Netflix implements $1 per month Blu-ray premium charge
By Darren Murph 
posted October 8th 2008 12:41PM
posted October 8th 2008 12:41PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies. As a result, we're going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.
The additional charge for unlimited Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for $1 a month more, you don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.
If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
Seems reasonable.
$1 a month? I can live with that.
Question is, will they increase their inventory to justify this increase?
I sure hope so. Currently i get about 2 Blurays a month on the 1 at a time plan due to stock shortages/wait times. If they up their inventory to where I can get 1 a week, that's good enough for me.
With DVDs I can get 5-6 a month, the distribution center is in my town.
$12 a year (plus taxes)? That's peanuts. That's less than what everyone ought to donate to charity every year.
Not everybody should be donating to charity every year.
Take a look around, most people in this country are broke.
I don't believe in charities. So Netflix Blu-Ray, here I come.
I've had that $1 fee for the last 2 months myself.
$1 a month is completely reasonable. That will cost me about $0.10 per disc. No complaints here.
well, at least it isn't more.
My hope is that when BD disc prices come down, Netflix will drop the extra charge.
My guess is about 3 years from now.
Surprisingly, it seems the consensus is... "not a big deal". To be fair, I'm still on a grandfathered 4 disk plan for the price of the current 3 disk plan, so I can't really complain. I know from recent experience that Blockbuster charges like 25 cents extra for a BR rental in-store, so it's all pretty competitive.
only crappy part is its a flat $1 for all plans. So myself, who is on a two/month plan I have to pay $0.50 per movie....which isn't that bad but when people have 3-at a time and get 12 movies a month its not quite fair.
Mitchell
I can live with it.
No prob - I'll peel off an extra buck each month to get my Blu Ray fix. Anyone who complains about this deserves to be smacked with an HD DVD case.
"Anyone who complains about this deserves to be smacked with an HD DVD case"
I LOL'd
I rarely get any blu-ray rentals (most of the movies i watch aren't on blu-ray) so I guess I have to make sure they don't charge me the $1 per month. Hey, a dollar is a dollar. I can have 2 extra lunches in a year. :P
While a $1 seem too bad, I don't really get why there's an upcharge on Blu-Ray. Amazon usually sells Blu-Ray discs for the same price as regular discs. Sometimes even cheaper. And since they're discs, it's not like Netflix has to do anything different in their production flow. So why do we have to pay extra just to have Blu-Ray? I only see this as Netflix finding a reason to charge more.
Now I do think a $1 extra to access Netflix online is worth it though and makes sense for them to encode and serve up the movies. I just wish this service would roll out on more platforms: Macs, Apple TV, PS3, etc. Not just XBox 360 and PCs.
Only thing is, I doubt Netflix is ordering discs from Amazon.
Probably because Blu-Ray is more expensive to produce. So the studios are charging Netflix more, where Netflix passes on that cost to the customers.
Didn't you hear? Netflix will be play on Mac OS X by the end of the year.
George, please see Redman042's comment just two comments above you.
And yeah, like Sujay said, I don't think Netflix sits around surfing on Amazon waiting for certain titles to go on sale so they can then scoop up however many they need to be able to offer them up for rent. The discs are more expensive for sure and $1 a month is reasonable considering the price difference. You have to keep in mind, they'll have to replace discs too due to people doing whatever dumb things they do to discs.
It would be awesome if I could actually get them to ship any of the blu-ray's in my queue...
Seems I was already being charged $2. This is the email I got.
Dear Joseph,
We're lowering your price for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies from $2 a month to only $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your current monthly membership charge. You'll see this reduced charge on your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008. It will also be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details.
If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for now just $1 a month, in addition to your current monthly membership charge, you don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.
If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
$1 is a 20% increase on the $4.99 monthly plan. It's pennies, but a much bigger jump just to get blu-ray in your 2 movies a month plan.
Blockbuster Online is $3.99 for the same plan and that includes blu-ray already.
I agree...this "flat tax" does not seem fair for the those on the low-volume plans. Hello BlockBuster.com.
3 out of the 6 blu-rays that I received recently were damaged. One was cracked, the other two had unreadable sectors. I don't mind paying $1 extra a month for HD media, but with a 50% failure rate plus the time it takes to get a replacement I might just switch to SD for most of my movies
BTW, whats up with the unreadable sectors? I though blu-rays had a protective layer on them to protect against scratches.
BD disc recordings are very close to the surface. That's why they NEED the protection layer. It's not like they give you the extra layer for free. It's for studio's own sake, i.e. they really really need the protection layer. But the way Netflix mails these discs, this extra layer doesn't help much.
I have rented easily 20+ Blu-rays from Netflix and never had a problem, heck they sent me a double copy once, got the movie in twice in two separate mailings, and if that movie hadn't been "The Host" I might have even kept one of the copies :)
So I have to wonder if it's about where in the country you are, who your postman is and why he doesn't like netflix.
You are getting spinning discs via the mail and you are wondering why there is a problem with the quality? You can't be serious!!!! Q.
"So I have to wonder if it's about where in the country you are, who your postman is and why he doesn't like netflix."
No you don't. It's just the cheap ass sleeves that Netflix use. Blu-ray is less flexible than the cheap polycarb DVDs are now made of.
I've had 50 Blu discs this year and 8 of those were damaged. That's a 16% failure rate.
It's nothing to do with the mail man. How many people do you think handle a DVD from Netflix? Is it the guy delivering it to my mail box? The guy who unloads the mail box at my post office for return? The guy who empties the bag at the sorting office? The guy who packs them for delivery? etc. etc.
So if I go a month with out getting a blu-ray disc, do I not get charged the $1? Seems only fair.
At least it isn't a dollar for each movie in your monthly plan.
i don't mind the $1 increase as long as they dramatically increase the number of BD copies they have since i'm sick of seeing "long wait" for every BD title in my que.
I don't mind the extra $1 but can't help but believe this is a test to see what kind of bad press they get before tacking on something larger, maybe I'm just paranoid. Not to mention with the wait times for BD's maybe that extra $1 is too much if I'm not receiving any for a couple of months waiting.
But, theoretically couldn't you get around this charge by buying yourself a yearly gift subscription certificate? Because in the fine print it clearly states that you will not be charged during that year of coverage under the terms of the certificate. So if you're hell bent on not be charged that extra $12 + tax, then perhaps you could try this workaround?
As to damaged disc's, I never had a problem for Blu-ray's but had several HD DVD's come with problems as unreadable.
I was being charged the $2 per month Blu-Ray premium since August (when I opted in). I got the "price decrease" notice yesterday, too. I wonder what prompted this? Any stats from Netflix of how many subscribers now have the Blu-Ray option?