When is a policy not a policy? That looks like a question for Amazon. Amidst reports from outlets like TechCrunch and Vocativ that Amazon had gutted its price matching policy, the company was insisting that nothing had changed, with a statement noting that “We work hard to find the best prices out there and match them for all customers every day.”
If you go by Amazon’s website, it’s the truth: Its only price matching policy is the TV Low Price Guarantee, and a cached copy shows nothing different before May 1, when those reports suggested Amazon had changed course. But communities like SlickDeals or Reddit’s /r/Amazon, where users are on top of these things, are full of shoppers crying foul. The case being argued is that, seemingly without fail, if Amazon dropped its price within a week of your order, you could get the difference refunded. There are numerous articles going back several years tipping readers off to that tactic, with stories in The Christian Science Monitor to Slate (in 2007, when it was purportedly 30 days) to Lifehacker. TechCrunch even has a screenshot of an Amazon support that reads “If the item is shipped and sold by Amazon, we have a 7 days [sic] price match from the time of delivery.”
Videos by VICE
“Amazon, I think, always did this in sort of lockstep with brick and mortar stores, right?” explained SlickDeals Chief Product Officer Bryant Quan. “Because when you shop at Best Buy, you can do the same thing. You can come back and say, ‘Hey, you’re selling it for cheaper now, can I get the difference?’ And they would say yes. It’s interesting that they’re not doing it anymore, but meanwhile, you can still do it at Best Buy.”
Yes, buying from the competition can still net price matching benefits, but that mostly limits you to big box stores and their online arms. There are a few exceptions, though, like Abt, a long-time catalog electronics vendor with a price matching policy, but otherwise, you’re mostly looking at specialty resellers who deal in a certain subset of products, like audio equipment.
There’s more flexibility from the various credit cards that offer price protection benefits, with Discover’s arguably being the most consumer-friendly. Only running since late 2012, Discover’s price protection program differs from that of rival banks in that quantity limited items (like “doorbuster” sales on Black Friday) can be matched. Chase, Citibank and others all have similar programs, but Discover’s freedom gives it the edge. And while Chase’s program is realistically just as good as Discover’s outside of the restrictions on doorbusters, Citibank’s Price Rewind program is not quite as appealing. Instead of allowing the customer to go to the benefit managers with a lower price, Citi asks you to log a purchase as they search their own database for lower prices. It’s better than nothing and works well enough for certain products, but it’s not a reason to go out of your way to get a Citibank card.
There’s also a clever deal hack you can do if you have the luxury of price matching in store: Matching on both the card and store levels. For example, if you were to buy a TV for $800 and it goes on sale for $500 during the period the credit card price protection and store price matching overlap, you could get both a $300 check from the card’s benefits management company as well as a $300 partial refund from the manager, getting your net cost down to $200. While there’s no reason to think that double dipping is in any way against the rules, you probably shouldn’t plan a purchase around the idea that you’d be able to do it, though.
