as games typically cost $9 or more to rent.

Once in a while, you'll also get special offer coupons giving you discounts off previously viewed titles and other perks.

Price

Blockbuster Online offers a number of rental plans to choose from; the plan you choose determines the number of movies you can have rented out at any given time. The most popular at this time seems to be the 3 DVD rental plan, which is priced at $17.99 a month with a 2-week free trial and an introductory $9.99 for the first paying month.

Other price points include $9.99 for a 1 DVD plan, and a $21.99 plan for a 4 DVD plan (check the official Blockbuster Online website for the exact pricing details).

You can quit the service at any time at your discretion. Simply notify Blockbuster Online and return any remaining DVD’s you have in your possession.

Conclusion

Blockbuster Online is a great bargain for frequent movie renters, especially considering that in-store rentals can often exceed $5 per movie. If you watch 3 or more movies a month, you will already be saving money. Typically, Blockbuster Online users opt to rent even more movies than they would in stores, multiplying their savings.

And considering all the features such as throttle-free service, fast shipping, in-store returns and free rental coupons, Blockbuster Online delivers the best bang for the buck among all online movie rental services.

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