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In recent weeks, LEGOLAND California has gone through another price structure change. This time, removing discounts from "Sale" and "Hard to Find" items that are carried in their shops. In year's past, annual passholders would expect to find LEGO sets priced at RRP. With a LEGOLAND California Annual Pass, a 10% discount was applied to all orders. During the years of "no discounts on exclusives," this made purchasing exclusives, such as modular buildings, a little more desirable at LEGOLAND. Late last year, LEGOLAND California started raising prices on certain items, to "balance" the Annual Pass discount. Items such as the Disney Castle, which has an RRP of $349.99, has been priced at $384.99 at LEGOLAND California. With the increase in price, the discount works out to less than a $5 savings with an Annual Pass. This price increase is not limited to just "Hard to Find" items, though. Even items like polybags, minifigures, and Brickheadz have seen a $1 increase over RRP. With this new policy, comes the pledge to reduce pricing back to RRP. "You should notice we've reduced prices on the Hard to Find items," said one employee this past weekend. (Although, the Disney Castle is still listed in store at the higher price). In my own analysis, LEGOLAND California was most likely losing sales on the Hard to Find items to the non-Annual Passholders. Without a discount, there's not much need to buy a $385 Castle when you can order it from Shop At Home while you're standing there, and have it waiting for you when you come home from vacation. Keep in mind that state tax rates at LEGOLAND California are 7.75%. Whether this policy remains in effect during the usual Christmas season passholder double discount sale (20% instead of the usual 10%) remains to be seen. No word yet on whether this will affect any other promotions that periodically go out to Passholders as well. For the time being, though, one of the extra special "perks" that were granted to Annual Passholders has been taken away. Investors that were using that perk as a means to leverage a little extra out of their Annual Pass will have to rethink that purchase when it comes to renew their passes. At this point in time, LEGOLAND Florida does not mirror this policy, although they do have a policy of restricting purchases as they see fit.

As with most Lego promotions, you must spend a required amount of money to get the 'free' item. Many folks also use promotion stacking on http://shop.lego.com which is the process of spending just enough money to earn multiple promotional items. After waiting too long to order products at shop.lego.com to obtain the popular 40252 Mini VW Beetle promotion (sold-out online), I visited my local Lego mall store. This store had current promotional sets available including 40252 and the 40265 LEGO Friends Tic Tac Toe set. The purchase requirements were to spend $50+ for the VW Beetle set and $20+ in Friends items for the Tic Tac Toe polybag. Both are popular items and make nice child Easter gifts (especially for my 2 children). While paying, I was told my $62 ($21 of that for Friends items) worth of Lego products wasn't enough to cover both promotional items. The cashier told me their store were given strict rules to enforce around promotional items and I needed to pick one. I ended up going home with the 40252 Mini VW Beetle set. After arriving home, I double-checked if Lego's web site still allowed promotion stacking. It did after added one $59.99 Friends set in my cart. Both Tic Tac Toe and City Helicopter (replacement for the sold-out VW) promotional items were in my cart. I then read a 40252 Mini VW Beetle review where MeganL from brickset mentioned she was able to get both promotions by "doubling up" at a Lego store. http://brickset.com/article/27432 To further determine whether my experience was a mistake or an unannounced in-store change, I contacted Lego customer phone support today. The nice representative informed me that other customers have called with the same question after being denied at their store. At least one store manager told this same representative she was given rules to deny promotions stacking. Her customers could only receive both promotions if they spent $20+ on Friends items plus another $50+ on more Friends or another theme. Please let us know how your local Lego store is currently handling promotion stacking and if it's different than past months. Disclaimer: Not all U.S stores may follow the new rule regarding promotion stacking. Lego's online website, https://shop.lego.com/ automatically stack promotions in the shopping cart before order check-out. Additionally, some stores haven't allowed promotion stacking since their grand opening.