Review: Blockbuster Total Access
Posted by Sean Fallon on January 18, 2007
Filed Under Approved Products, Gaming | Stumble This
I’ll admit, for the last few years I have been very anti-Blockbuster. The increasing rental rates and the fiasco surrounding late fees were among the many reasons for my displeasure. There are a number of alternatives out there, but none of them were quite what I was looking for - so in the end I pretty much stopped renting movies altogether. That is until Blockbuster released their Total Access Program.
Naturally, the question on everyone’s lips is whether or not Total Access is really better than Netflix. As of this moment, the answer is yes. Netflix lacks the brick and mortar locations to effectively compete with the Total Access customer’s ability to exchange online rentals at a local store. The bottom line is that if you are fairly diligent about returning your movies, you can get a lot more DVDs per month than you can with the Netflix program.
How many movie rentals are possible you say? Well, I was able to rent 29 movies over the course of a month on the $17.99 plan (14 online / 14 exchange / 1 coupon) - and I believe that total could have been even higher if I was faster on the turnaround and there had not been the occasional problem with my online queue.
That having been said, continue on after the break for a list of Total Access program pros and cons:
Pros:
- Pricing structure is the same as Netflix, but you can return your movies to Blockbuster locations in exchange for new titles. This allows you to rent more movies per month because the mailing turnaround delay is taken out of the equation.
- Customers get one online coupon per month for a free in-store movie or game rental.
- Online queue is intuitive and simple to use
- Blockbuster offers estimated arrival dates for the movies - and they were generally right on the money
- Blockbuster sends emails to let you know when movies have been shipped or received
- If there is a problem with the DVD shipment, it can be cleared up quickly and easily in the queue by clicking “Report Problem”
- Online rentals will generally be received in two or three days
- Users can set preferences and rate movies that will help Blockbuster deliver personalized recommendations
- Good selection, fairly quick availability of new releases
Cons:
- I frequently ran into trouble with my queue when returning online rentals to the store. When the movies are returned, your queue should clear and the next movies should be sent on their way. However, the returned movies were slow to disappear from my queue or they did not disappear at all. Fortunately, clicking on “Report Problem” after a few days will clear up the issue - but precious time has already been wasted.
- Blockbuster recommends that 30 movies be in your queue at all times, which is fine - but it can create a problem. With so many movies in your queue, it is easy to forget what is on there. That means you run the risk of renting a movie in the store and simultaneously receiving it online. I suppose this problem would be eliminated if you keep on top of your queue, but it would be nice if some sort of cross checking technology was implemented. In my experience the best way to manage this is to rent your B-list movies online and save the A-lists and new releases for the in store exchange.
Bottom Line: As I previously mentioned, if you are going to go with a traditional online movie rental service, Blockbuster Total Access is it. If provides a great value over renting movies the old fashioned way, and if you are a big movie buff, you can get more DVDs in a month than you will know what to do with.
The obvious benefits of the Total Access plan have lead it to achieve a user base of over 2 million subscribers in only a few short months. Netflix has offered up their first counterattack with a new Watch Now program that will allow subscribers to stream up to 18 hours of free movie / tv content per month (depending on their plan) directly to their PC. While this is certainly and intriguing concept, it will only be seriously utilized by those who have a big monitor or some sort of media center PC configuration. Still, I would expect that this is only the first attempt Netflix will make to compete more effectively with Blockbuster.
| Trackback |Comments
5 Responses to “Review: Blockbuster Total Access”
Leave a Reply
This is what I wrote to Blockbuster Online cust svc. when I was cancelling my Total Access online plan today 1-Feb-07, gives you some insight on the program:
WEBSITE FUNCTIONALITY…
When looking at new releases releasing this week, I would much prefer having a pop-up mini window appear when I hover over a movie title that says what the movie is about etc. You have this on other parts of the website, but not there. It should be available anywhere I see a movie title. Netflix has this.
ON WHICH MOVIE YOU SEND THAT’S AT/NEAR TOP OF QUEUE…
Netflix also seems to have more of eachmovie, or at closer distribution centers, so with them there are less movies that I have a “wait” for than on the Blockbuster site. Also, I believe that for Blockbuster, if you have a movie available, but it is located at a distant-from-me distribution center, you will not send it to me, but will send the next one in my queue instead. I would rather make that choice myself, or have it as a setting for my account overall, where I could choose “1.) always send the movie in my queue that will get to me fastest” OR “2.)always send the 1st movie in my queue that is available, even if it will take longer to get to me”. Option 1) is better for people who just want to get a mailer movie so they can bring it into the store to get what they really want, some people use Total Access like this, so they can get more movie rental mailers/in-store-coupons per month for cheaper than if they had the in store Movie Pass. Option 2) is better for people who actually look forward to watching that movie that is 1st in their queue and “available”. These people get let down when this “available” movie is skipped in favor of the next movie in queue that is getting to them faster (this was the case with me a couple times, at least it shouldn’t say “available” if its not actually going to be the next one shipped). Or maybe we could be given an option on our My Queue page for each movie that’s near/at the top of our queue if we get there in time before our acct. is ready for a movie to be shipped, such as: “Click here if you would like us to next ship this movie (1st in Queue), expected shipping time 4days”, OR “Click here if you would like us to ship the 2nd movie in your queue instead, expected shipping time 2 days”. We could choose on each movie this way, or you could do it where we have our acct. defaulted to always choose either the fastest one or the one with a higher queue priority.
ON YOUR CLAIM of FAST SHIPPING TIMES…
I hope the above problem is not a result of you trying to keep your statistics up on “shipping times”, so you can say “Blockbuster Online has normal 2 day shipping times”(mine usually came in just one day!-but might not have always been the next “available” one in my queue that I wanted : ( Maybe we’d rather get the one we want later instead of the one we don’t want as much sooner. I hope this wasn’t your “solution” to keep your shipping time stats up, you should really consider taking care of your customers (by perhaps getting more titles at more distribution centers as soon as financially possible), over pulling in new customers using your advertisements on shipping times. We expect not only that we’ll get a movie fast, but that it’s the one we are expecting to get and want most.
WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE
Hope that this tactic you have used thus far has gotten you enough $$ and customer base that you can now focus on getting more titles at more distribution centers like Netflix.
WHAT THE BETTER OPTION FOR ME IS NOW…
For me, I live practically across the street from Blockbuster, so I am going to pay a few bucks more and get the in-store Movie Pass 2 at a time for $25, because even though you can use mailers as in-store coupons and all, there are times more than once a month when I don’t have one available to use, or I have one but don’t want to quite watch it or return it yet, and so can’t get a free in-store rental. Better would be 4 in store rental coupons per month than just one. I’m switching to in-store only, though I am sad that I will be missing out on the titles that are available online but not in store. They are not the big name movies that I hear about and want to watch, but sometimes there are interesting titles that are only available online that I desire to be able to rent at a reasonable price.
I’D SWITCH BACK TO ONLINE IF…
Wish there was a cheaper way to get those more rare titles since I prefer in store renting. Like you could make it unltd. in store rentals, with like 3 online rentals per month for those times when you want a rare title, but it would have to be under $25. That would be my ideal, or give me like 4 instore coupons per month with unltd. online rentals
ON FIXING YOUR ONLINE CANCELLATION METHOD…
Oh, and when I was cancelling my online account, I typed all this then it said “must be 255 characters or less”. It should have said that where it said:
“How Can We Improve? Would you mind taking a minute to explain why you’ve decided to cancel your account?”
And should have only allowed me to type in 255 characters max, and if I wanted to say more, should have shown me where to go right there to email cust. svc. with my comments.
Then, when I was in the final step of cancelling and chose “Cancel my account now”, (no I didn’t want to choose one of those other plans) I got a server error and no confirmation and had to email you through the website with my request for cancellation. I am suspicious of you for this now because I used to have regular Blockbuster online before you had the Total Access program, and when I was trying to cancel it because I was going to do the in-store movie pass (like I am again now), the website wouldn’t let me do it then either and I had to call in to get it cancelled,and I was on a different computer. I hope it was an issue with both of my computers and not a sneaky tactic of yours to discourage cancelling. Likely not, but if there are such issues with your website and McAfee security or Cookies or whatever, and it could prevent people from cancelling ontime before they get billed again, you should have an option on your site where you choose “I am trying to cancel online but the website seems to not be cooperating with my computer”, then the system would note the date/time that this was selected and would then require the user to fill out a customer service email request so that a rep could handle the cancellation and get back to them. That way if someone wants to cancel, it will be a smooth process and they don’t have to worry about being charged for another month that they don’t want.
ON GETTING CHARGED $24 EXTRA for NOT RETURNING ON TIME
I used to have the Movie Pass, which is untld in store rentals only, 1-3 at a time depending on how much u want to pay. So I was used to keeping my in store rentals for as long as I want. When I signed up for Total Access online, I could keep the mailed movies as long as I want, but if I exchanged it for an in store movie, that movie will have regular rental terms, i.e.: 2day rental for new releases, have 7 days total to return it, if you keep it 10 days, you’ll get charged the 10th day for the movie (like $23.69). You have 30 days from the day you get charged for the movie to return it to the store for a refund minus $1.25 for “restocking” fee(see Kim’s post 8:22AM on Jan 1st 2007 by kim, for what that charge really is). So then you get a refund for $22.44. So don’t keep one of the in store exchanges for more than 7 days. No “late fees”, but they might just charge you for the whole movie. Wish they had made that fact pop out at me more when I signed up for Total Access online.
Damn!
Even though my experience has been positive, I have heard quite a few complaints about Total Access.
As I mentioned in the review, I think that it is best to use the online portion of the service to get movies on your “B” list. That helps with the problem of what movie is delivered in you queue. I would then return those movies to the store for my “A” selections (i.e. the ones I really care about seeing).
I think if you don’t have a system that works for you Total Access will not be very useful. Then again, I was looking for new releases and old favorites mostly - not hard-to-find titles.
I realy wish I would have read some reveiws before I enroled in “Total Access” I have been staring at the same 5 movies all numberd 1 through 5 and all marked availible in my que for the last month, I select titles, they ship but the same 5 remain. Unfortunatly these are the 5 movies I want to watch the most. I tried calling customer service and was told to pick some more movies? I was told that I would be sent the movies that came from the closest distrobution center to me. WTF! Even if it took a whilr netflix eventually sent it. I am sorry I canceled my acount netflix and moved to block buster.
At this point, Bockbuster is struggling to keep up with Netflix. When I first signed up with Blockbuster Total Access, it was a bargain at $9.99 for 1-DVD-at-a-time Unlimited plus Unlimited in-store exchanges. Then they limited the in-store exchanges to 2, and then they raised the price for this plan to $11.99. I canceled my Blockbuster membership and now have Netflix. Through Netflix, I get 2-DVD’s-at-a-time Unlmited plus Unlimited Instant Online Movies for $13.99. Plus, Netflix by mail ships a lot faster than Blockbuster even with their in-store exchange (I usually get a new DVD within two business days of mailing my return to Netflix). There were times that Blockbuster would take 4-6 business days after I dropped my return off at the store! Recently, Netflix delayed shipment on my DVD by just one day, and they immediately emailed me an apology notice AND issued a 5% credit to me for the “inconvenience”. I didn’t ask them for it… heck, I didn’t even realize the DVD was late! When a Blockbuster DVD was almost a week late, all I got from Blockbuster was a list of reasons why the shipment could have been delayed. Lastly, Blockbuster was terrible about having new releases currently available online and in the store. It would take forever to get something newly released. It seems like Netflix has a much larger inventory of current new releases. Synopsis of the story: BLOCKBUSTER SUCKS. Get Netflix… you’ll be much happier. NOTE: for the instant online movies from Netflix, you do need Windows Media Player 11.
I am having the same problems everyone else has had with blockbastard. They ship fast for the first 2 weeks free trial, once you have paid the they ship slower and slower. Then I canceled because of the slow service and they just stopped shipping my movies. I paid for the whole month, but have another 11 days paid up!
They claim you will receive your movies in a 1 or 2 days. That is far from being right. This is what I have come up with.
Movies in 1 day 10%
Movies in 2 days 30%
Movies in 3 days 40%
Movies in 4 days 7%
Movies in 5 or more days 3%
I told them I do not renew and cancel my account when the monthly fee runs out. They shut my account off 9/29 I still had another 11 days left to receive at least 3 more, but no. They said the month ends at the end of each month. I did not pay for a partial month, that was not an option. If you start up with them during the month, they have found a way to steal from you. They owe me $6.33 for the unused portion and will NOT send me anything. The emails I receive trying to get my movies or money back are just unbelievable, these are just down right stupid.
Even when blockbastard receives a movie it takes them almost 48 hours before they ship the next one out - if you sign-up with blockbastard, you should receive 3 movies a week and that is it!
Go with Netflix, All the movies I have received from them are next day except for one that shipped from New York and that was 4 days. You should recieve 6 a week with Netflix.
Never again blockbastard!!!!