One thing that we know here at Metropolitan Appliance is that appliances are expensive, and a lot of the time there are not a lot of ways to help with those costs, especially if the item you are looking at is in high demand or price protected. If you are able to wait for one of the big sales of the year like Black Friday, Memorial Day or Labor Day, then you can take advantage of those discounts which are fairly easy to find. If you find yourself in an appliance emergency like a washer that won’t wash any longer, a refrigerator that decided it wants to be an oven or your remodel just does not align with those holidays, your next best bet will be to inquire about rebates with your preferred appliance retailer in Seattle, Metropolitan Appliance.
There are two main types of appliance rebates that I will detail for you:
- Instant Rebates: Which will normally come directly from the manufacturer and the discount amount will come right off the top of the price of the appliance.
- Mail-In Rebates: These are what most manufacturers offer and will require some additional work on your end for you to receive the discount. Usually they will consist of needing to meet a basic requirement to qualify for the discounted amount and then you will need to fill out a form either online or on paper and mail that it into the manufacturer.
Now, before I dive right in and take a closer look at these rebates, this will be a good time for me to point out that all of the information that I will be referencing will be related to current programs that may or may not be available at the time you are reading this. That being said, if there is a program going on at the time when you purchase your appliance, it will most likely resemble these that I will be delving into.
Instant Rebates
So, what are Instant Rebates how do they they work? These rebates are when a manufacturer offers either a percentage or dollar off discount on a particular range of its products. That discount will be enjoyed at the time of the purchase, with no other work needing to be done on your part. An example of this would be this Monogram program called “Sweet Rewards”.
Qualifying for this instant rebate program is very simple; If you purchase one of their ranges, or a cooktop and wall oven together, you can either receive one free product or a credit towards an upgraded product. If you then purchase a built-in refrigerator, or two column refrigerators, you then qualify for a second free product or another credit towards an upgrade. So, with this package you could get a full kitchen (range, built-in fridge, dishwasher, hood) for the price of just the range and built-in fridge. To get an upgraded model above the quality of the unit that would ordinarily be free under the terms of the promotion, you usually only end up paying the difference in price between the free gift model and the price of the upgraded model. An example of a typical upgrade scenario would be going from an undercounter refrigerator to undercounter refrigerator drawers.
These type of instant rebate packages usually run throughout the year with the represented brand renewing the promotion every 6 months. The reason that these programs have end dates is that there may be new models that they would like to promote or that the manufacturer may need to make a change on the actual form itself. You would receive the free item or the upgraded item at the time of your purchase. Monogram, Jenn-Air, and Thermador are a few of the brands that offer this type of rebate package.
Mail-In Rebates
Mail-in rebates relate to any rebate that needs to be, well, mailed in or in some cases submitted online. Much like the previous rebate, this type of rebate will have specific requirements to meet to be eligible for the promotion. Generally, a specific range of items will be detailed out on the promotional form that will be mailed in or submitted. These items can be, say, all of a brands ranges or possibly one item from each category of kitchen appliances to make a kitchen suite. The mail-in rebate will also have more strict time deadlines that need to be followed carefully. The goal of this type of rebate is to compel you to purchase all your appliances from the same brand. Generally, the more pieces you purchase the more your rebate increases, so if you are only replacing one failing appliance, these may still offer you money back, however most rebates have rewards that are more geared toward full kitchen suite purchases.
Let’s use this KitchenAid “Culinary Ambition” rebate as an example. With this rebate you can earn up to $800 if you purchase 6 items. You’ll notice that this is only half of the total $1600 you could potentially get as advertised in the promotion. The additional $800 is an incentive for you to upgrade to their commercial style cooking appliances and their built-in refrigerator. Those dollars are broken down into the following amounts: an extra $300 if one of your items is one of their commercial cooking products (Cooktops, Range, or hood), and an extra $500 if one of your pieces is a built-in fridge. To fully take advantage you would need not only purchase 6 items but one of those six needs to be a commercial product and one needs to be a built-in fridge. In some cases, this would be where my father would say “They getcha’!”, making the jump to those products is an increase that is greater than the money you would be saving. That is not to say you would not receive any value out of a built-in refrigerator or professional style appliances, just that the increase in price would not be covered by the amount you would save.
Combining Rebates
This is where I start to feel like a super coupon user, combing refunds. We will continue to use the KitchenAid “Culinary Ambition” rebate and we will be using an example Bosch Kitchen Package Rebate as well. The Bosch rebate is a different rebate than what we have talked about so far in that is gives you a flat percentage off your purchase price when you purchase 3 or more units. Bosch uses a hierarchy in their product levels (300, 500, 800 and Benchmark) and depending on which model number you get, that will determine the amount of your rebate. If you purchase three pieces from either the 300 or 500 series, you would get 10% back on the price of those three units. If the three units purchased are from the 800 series, your discount amount will go up to 12%. Finally if your purchase includes three from the Benchmark series, your discount goes up one last time to 15%!
If you need to have all of your kitchen items match from the same brand, what we are about to do may not be for you. We are going to borrow some of the items from the KitchenAid example and combine it with the Bosch rebate to maximize both of the rebates to give us the highest dollar return. If we get three pieces from KitchenAid we get the base $200, knowing that we upgrade to their Commercial Range and their built-in fridge we get an extra $800 we will do that and add in the matching KitchenAid hood to make our three pieces. We then get a total rebate on three pieces of $1000 from KitchenAid. But we still need a few more pieces to finish out our kitchen, so from Bosch we would get an 800 Series dishwasher for $999, an 800 Series built-in coffee system for $3,299, and for our third piece, an 800 Series drawer microwave at $1,499. Since all the pieces picked were 800 Series we are getting 12% back on the cost of these three items before tax, bringing out Bosch rebate to $695.64 for a total that is almost $100 more in rebates than if we had just done the products in KitchenAid alone.
This is just an example of most of the standard types of rebates that you will find during your appliance shopping adventure. We are also part of a nation-wide buying group of independent appliance retailers that extends Metropolitan’s customers access to rebates that are exclusive to us as partners of that buying group. All of our current promotions are available on our website at our Promotion Center. You can also check out your local utility providers (Seattle City Light, PSE, etc.) to see what kind of rebates they offer as well. Many times we will have these forms in-store as well, so just ask! Lastly, a great salesperson should be well informed on factory incentives and eager to help you maximize savings with on your appliance purchase. Make sure that they’ve factored rebates into any appliance choice that you’re considering. I have added the major brands and their specific promotion centers below. This is a great thing to check back on if you have a few months leeway in when you are installing your items.
Good luck out there and here’s to saving some extra dollars! Cha-Ching!
