[JWAddington]

My experience today.....I brought in one strand of lights to exchange....they gave me "the light exchange form" with a bar code on it to give to the cashier when I check out. That one form can be used on up to 5 new LED lights. I bought 3 new LED spotlights with only one set of lights exchanged. It just takes off whatever discount is allotted for the "category" of LED being purchased automatically.

 

[Scatterbrains]

Am I the only one who likes the old lights better? LEDs are great for some things... but some I really don't like. Maybe it's just in my area - but the Christmas LEDs only come in very harsh blue, green, and red. So all the houses look kind of the same.

Nope. you're not alone. I like the LEDs if you don't mix colors...A tree of just green or just blue is pretty awesome but you'll need a lot of lights to do it right. I just don't buy into the general "cost savings" The investment cost is much higher and I haven't figured out how to fix them when one light goes, so they're a huge pain compared to incandescent if you ask me.

The deal doesn't seem that bad if you are trying to get spotlights and looking for what amounts to a 25% discount.

 

[mikeerdas]

I'm just more comfortable being anonymous on the forums and helping people through info, research, and photos / ideas; so I don't interact a lot with people and their real names, etc. That may all change once, thinking positively, I start the Charity Haunt. :--) I bet someone else would be glad to help.

sorry, I didnt mean for you to pay on your own, Id pay everything of course, even at the full price without you sacrificing an old light set.

But if you meant you didnt want to pick up and ship to me I can pay you in advance if that makes you feel better, not sure why you would be uncomfortable shipping an item but I guess you have your reasons? Id be the one taking a risk after all and I feel I can trust a fellow forum member.

There are none in my county or the next so Im at the mercy of fellow forum members. Another forum member is helping me get my cat inflatable, so without members to help each other out for places that are dry of merch Im not sure how else we all can really get these sorts of things from weird stores like HD and Lowes.

it really is just a great forum.

I suppose I can try ebay but really do hate paying out the nose for a $20 light.

 

[mikeerdas]

The promo says incandescent strands in any condition.

A few years ago I bought a couple 100-mini light incandescent blue light strands I thought would look cool on our fence...going for an icy look. No one liked them up however and figured it would cost me more than I paid for the strands to change out all the bulbs to another color so plan to pull those together and turn them in.

There's a few green LED spots l'd like to pick up for my halloween display and maybe one or two of the white kaleidoscopes so want to do the trade in before they all get purchased by xmas shopping people. Most HD locations in my area are only showing a few of each color and once gone not sure if they will restock before the offer expires.

As I'm positive you know, but others may appreciate being reminded of, buy what you think you might use now; return what you don't use later, after testing, etc. Regret's not fun. I have yet to test all my single-color spots; but have plenty of time to do so, with HD's return policy of, what is it, 90 days?

I like most of my incandescent Christmas lights. So on the way home, I purchased five boxes of 20-light-each strands of multi color and white christmas lights for $1 each. So for $5, I bought 5 Kaleidoscope lights--5 x $5 off = $25; minus $5 = $20 savings. I bought them out completely of the Blue Kaleidoscopes (3) and picked up two Red Kaleidoscopes. Don't know what I'll keep and what I'll return. But definitely keeping all of my Blue Kaleidoscope--I loved the Pandora (Avatar) In My Backyard effect when combined with the green laser spots. Returned two Blues to Home Depot that I had with me. Will probably keep one as a fourth for whole backyard coverage.

Here was my take today on the way home from work:

Also justifying additional purchases to help decorate a Charity haunt I'm trying to establish in my area (Raleigh, NC).

So I'm now the proud owner of 10 Kaleidoscope lights:

(2) White
(4) Blue
(2) Green
(2) Red

Interested in seeing how I like, or not, the single color Green and single color Red Kaleidoscopes. The Blues are still by far my favorite. Thinking Green will be nice--blue and green are two of my favorite colors for yard haunts.

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

I found my 3 old unwanted strands so took those to a HD that had at least 3 green spots showing in inventory online -- no point in going to a location that doesn't have what you want to pick up (hint, hint). I'm happy to have the 3 new green spots instead, saved myself $9, and will at least get use out of these. BTW when I got home I noticed that that HD location had already deducted them from their online count. And when I was there, there were a few bags already in the bins with old holiday lights people had turned in.

After seeing so many haunts on here with great vivid outdoor lighting over the years, I've been planning on updating my outdoor lighting for a few years now and during Halloween this season I added 2 blue spots, 1 blue spot with strobe; 1 red spot, 2 red Fire & Ice spots, 1 green F&I, and 2 "black/purple" spots. I have 1 blue Kaleidoscope. I have to say I'm not in love with the Kaleidoscopes. Really prefer the F&I. Someone posted photos under the Prop Section of a Steampunk energy source prop that used a green Kaleidoscope and I did have to say I thought that did look pretty cool in their set up.

Mike I used the solid blue and red spots this year and I was pretty impresssed with the light they put out. Very vivid and photographed nicely. Think you will be happy with yours. I found myself really noticing people's haunts and cemetary scene photos with the blue and green lighting, combined with yellow flickering light from lanterns and candles. The use of green spots with red interior lighting (thinking caskets for example) was very striking as well. I have yet to see any white solid spots and I know Gemmy makes them. Yellow/amber or orange would be nice to have but apart from Spirit no one else seems to have stocked it.


In way of a reminder, if you have one of those Lighting Effects Boxes (Christmas tree or Halloween Lightning Bolt version) don't forget they work based on having a certain wattage of light drawing power. So you may want to hold on to some of your incandescent strands. I have some globe lights I'm holding onto that will be used in my haunted carnival for this very purpose.

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

Wish I had read your post JWAddington before I went. I gave them three strands for 3 new spots. I didn't want to use their self-serve registers so went to Customer Service to pay cash and the sales clerk didn't really wasn't sure how the program worked. When she rang up my lights she did scan the form and it just gave me a credit for $9. Oh well. I really didn't have any more funds for extra lighting anyway.

Updating even with sales at GR, coupons from SH, end of season clearance at HD, and this promo from HD, still adds up so as Scatterbrains says it really is an investment.

 

[Dyne]

I went to take advantage of the trade-in today, thinking I'd get some of those 100 ct dome lights in either blue or red. Instead I ended up with two LED spots (1 red and 1 blue) with the discount, a current tester to hopefully help with tracking down bad bulbs (though it is VERY sensitive), along with some of the HDX $2 yard spotlight fixtures that were mentioned on the forum before halloween, and some 12" yard stakes for light strings (which I sorely missed having on Halloween this year, since I was using the light strings in place of "don't walk through the yard" fence).

Have to go back in soon for an exchange as one of the LED spots was missing its ground stake. They are very bright, however.

I really shouldn't have gotten all of this, because I may have created a minor financial problem for myself in the process. Oops.

 

[kittyvibe]

Today I brought in 2 strands, though they didnt count them and just gave me the coupon and said it was good for up to 5 lights. I go to self checkout and the girl who gave me crap about halloween before was there. I let her scan my items for me and the coupon but the coupon wasnt giving the discount.

I was trying to buy the Lightshow 8 bulb kaleidoscope string, normally $29.98 each.

She told me the coupon wasnt taking and since the lights I wanted to buy werent pictured, then that means I got the wrong lights for the discount. I mentioned that it doesnt specify certain SKUs for individual lights, just a generalized mention, like Marthas got this discount, Lightshow/Ecosmart got the highest, etc. and that if I couldnt get my discount on the lightshow lights then the coupon isnt working as intended.

So I said Ill go to CS and ask them about it. She follows me over and makes a big show by scanning my item and the coupon and saying to the CS guy since its not giving me the discount then I cant get the coupon applied manually by them. Im like, who are you, are you a CS person or manager? I then looked at the CS guy who I originally gave my old lights to and asked him to show me where on the coupon it specifically says I cant use it on a Lightshow product of my choosing?

The CS guy was looking it over and then another CS lady came over and they both read the coupon entirely and said it showed no exclusions and manually gave me the discount. Plus I used my $50 gift card I managed to get from the whole blood light debacle with them sending me only 2 of 9 lights. Now I just hope the lights dont die on me, ogt to go test them now.

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

Kittyvibe, the Trade-In expired Sunday, 11/16, so the clerk was correct that you shouldn't have been given the credit. Didn't have anything to do with the LightShow lights you were buying. It applied to all Gemmy LightShow products.

The offer ran 11/6 to 11/16, just 11 days. I assume HD will eventually have a sale on lights for the holidays for those that missed out on this promo event.

 

[kittyvibe]

GOS, I dont think you read my post correctly, I turned in my lights to the CS desk on the 16th since the promo says it runs "through" the 16th and the fact that they accepted them and told me it was the last day is kind of a no brainer. 11/6 to 11/16 is 11 days as the coupon says and I was there on the final day.

Even the girl who was giving me trouble mentioned it was the last day for the coupon since it wasnt ringing and I was prepared to go back and take my old lights back if CS didnt handle things. (I guess her threatening me was her idea of good service? her tone was way out of line.)

Anyway, dont feel like shopping HD in the future with all the hassles its been, time will help forgive and forget but for now Im jaded.

Wth the exception of another member here who gave her time to help me get the kitty inflatable, thats really only been the good part of the HD experience.

 

[Forhekset]

kittyvibe, I had the same issue. I actually returned some Christmas lights I had already bought before the trade-in program started, and repurchased them to get the discount. I had two of the Lightshow strings for $29.98, another Lightshow product plus two sets of the Home Accent lights. So the woman gave me my discount and it only took 6 bucks off the total. I asked, "Shouldn't it be $21 off? $6 + $15 for the 3 Lightshow lights". The woman at the return desk couldn't figure it out. So then a snotty girl comes over, asks what the problem is, then tries to scan the Lightshow lights and says "yeah, these aren't eligible". I point to the ad and say "Well, it says right here, LIGHTSHOW." Then I pointed to the boxes of lights, and said "These also say LIGHTSHOW, so I don't understand what the problem is." So she thought about it for a couple of seconds, then put in the discount manually and I got my $21 off. I held up the line at the return desk for like 10 minutes, but whatevs.

I wish I'd taken back the red kaleidoscope light that I bought for Halloween and gotten a discount on that as well while the trade-in program was still going on. Maybe I'll return it and see if they go on sale after Christmas....

 

[kittyvibe]

yeah, so whats up with snotty HD girls trying to run the show?lol. Let the CS peeps do their job, yeesh. I feel like maybe we should write to HD about thsi promo. Also when I asked about the promo a few days prior, no one could give me a consistent answer, most just shrugged that they didnt know. Seems to line up with what other folks posted about in this thread, a poorly rolled out promo that caused a bunch of grief to all partys. I hate leaving a store miffed.

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

Kittyvibe, could have sworn when I saw you mention "today" in your post I looked at your post date and thought it was from Monday not Sunday so definitely my mistake about the expiration. IMO since there weren't any listed LightShow products indicated on their coupon, it should have applied to all they carried. I feel for you. You really had a bad experience with ordering/buying from them this season.

My experience has definitely been better although when I ordered my blue Kaleidoscope earlier in the season for delivery to the store, they first couldn't find it and then when I persisted showing them my email saying it arrived at the store and so clearly it had been checked in somewhere or the email wouldn't have been generated, they ultimately found it after I had to wait quite a while. When they brought it out they said something about not being able to give it to me because of confusing messages they were getting when they tried processing the pickup thru the computer system. Said maybe it was recalled or something. I was pretty ticked off at that point having gone in at lunch for a quick pick up errand. I pointed out that they were still selling it on the website so if it had been recalled or something like that why would they still have it listed for sale. The clerks (two or three of them were "helping" me) finally gave up, saw that it was paid in full, and just gave it to me. Thankfully I didn't have any problems with my clearance purchases or lighting exchange.

As far as this promo went, most of the staff seemed fairly clueless and one guy I ran into did sound like he knew about it (he was the one who showed me the coupon forms). Oh well, some things aren't worth the fight. I got rid of three strands of lights that hopefully will be recycled and got 3 needed Gemmy spot lights out of the deal at a few dollars off.

 

[thenightmarefamily]

Thanks for the info.