Don't buy Best Buy giftcards!

One of my friends bought me a giftcard for Best Buy for my birthday. Stupid me forgot about it (and didn't have it in my wallet) when I bought the car stereo. That's okay, I thought. I need to replace my Dance Hall Crashers Live Record as it was stolen along with Kirk's car stereo. (Theives with good taste.) So, I logged on to bestbuy.com, where they had the CD for $13 and shipping's free. Cool. But when I went to check out, I learned that you can't use giftcards at bestbuy.com. Many retailers let you use giftcards online or in the store...heck, I even used a gift certificate for towerrecords.com once; I just had to mail it in. But Best Buy has yet to graduate to the 21st century.

You can also arrange for store pickup through bestbuy.com, if there had been a single store in the Bay Area with my CD. ("Available for pickup in most stores," it says. Yeah, just not in the ten around here.) I called the 800 number just to make sure there was no way around my problem. The guy's only suggestion was to call my local store and see if they could order it. According to the lady at my local store, nope. However, she told me that two stores in San Jose had the CD, according to the computer. I called one of them, but I was told they don't carry that CD anymore. So, the only way I can get my DHC Live Record is to buy it...from a different store.

So what have we learned...don't get a Best Buy giftcard unless you know the person has mainstream tastes and can actually use it at the store.