Nikaliptus

For those with cancelled Myer orders for Simpsons House and Sea Cow, I have discovered that Big W have automatically adjusted their catalogue sale prices of both sets to match Myer's catalogue prices ($298.00 down to $259.00 for Simpsons and $328.00 down to $309.00 for Sea Cow). Better yet, the cheaper prices work in store now if you scan your Everyday Rewards card (I tested it with Sea Cow today, so I'm assuming it works for Simpsons as well)! Now you just need to find a local Big W store with stock of what you’re after (or use their online layby service, but be aware they’re not releasing them for pick up or delivery until just before Xmas). D'oh, you scooped me on the news by *that* much, Kryne!

Just got an email about the upcoming TRU Sale. Runs from Wednesday 25th June to Tuesday 15th July, with early in store access for their VIP Club members from 6pm til 9pm on Tuesday 24th June. Most of the LEGO deals can be found on pages 2 & 3 of the #pageNo=0"]catalogue, but for anyone still chasing it, they also have the VW T1 Camper on the front cover for $129.99 ($4.01 cheaper than Myer had it). They also have a price guarantee; 'Spot a lower price on anything in this catalogue and we will beat it by 10%. Excludes online purchases', so it might be beneficial to check carefully between theirs and Myer's/Big W's catalogues, as you could get a better deal by asking them honour this. e.g. Lego City Police Station 60047 is $95.00 at Big W, but $98.99 in the TRU catalogue, so less the price match and extra 10% means they should sell it to you for $85.50.

In case it's useful, here's Myer's Competitive Pricing Policy. Until the Big W sale officially starts on Thursday, you might have trouble meeting the following Myer criteria "Myer will not match the competitor's price if: The price is: an Online Only offer a specially negotiated price or offer that is only available to a select group of people, such as a corporate rate, loyalty, subscriber or membership offer" I guess it depends on how clued in they are, and how much ringing around they might be willing to do to verify the Big W price. It also says they won't price match if it is below their cost price, but I have no idea whether or not Big W's $68.00 is below Myer's cost. Last year, Big W advertised the Creator Family House for $65.00 and Tree House for $34.00; I knew I'd struggle to get to a Big W store, so I just went to Target on the morning the Big W sale started, with the catalogue in hand, and successfully got them to price match both, so as lightningtiger has suggested above, Myer isn't your only option. As for the Everyday Rewards membership, I've had my membership for years, so I have no idea whether it's active immediately, or needs to be validated online, but if Big W won't let you join on the spot to take advantage of the prices, there's often a Woolies on the same shopping centre as Big W, so maybe try joining there first, then using the new card at Big W.

Same here with the Seacow...I've had it on (online) order with them since pre opening time on the first day of the in store sale, and after being 'backordered' for just over a week, they up and cancelled it today. And yep, they've had my money all this time too. What a debacle! :-( Between this and their lack of extra discount on LEGO for Myer One members, I don't think they've made a lot of AFOL friends this year. I completely understand it's not much consolation, but shopeforme have both Seacow and Parisian Restaurant for 10% off at the moment ($350.99 & $224.99, respectively).

If you are an Everyday Rewards cardholder, you can access the Big W 'Total Toy Domination' sale in store now (June 18th), a week before the sale opens in store to non-members. You just need to scan you EDR card at the register when making your purchase. The email they sent out this morning was a little confusing as it said ‘starts today’, then lower down said ‘Offers run from 19 June’, but I dropped into a store on my way home from work tonight, and picked up the Creator Bike Shop for the sale price ($68.00). It's live online now too (as of 7pm), but when I looked up the Bike Shop, it said 'Not available for immediate delivery', and only offered online layby ($2.00 fee) for either 'Click & Collect' (free), or home delivery ($9.00). I'm not sure what the minimum layby period is (i.e. how soon they would ship/allow you to collect it), but it says 'Estimated delivery dates : 03/11/2014 – 01/12/2014', so if you are an EDR member and can get into a store this week, that's probably your best option to not miss out, and not have to wait for them to release the online laybys.

Hopefully the Creator Bike Shop & Cafe is easier to come by than some of the Myer sets have been. The $9.00 shipping is a killer though, so unless it's available for Click & Collect (free), I'll be waiting until the in-store sale, rather than ordering early online.

I ordered Parisian Restaurant online for 'Click & Collect' at my local store, so I was able to have it in hand yesterday (i.e. the day before the sale officially started in-store). I was going to try to lay-by the Seacow today, but when I realised last night that they charge a whopping $10.00 'non-refundable lay-by service fee', I decided to just bite the bullet and buy it outright on my poor, long suffering credit card. Anyway, I looked online late-ish last night, and the website said my local store had stock that would be available today, and that it was also available as 'Click & Collect', so I decided I'd just get there in time for opening and grab one off the shelf, rather than dealing with ordering online and subsequent parcel pick-up. Luckily, I checked again this morning on my way in (i.e. about an hour before the store was due to open), and since last night, it was showing as no longer available at that store, or most other stores in the Melbourne metropolitan area, so I ended up just ordering it online to get shipped to me, as it was the only way I could be sure I'd be able to get it. When I went to the store at lunchtime, they were also out of stock of Parisian Restaurant (even though I'd managed to get mine there the day before), and also the Simpsons House - didn't think to look for SSD, but they had heaps of the Millennium Falcon, Sydney Opera House, and VW Camper - and the sales assistant I spoke to said I did the right thing placing my orders online instead. Anyway, long story short, rightly or wrongly, it seems that offering 'Click & Collect' at various stores prior to the start of the in-store sale has resulted in depleting the limited stock that they had, to the point of selling out before they even opened. If it helps, PR seems to still be available online and would qualify for free shipping, but you'd have to waive any possibility of sweet-talking them into giving you the extra 10% Myer One discount, as you can't fool the online ordering system with the coupon code. Seacow also appears to still be available online, but the Simpsons House was already sold out online last night. The catalogue specifies 'limited stock' for the Simpsons House, but not for PR, so maybe they'll be getting more in, in the future, so if not on this sale, you may still be able to pick one up on another 20% off sale down the track. It doesn't help for PR, but I also saw stock of both Simpsons House and Seacow at Target today, so if anyone's desperate, it might be worth asking if they'll price match to Myer's catalogue.

The Myer Toy Sale catalogue is available here; http://catalogues.myer.com.au/catalogue/myer-catalogue-toy-sale/4yr8igfrh.html?pid=promotedCatalogue#pageNo=2, and includes - among others - Simpsons House ($259), Sea Cow ($309) and Parisian Restaurant ($199). It claims PR is 'only at Myer'; does anyone know if this is really true - other than LEGO S@H (RRP less any VIP points), or shopforme (10% off, but currently out of stock)? If so, it sounds like even without the extra Myer One 10% discount, theirs is the best price? P.S. I tried the above-mentioned 'MYTOYSALE' Myer One code online, and it didn't work for LEGO, but did work for another random toy I picked to test it on.

Chadstone Shopping Centre (VIC) is having a a 4 day 'Big VIP Event' from Thursday 22nd to Sunday 25th. This brochure lists all the various sales and deals, but of significance here is that TRU has '20% off full priced merchandise'. It doesn't appear to be noted in the brochure, but in store they stipulated that it was off one item per transaction. There were various other Ts & Cs listed too, but I didn't take note of all of them. I didn't find any LEGO sets I was in the market for, but I picked up one of the storage bricks that don't usually quality for their regular percentage off LEGO sales.

I read on Bricking Around that it's going to be $89.99 (http://brickingaround.com/2014/05/12/australian-prices-for-new-lego-movie-sets/). All 3 of the soon to be released TLM sets appear to be 1.5 x US RRP. 70184 Emmet’s Construct-o-Mech in US is $59.99 x 1.5 = $89.99 in Aus 70815 Super Secret Police Drop Ship in US is $79.99 x 1.5 = $119.99 in Aus 70816 Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! in US is $99.99 x 1.5 = $149.99 in Aus

TRU has 'buy 1 get 1 half price on all LEGO City'. Runs from Wed 21st May to Tue 3rd June.

The set of 16 is showing as 'sold out' now though.

Problem is, I think everyone else had the same idea. I went to my local TRU just before midday on the first day of the sale, and was also disappointed to find they were already out of stock of Rescue Reinforcements, even though they had had about 5 sitting on the shelves a few days before. At that time it was still available online, but after shipping charges, it didn't seem worth it. I was then lucky enough to track one down at another store last night; my local store said their stock system showed the other store had 3, but when I called to check if it was accurate, the salesperson couldn't find any of them. He sounded quite vague about which set I was chasing, even after I read out their internal stock code and described the box, etc., so I decided to chance it and drive all the way out there anyway, on the off-chance I could find it myself. Got to the store, couldn't see it on the shelves, but one of the staff was crawling around on the floor grabbing sets from I don't know where - maybe under the bottom shelf? - and throwing them into a trolley, and lo and behold what set does she toss into the trolley as I'm standing there, but Rescue Reinforcements! I cringed at the way she was tossing the boxes around, as I'm one of those people who keeps the boxes, but it wasn't too badly dinged up, so I grabbed it while I could...just super lucky to be in the right place at the right time, but I probably spent the money I saved on the petrol to get there, lol. I've seen this set on sale before for $89.99 (which equates to 10% off RRP), but if memory serves, this is the first percentage off all LEGO sale TRU have had since the set was released, so I daresay they will have more in the coming months, so keep trying, and you might even be lucky enough to pick it up on a rarer 25% off sale and save yourself another $5.00. :-)

TRU has the following Star Wars and Super Heroes sets for $29.99 (save $10.00 / 25%), starting tomorrow, until 22nd April; General Grievous Wheels V-Wing Star-Fighter AT-RT Doc Ock Truck Captain America Batman Bat Attack http://catalogues.to.../4y7dkzuju.html

Thanks for the welcome Brickmamba :-) Woolies (at the least the one in Chadstone) have the 'LEDLites' for $10.00 as well. I grabbed the last Bad Cop the other day, but there were still a few President (not to be confused with Lord) Business, UniKitty and Emmet ones left. Presumably other Woolies stores stock them as well, so you might have luck tracking down the 2 you are chasing. They were in a strange spot at the Chadstone - first, on the bottom section of the last shelving bay in the baking aisle, then got moved to a higher spot on the last shelving bay of the last aisle (I think it had pool chemicals next to it?) - so don't just check the toy aisle and give up if you can't see them there. As others have said, this is exclusive to TRU, and is currently selling for $89.99 (RRP is $99.99). Not sure if this is a permanent markdown, as the regular shelf price in one section shows $89.99, but in another section in the same store, it has a 'SALE' tag that says it ends on Sunday 6th April. I'm trying to be patient and wait for them to have a 20% (or better) sale on their LEGO before I pick that one up to complete my collection of TLM sets (minus the Sea Cow that I'm also waiting on, to see if it turns up at any retailers before resorting to LEGO S@H).

Don't mean to be the 'VIP Points police', but just thought it might help to clarify that in Australia it's actually 100 points for a $7.50 'voucher' (which costs $150 to earn), so it normally equates to 5%, making double points equal to 10%. :-) Not sure if it's my specific bank/type of credit card, but I always get charged an overseas transaction fee when I use LEGO S@H, even though they charge in AUD, so everything ends up costing me about 3% more than the S@H order total, meaning I barely break even with the regular 5% that the VIP points earn. :-(