Barnes & Noble giving $100 for Nook pre-orders that miss Christmas

Haven't got your Nook yet? You may actually be in luck. For people who pre-ordered early enough to expect a pre-Christmas delivery, Barnes & Noble is promising a $100 B&N.com gift card if it misses December 24th -- which is apparently distinctly possible. Of course, if you're one of the lucky / unlucky ones to have this on offer, you've probably already seen the email, and if you're a different sort of hapless pre-orderer that won't be seeing a Nook until next year, this is just another reason to curse your lot in life. To think: not only are you not ushering in 2010 from an economy suite in a space hotel, but you're going to wrap up this year reading paper books, without $100 to show for it! Can't we do better as a civilization?

[dand Posted Dec 20th 2009 10:39AM]

No nooky for Christmas? That's too bad...

[Edmunn Posted Dec 20th 2009 10:41AM]

@dand I'll give you Nookie for Christmas. :)

[geekthree Posted Dec 20th 2009 10:53AM]

@dand

Tissue Paper: It's cheaper than a nook

[DrDr Posted Dec 20th 2009 11:07AM]

@geekthree

If only we had e-tissue paper.

[geekthree Posted Dec 20th 2009 11:54AM]

@DrDr

Yeah, but we'd get e-tissue paper, then people'd want colour e-tissue paper...

Eventually people'd just get their freek on with their computer monitors..

I don't like how this is going.

[DougieBear Posted Dec 20th 2009 7:15PM]

@dand Who gives a nook.

[N900 Posted Dec 20th 2009 10:41AM]

Or you could give them the $100 gift card. But I guess we're not all like that, huh?

[JeanLuc Picard Posted Dec 20th 2009 11:32AM]

I'd think if I got a nook as a gift for someone, I would want that $100 back, otherwise it's as if I were giving someone $350 worth of stuff.

[W31RD0 Posted Dec 21st 2009 12:13AM]

@JeanLuc Picard

And all they got you was socks.

[edicius Posted Dec 20th 2009 12:17PM]

Is B&N still not allowing gift cards to be used on ebook purchases? I can't remember if that stupid decision ever got reversed. If not, that $100, while a nice gesture, is kind of silly in tandem with the nook.

[m3nphls Posted Dec 20th 2009 12:24PM]

Too bad B&N, I was looking forward to see this baby in store to play around with but I already got a Kindle 2 for my wife this christmas.

[MikeyMike01 Posted Dec 20th 2009 5:12PM]

@m3nphls I was at Barnes & Noble about a week ago, and they had a kiosk set up in the middle of the store, with a nook or two and a guy explaining how it worked to people that wanted to see it.

[corduroy Posted Dec 20th 2009 12:29PM]

Wow, that's a lot better than Dell and their Zino HD fiasco.
Dell had a *wonderful* email stating that they can mail out a card saying that their gift has been delayed... until at least Feb 24, 2010. Oh, and you have 3 days to respond. Oh, and you still will pay the same amount even though what you ordered is going to be a lot cheaper by then.

[coreyflood Posted Dec 20th 2009 2:15PM]

So, I personally am curious who is getting these email vs. getting the nook by the 25th.

I personally ordered mine on 11/9. They have pushed the ship date back 4 times, and now the site reads 1/18 for the ship date. I haven't got the $100 consolation prize either.

[clearThumbtack Posted Dec 20th 2009 5:19PM]

@coreyflood I ordered mine 11/10, so a day after you, and the website still says 12/21 shipping for me after having been bumped back from original ship date. I haven't received any email, so I don't know what to expect.

Before the site said mine would ship on 12/11 until 12/12, then it jumped to 12/21...so even if I don't get any word on it tomorrow I can't expect it actually ships out...

[Tegeril Posted Dec 20th 2009 3:13PM]

I got an email saying mine was delayed by a day but they upgraded it to overnight shipping. We'll see if it arrives in time, and if it doesn't, they can be expecting a phone call :)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 20th 2009 3:51PM]

Hmm, mine was supposed to arrive on 12/11. Still no sign of it but it currently shows as shipping on 12/21 (tomorrow!) on B&N's website. I haven't gotten the $100 e-mail, but I have to say I wouldn't feel like my Christmas was ruined if they missed the shipment and gave me a $100 gift card. Have to say, I'm kinda hoping they miss the shipment! ;)

[Tegeril Posted Dec 20th 2009 11:05PM]

@(Unverified) Mine is now pushed to shipping Dec 23 with overnight. It better arrive because I'm going away for a week on Christmas day >.

[sp0di Posted Dec 20th 2009 6:10PM]

Yea, mine just got pushed to 20 Jan 2010. So, it blows out of Christmas time frame. They can keep their $100 bucks. As they have now lost a very well paying customer.

The product managers should be fired for how bad they screwed this product release up. I think that would be a great Christmas present for them. And yea, I know there are a lot of factors involved with getting a product out, but in the end they are responsible.

[androoyang Posted Dec 21st 2009 12:00AM]

@sp0di

Agreed. I'm getting one of these as a late christmas present (I didn't make the first pre-order batch) and last I heard it would arrive Jan 11. With yours getting pushed back to the 20th, I can only imagine mine getting pushed past Feb... (I can't actually check the estimated ship date because I wasn't the one who ordered it)

[sdorn Posted Dec 21st 2009 11:05AM]

Anyone that needed a Nook before Christmas could have just gotten one off of eBay like I did. Wasn't even much over what it would have cost me to order direct from B&N. I've been using it for several days now, and it is pretty sweet. Only issues so far are that there were some pages in the book I'm reading that couldn't be accessed for some reason, the reader just skipped over them no matter what I tried. Other issue is battery life. Maybe it is because I needed to put it in airplane mode or something, but the battery only lasted 2 or 3 days and it was down to 20% already. That equated to about 350 pages of reading.

[Coloredtoad Posted Dec 21st 2009 4:07PM]

I placed an order for 2 on Nov 11th. B&N said it would ship on Dec 11th then i got an email saying it would ship today(21st) with free overnight shipping.Then i look at my order page and it said it is shipping on Jan 20th, So i called up B&N and the person i spoke to said my order would arrive on Dec 22nd so here's to hoping :(