The advantage of taking extended warranties

We are usually being very careful when it comes to getting extended warranties on certain items.   You have to determine if it will be worth it or not for your family.   We usually would not take it on a television for example but we have found that taking an extended warranty for a microwave can be very useful.

Let me tell you our story…

A few years ago, we had a microwave that bit the dust.   So we went out to purchase a new one.  We were fortunate to find one on sale for the need of our family.  It was a Panasonic 2.2 cu. ft.  and yes we took the 3 year extended warranty on it.   We purchased that one at Future Shop.   Fast forward a certain number of months and the microwave stopped working.   So we brought it back to the store, and because it was still within the year of the manufacturer warranty, they replaced the microwave and reimbursed the extended warranty we had originally purchased.   We ended up paying 5.65$ for the new microwave which was the difference in the extended warranty as the price has gone up by 5$ since then.

This was two years ago.

What I didn’t know is that the microwave was starting to act up on us…. sometimes it would take a few times to make it start.  Never happened to me except yesterday when my son told me it wasn’t working anymore.   We would close the door, put 22 seconds on it, the countdown would start but the microwave would not work… mmmmm!

Problem was there is no Future Shop anymore.  Our extended warranty was with Future Shop.  Best Buy who owned the Future Shop had decided to close all the Future Shop stores.  Will the warranty be recognize and dealt with?  So I searched the website of BestBuy to see that it will indeed be recognized.   I called customer service and it was dealt with rapidly with opening a ticket for the issue.  The lady told me that a technician at the store would check to see if the microwave could be repaired first.  No problem…  but she thought that because the issue was that it wasn’t working at all that more than likely they would replace it.

So before bringing the kids to their Thursday activity, we stopped to the Best Buy closest to home to drop off the microwave.   Immediately they said they would repair – no point in checking it out.  Cool.   Problem is…. they debated what to do because we had a white one and they did not have any white ones in stock.   One was on sale though but it was stainless steel.

Turns out this is the one they are giving us.   We only have to pay for the extended warranty again – which we took and since our issues always happens within a year – four years we decided to take another three years over the manufacture warranty.  Even though their computers were saying that there was one in stock, it wasn’t there.  So they offered ordering one for us and delivering it at home.   So we will have our new microwave and we paid peanuts for it.

Sometimes it is worth it to take extended warranties.   And to be honest it paid off for us because in the past few years we always got a new microwave when the previous one stopped working.

I am thankful for this quick resolution of our issues and for the fact that BestBuy has recognized the extended warranty of Future Shop.   The people at Best Buy were very helpful and nice to deal with. 

Oh and the reason I was able to find the invoice so quickly is because I have taken the habit of taping it inside the user manual in case of possible issues.  This way I can find rapidly the invoice without panicking and getting frustrated.   I am doing this with any appliances I am purchasing.  And all my user manuals are together in a strategic place in the house.  Easy to find rapidly when the need arise.