Discovery Store

Full review
The one store at the mall both my kids love to visit is the Discovery Store. Last year I signed up for the Discovery Passport Rewards program while at the store. You get a card for your keychain that has a barcode with account number to scan with each purchase you make.

A ten-dollar reward certificate is mailed to your home when you have reached $150 in purchases. It does take a few weeks to receive this in the mail. I was surprised to see that this certificate has an expiration date and can be used online as well.

Before the holidays I hit the magic amount to obtain a certificate. The expiration date on the certificate is April 18, 2006. This also has a number and a barcode for scanning at the store or for inputting at the website.

A few weeks later another certificate arrived in the mail from my holiday purchases. This one has an expired date of May 9, 2006. I head over to the mall at least once a week after working out at the gym and kept forgetting to bring the certificates.

I decided to get my son a Valentine's gift at the website of wwww.discoverystore.com and utilize the two reward certificates. You can check your points at www.discoverypassport.com.

The Discovery Store is organized in categories of DVD, VHS & Books, Telescope & Binoculars, Toys & Games, Home & Office, Electronics & Gadgets, Fan Gear & Clothing, Outdoor & Travel, Fitness & Spa. I visit an array of areas when browsing the site and this time went directly to books to find one for my son.

You also have the opportunity of a catalog quick order sale items, gift finder, store locator and a search. Orders can be tracked at the site. I signed up a few months ago as an affiliate for my BellaOnline Autism site.

When you click on DVD, VHS & Books you have to select Books and then choose through a selection of categories.

These include kids, science, military & history, travel & adventure, health & cooking, anmals and best sellers. This shopping trip I went to military & history since my son wanted a book on helicopters. He viewed the books along with me and picked out one for $17.95. When you choose an item the right side of the page has some other items they suggest, which could be the corresponding DVD.

The information on the book includes if gift wrap is available, the number of pages, format, customer rating and the option to rate the product. There is a link to click on to email the page to another person.

The product image can be enlarged. When you add an item to the cart it will show whether it is in stock, and the cost of gift wrap ($4.95) and an option to click a link to view a sample.

There is a box at the bottom of the page for coupon code, so I thought this might be the spot to add the reward certificate, but I was informed I had the wrong type of number and proceeded to checkout.

Another item is also shown as recommended along with your item in the cart. You can change the quantity, continue shopping, remove the item or checkout at this point.

This page also has a link for shipping rates, international orders, taxes, easy returns, privacy & security. These open up into a pop up window.

Organizations with tax-exempt status can contact the Discovery Store at 1-800-627-9399 to place orders. There may be a sales tax charge if you have an order being shipped to another State. There are also some states that tax extended service plans.

There are four delivery options for the United States. Standard takes 3-5 days, Express 2-3 days, Overnight and Super Saver is for DVD/videos and book orders. By viewing the time this option takes it seems similar to media mail delivery.

The breakdown on shipping starts from 0-$25, then through 50, and 75, 100, etc. Discovery Store does deliver to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and US Territories at an additional charge and longer delivery times.

P.O. Boxes and AFO/FPO cannot be sent via Express or Overnight services. There are certain telescopes that ship free and are noted on the product pages.

You can register as a member to save your data for future shopping ease. Your name, address, phone number and email are added at the billing screen. The shipping screen has the four delivery options with number of days and amounts, shipping address that can be edited, a gift message box, gift cards and pin numbers as well as gift certificate codes.

There is also the rewards program section where you can sign up, enter your code or redeem your rewards. There are three boxes and I input both my rewards here.

I was surprised to see the next page show that the reward certificates were used only for the product and not for shipping or tax. The page showed an estimate of $2.00 for the tax in CA. The payment options were for American Express, Discover, Visa and MasterCard. I chose my debit card and the shipping at $5.99.

My email confirmation showed the rewards for the book with the result of $7.43 on my mastercard. I had to make a .52 cent adjustment in my checkbook the next day when I got the email since I ordered at night on February 2, 2006.

The email included a customer care link for service and a FAQs link. My order number was listed, but it did not specify which reward certificate still has some money on it, so I have kept both and utilized the website to get this data. The email also had the link to UPS for tracking my order, which arrived as stated on Thursday, February 9th.

The return policy is 60 days for an exchange or refund, and can be done at any store or through the mail back to Kentucky. Gift cards can take up to one business day to be emailed to the recipient.

I received an order follow-up email on the 8th of February from BizRate and an email from Discovery Store on the 9th with a code to redeem $5.00 off on my next purchase of $25 or more with an expiration date of 2/28/06.

My son just loves the Helicopters book and we have looked at other books to get ideas for his birthday next month. The packing slip I received has five steps to fill out on the back to return merchandise.

We enjoy going to the site to check out what new items they have in the science and books areas, games and movies. I did learn at the end of the checkout steps that my order did not qualify for points to be earned. Enter your eleven digit number along with last name to get the points balance.

Balances carry over from year to year for the passport program. Participants must be eighteen and over. I could not find a way at the site to input my reward certificate to find out which one has a small balance left, so will bring both to the store when I make a purchase later in the month.

The search function is easy to use, the tabs are colorful on the homepage with the option to view many products on a single page to make your selections. This was my first order with Discovery Store and will be shopping again for gifts for my kids that need to be hidden. Otherwise a trip to the store is in order so my children can check out the latest gizmos and gadgets.

*** UPDATE *** - March 20, 2006

I called the Customer Service to find out about the leftover amount in one of the awards since my son's birthday is around the corner. I was told that they were used up. You can use the award one time and there is nothing remaining. I assume this means the same thing at the store, so you might want to take this into consideration when redeeming one of these and make sure you get items to cover the total and that is not to include tax or shipping charges if done online. Also note the expiration date.