Warranted Savings...

Well my laptop is at Best Buy again, it's the 6th time, now they have requested a buy back which means that my extended warranty will pay me back the amount I purchased the computer for when I got it new.  So this brought up the question "When is it good to buy an extended warranty?"  My general rule of thumb us that the price of the coverage should be less than 25% of what the product costs in the first place and the coverage should be at least 3 years for that amount.  Even with that in mind they can be pricey and if you shop at places like Best Buy they will even try to sell it to you when you buy a wall phone that only costs $20.00.  Now truth be told I almost never use the extended warranties before they expire, in some respects that's good and in others it shows I have wasted my money, which means all I have gotten for my investment is a delayed case of buyers remorse.   The other thing to do is read the fine print!  With the Best Buy warranty they can't even suggest a buy back until the device had been sent out three times to be repaired, so they dosen't include the times that it spent in the store being looked at, or any of the parts I was told to buy to fix my problem. It also has to be sent in for the same thing and that's where you need to make sure they word it correctly, I brought the lap top in at one point for the flickering picture (the major and repeat problem) and a loose USB port, well they looked at the screen and couldn't get it to do what it was doing but did replace the USB, and THAT is what they put on the repair ticket so it didn't count.  Please don't think that this is a post against Best Buy, all the service folks there have been wonderful and they are just working with in the confines of the warranty provided by the company Best Buy uses.

After navigating the ins and outs of my own warranty issues I decided to do some checking to see what was available out there.  I found a company called Square Trade that sells extended warranties for much less than you can get them at the store usually, and the best part?  You can get a warranty that will cover used and refurbished items and even items purchased on eBay.  My example uses a Dell - Inspiron Laptop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 14" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Tomato Red that has a retail cost of $599.99 at Best Buy.  The cost for the extended warranty with the store is $129.99 for the 2 year coverage that doesn't cover accidents, with Square Trade the cost is $99.99 for 3 years, so I pay less and add a year of coverage.  The up side of having the coverage through Best Buy is after a point the product would be considered a lemon and you would receive your money back, I didn't see this as an option with Square Trade.

The other thing to look at is which credit card you use to make a purchase.  Now days most of the major credit cards offer an extended warranty when you use their card.  Because each card and level of credit offers their own different protections its best to call and ask a customer service representative what is covered, the number should be on the back of your card.

I hope everyone is having a beautiful weekend!

C.Q.