As it's become a pretty hot topic this year. Here's a thread for it. Please add your own tips and tricks for return and rebuying.

Basic Idea:

Buy the item in advance of the sale. Return the item to the store on Black Friday and then immediately rebuy it to take advantage of the new sale price.

In a lot of cases, Black Friday items have rebates. So you must actually re-ring the item to get a new receipt with valid dates for the rebates. Also, make sure you buy the item within the retailers return policy or they may not allow you to return and then rebuy. These policies can vary anywhere from 14 to 30 days.

This method could also be considered useful for stores that don't allow pricematching.

----------

Potential problems that you should be somewhat aware of:

1) Some items may not be bought early as some stores hold their stock of the item until Black Friday. As a way to prevent early buying.

2) Some managers may not allow you to rebuy the item or even pricematch the item citing a special limited one day event.

----------

Pricematching discussion thread in case that's what you're looking for.

At least based on a couple threads....

it seems like Best Buy, Officemax, and Circuit City may be taking a little harder stance this year. Just to keep this thread updated.

I have heard of some people pre-purchasing items before BF to avoid sell outs and then returning them on BF only to repurchase again.

Do I have this right? I mean, does this work??

Yes I have done this but I would suggest to scout out the policy in the individual store and ask very specific ?? ie does the price adjustment have to be made within the same time constraints as the sale?

I'm told and assume yes you would have to do it within the "sale hours" I just spoke w/a guy from BB, he said the individual stores sometimes "close their cust.service to use as cashiering stations only"!!! That's a problem?

I have often wondered ;about this strategy and whether people actually find the time to do this... BF is so crazy anyway that I cannot even imagine doing a return on that day!! Do you guys really do it? Doesn't it add to the exhaustion of the day??

The few times I've been out on BF in the last couple of years, it looked like the CS desks were the lonliest places in town...

I did the return/rebuy trick last year for the laptop BB has for BF.

Brought the laptop few days early, then went to return/rebuy before the early-bird sales end.

I didn't even have to stand in line for the return/rebuy as the crowd were gone by then.

Did they require you to bring in the laptop or did you just show them your receipt?

I just showed them the receipt, but had the laptop in the car just in case they asked for it.