Nikaliptus

According to some of the comments on Brickset, Europe (whose promotions we usually follow) will have double VIP points from 14th to 31st October. Probably not of much interest to AFOLs, but we currently have quadruple VIP points, plus a free storage bag/playmat available with/on any Duplo purchase (ends 4th October), and a free Creator Tiger polybag (with qualifying purchase amount of $45.00) until 6th October.

@afolaus The receipts/invoices that LEGO emails to me are quoted in AUD, and my credit card statement has never listed a foreign currency for my S@H purchases (which it does do for some other foreign currency transactions), but I do get charged an 'overseas transaction fee' (not a 'currency conversion fee' per se) of around 3%. I believe it's down to each financial institution's own practices (and probably even each different credit card that they offer) as to whether or not they will slap you with any fees for S@H purchases, so best to check it with your own credit card provider to be sure (or I guess just be prepared to wear the extra cost while you test it out with your first purchase). It's a pretty sneaky practice though, when you're being charged by the merchant in AUD, and especially when the merchant has what appears to be a specifically Australian website address, so you may not even be aware that they are charging your card from overseas. I've now gotten into the habit of just always redeeming one tier of VIP points ($7.50) to off-set the credit card fee whenever I make a purchase, as I always spend at least the minimum free shipping threshold, so will always earn at least that much VIP credit back from the order. It means I don't really benefit from any perceived discount that the VIP points offer (unless it's double points month), but it helps me to justify a S@H purchase to myself without feeling that I'm paying more than RRP after I'm slapped with the fee.

Double VIP points are now active through LEGO S@H (until 29th March). http://shop.lego.com/en-AU/VIP/vipPromotions.jsp

Uh oh, that would be very dangerous...I work at Chadstone! May as well just get my salary re-directed directly into their bank account if that rumour proves true, lol.

S@H VIPs can currently get early access to their Brick Friday promotions, which includes the free 40107 Winter Skating Scene set for orders over $100.00. In Europe, there's also an additional 5% discount for orders over a certain threshold, that is applied during the checkout process, which didn't show up on my Aussie order, so after placing my order, I sent customer service an email saying that whilst I was excited to qualify for the free skating scene set, I was disappointed that I wasn’t given the 5% discount that European customers are entitled to as part of the early access to the Brick Friday promotions, and I have just received the following response… “Thanks for getting in touch with us. I am sorry to hear that you did not get your 5% discount off your order. It should of applied for orders in Australia and I have talked to my Billing department and set up a refund for the mistake that the 5% was not applied. I am sorry if this has caused any confusion or frustration but for now keep a look out for money returning to the original card used in the order. You should the money return back to your card in 3 – 5 business days but it depends on your bank.” It doesn’t look like they’ve fixed the S@H website to automatically apply the discount, and so far, it hasn’t shown up on my order summary (maybe it won’t, and will just be refunded back, once my order ships and my card is charged), but at least it sounds like they’re willing and able to apply the discount after the fact, if you get in touch with them and politely ask for it. Best of luck!

TRU have another Family and Friends 20% off all full priced and clearance items coupon running this weekend (Friday 17th to Sunday 19th October), plus if you're a VIP member and scan your card this weekend, you can qualify for a bonus 10% off coupon valid from 24th October to 30th November. http://www.toysrus.com.au/family-and-friends-coupon/

Kmart also has LEGO in their upcoming catalogue (starts Thursday 18th September). If anyone's near Chadstone (VIC), they're having one of their periodic VIP sale events tomorrow (Wednesday 17th September), which includes 20% off one full priced item at TRU.

There's an article on Bricking Around about this Amazon issue, if you're interested.

Are you suggesting this 'block' is only quite recent? If so, I've noticed the same thing; back in mid-July, I ordered the GotG Knowhere Escape and X-Men Sentinel sets during their BOGO 40% off with no problems at all, but if I try to recreate that order (obviously without the discount this time), it brings up the 'Sorry, this item can't be shipped to your selected address' error message when I click through the checkout process, even though the individual listings specify 'This item ships to Melbourne, Australia'. Out of curiosity, I tested the same order with my UK and US shipping addresses and unsurprisingly it works fine for my US address, but brings up the 'can't be shipped to your selected address' message for the UK one. I then followed TheWolffe's suggestion to Google 'LEGO AmazonGlobal shipping', and it came up with far fewer results than previously (at least in the themes I'm interested in), and did not include either of the Marvel sets I had previously ordered from them, nor most of the other sets that I have sitting in my Saved for Later cart, that I had previously checked worked for Aus shipping. Maybe Amazon has a bug, or maybe they've cracked down on sending LEGO internationally?

Of course shipping costs would need to be taken into consideration if spending less than their $150.00 free shipping threshold, but shopforme has 25% off all three GotG sets at the moment; 76021 The Milano Spaceship Rescue $129.99 down to $97.49 76020 Knowhere Escape Mission $79.99 down to $59.99 76019 Starblaster Showdown $39.99 down to $29.99 Does anyone have any ideas which retailer the X-Men set might be exclusive to?

I saw 76019 Starblaster Showdown & 76020 Knowhere Escape Mission, but not 76021 The Milano Spaceship Rescue at Toyworld in Docklands (VIC) today.

Thanks for the tip...got mine today, along with 8 more cards, but it's now highlighting exactly what I'm missing, and making me want to complete the full set! It's probably the wrong thread to ask this, but I don't suppose anyone has any they'd be willing to trade/give away? If you do, could you please send me a PM? Thanks!

Whilst not 'just round the corner', shopforme are close enough that I've gone with in-store pick up on the couple of smaller orders I've place with them, but I did once take advantage of their free shipping option during a 'Blitzathon'. Looking at my records, I placed the order late at night on a Friday and received a shipping confirmation email from them the following Tuesday. They used AusPost, so you'd then need to allow however long it usually takes AusPost to deliver something to you that's coming from Melbourne. Hope this helps? Speaking of shopforme, they currently have the 3 GotG sets advertised at 20% off. Seems like we're not supposed to discuss Amazon deals in this thread, but as it's in context, hopefully I'll get away with it ; due to the huge mark-up from USD for this theme (2 of the 3 sets are half the price in the US!!!), I picked up Knowhere Escape Mission (along with the new X-Men set) in their recent BOGO 40% off deal, with the discount pretty much off-setting the shipping cost. Even without that deal, and taking advantage of our relatively frequent 20% off options, it still appears to be cheaper in the US, so you may want to consider shopping around a bit before succumbing to the dodgy marked up prices we're expected to blindly accept and pay over here.

In case it's helpful for anyone, I just did a quick recce at Target Chadstone; at 8:30am, they had about 12 Ewok Villages, at least 25 R2D2s, and maybe 6 Creator Bike Shops.

I would suggest asking them to consider changing it to $199.00. Even at $199.99, orders are often likely to be made up of more than one item, so the rounding issue would still occur, whereas reducing the threshold by $1.00 would mean no more having to buy a 'cheap' item (likely $5+) just to make up those last few 'rounding' cents. I understand LEGO would like to benefit from essentially forcing people to buy a keyring/CMF/Mixel/Friends Animal, etc. with every order, but given they've just jacked up the free shipping threshold by $50.00, I don't think it's that much to ask them to drop it back by $1.00 as a good will gesture. It's certainly something that I intend to suggest in my complaint letter to them. Failing that, just buy a single PAB item, which in the long run probably costs them more in handling and separate shipping than it would cost them to wind the threshold back by $1.00...at least until they get wise and start charging a surcharge or placing a minimum order value on PAB.

I dropped into my local Target today, and they've relocated and expanded the toy section, including a large range of TLM sets (not including the new ones that are due out in August). Their shelf space and stock levels are obviously going to be different at each store, but if you're still in the market for some for presents, it might be worth checking them out once their 20% off sale starts next week.

Between this and Myer's exclusion of LEGO from their recent special toy sale promotions (extra 10% off for Myer One/buy 2 get 1 free/buy 1 get 1 50% off, etc.), not to mention the mid-year toy sales occurring before all the new sets are released, it's not turning out to be such a good time to be a FOL in Australia, is it.

Thanks Artanis I...I managed to pick up the regular DVD version from Big W tonight for $14.95

Got my EIA pre-order from JB in the mail yesterday. Will probably buy the regular DVD version at some point too as we don't have a Blu-ray player in the bedroom (hopefully it'll go on sale once the new release hype dies down a bit), but I wanted to get Vitruvius, so went with the EIA edition first so as not to miss out. It sucks that we don't get the DVD format included in the EIA edition, but I'm just grateful that we get a Vitruvius version at all. Using Amazon's currency converter, their EIA edition works out to $45.98 AUD (incl. shipping), whereas I paid $29.98 for the Aussie version (albeit with less formats included). The DVD version is approx. $19.98 over here, so in the end, much the same to buy both over here vs the Amazon version with more formats in the one package...

Thanks! :-) That's pretty much what I thought, but Dad & I are getting together in a couple of weeks to build the VW Camper, so I wanted to be able to report back what the best buying option would be for the Mini. We had both a Mini and a VW camper when I was growing up, thus Dad's interest in buying me the Mini and building the VW with me. I'm thinking about trying to 'Bricklink' a mini Mini for him, but I'd love to do it in the colours of our old one. I think I'll struggle to get the 'Wall Element 1X2X1' in 'new dark red' for the seats though, so I might have to settle for regular red. P.S. From what I've seen in the UK/EU Brand Store calendar, the mini Mini will be available with the purchase of the Mini Cooper during the VIP advance purchase period (mid-end July), then will also be available with a qualifying order value for the whole of August - similar to what they did with the Balloon Cart - so you might be able to get your hands on the mini Mini for your dad without buying the full size version. :-) Placed a qualifying order first thing this morning (and was nearly late for work because of it, haha), but I'm yet to receive a confirmation email, nor can I see the order in my 'Order Status' screen, so I'm a bit worried it didn't go through properly and I might miss out. I can see in my VIP 'Account History' where they have deducted the points I redeemed on the order, so I really hope that's evidence enough that the order will go through. Has anyone else experienced this sort of problem?

Does anyone know if, and when the Mini Cooper will come to Aus retailers? My dad wants to buy it for my birthday (November), so I'm trying to work out if it's better to wait, and hope to pick it up in a 20% off sale by then, or just grab it from S@H as soon as it's released, and in the process, qualify for the mini Mini polybag.

If anyone's still chasing the Cuusoo DeLorean, I saw quite a few at TRU in Chadstone VIC yesterday. Better yet, TRU are also currently running a 'Family and Friends Take 20% OFF all full priced items' deal with the following coupon (ends Sunday 29th June).

The 10% off price match is only valid for items featured in the TRU catalogue.

Do you mean 60047? If so, assuming you have access to a store that has stock, it's slightly cheaper at Big W ($95.00) or better yet, TRU claim they will not only price match, but beat by 10%, any toys from their current catalogue that are cheaper in anyone else's current catalogues, so you could get it for as low as $85.50 if you ask them price match Big W.

David Jones has 20% off LEGO, running until 6th July. No Modulars, Sea Cow or Simpsons House listed on their website though...not sure if the range is better in store.