It took a while, but Best Buy has stepped up to the plate for customers who bought an HD DVD player from its stores. The Minneapolis-based retailer announced today that anyone who bought a Toshiba HD DVD player or the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on before Feb. 23 will receive a $50 Best Buy gift card. (Those players became obsolete when HD DVD lost the high-def disc format war to Blu-ray.) Details about the offer are available on the Best Buy website.

“Most qualifying customers will automatically receive their complimentary gift card by mail in the coming weeks,” the company said. “If you qualify and haven’t received yours by May 1, 2008, please call us at 1-888-BEST-BUY to verify your eligibility (have your receipt handy, if possible).”

Unlike Circuit City’s HD DVD offer, which allowed customers to return their HD DVD player and apply the purchase price toward a Blu-ray player, you get to keep the HD DVD player, which still works fine in playing the nearly 400 HD DVD titles that are available as well as up-converting standard DVDs.

In a  related move, Best Buy announced that it has set up Best Buy Trade-In, a website where customers can trade in used electronic equipment and receive gift cards in return. Besides HD DVD players and HD DVD discs, the site will accept digital cameras, laptops, iPods, video-game systems and more. Consumers can enter information about their devices at the site and receive an immediate estimation of its value. 

I have to say that I like the idea of Best Buy’s offer, because it allows you to keep your player if you want. But no matter what you do with it, you get a $50 gift card. What do you think?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am and is filed under DVDs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.