135L Price / Rebate Timing

As discussed in another thread I've done some reviewing and have concluded the 135L is the telephoto lens I want to buy.

I've looked at B&H's site and see it is $924 including an instant rebate that expires on 2/4. The MSRP on the Canon site is $1089. I looked at some of the rebate history and this lens appears to have rebates go against it very seldom.

I'm sorry I don't already know this, but what could I expect the B&H price to be once the rebate expires? If I want the lens do I definitely need to buy it now or risk paying a $100 higher price or will the after rebate price still be in a similar ballpark? I may be remembering incorrectly, but I thought the price was normally around $1000. Is $924 significantly less the normal?

Thanks
Dave

Usually the price will go up after the rebate expires. Sometimes it will not go up as much as the rebate was before hand. I have seen some rebates where they expired and the change in the overall price was not much at all. When I bought my 70-200mm F/2.8L II last year in January, the price expired then they had a price increase immediately after that. I bought mine right before the increase and saved a fair amount. I remember once in a rare instances the rebate started and the price was slightly more with the rebate than it was without, I believe it was the price of a 7D in that instance.

If you want the lens at the price it is now, it would probably be best to buy it while the rebate is on. The 135mm is an older model lens, if I were guessing I would say it will go back up but probably not the full amount of the rebate. But then I would be guessing, the only way to know for sure is if you can get B&H to tell you how they do their pricing structure.

That's an even better price than a refurbished unit. I'd suggest jumping on it if you want the lens.

Photoprice.ca has price history graphs. Here's the 135L. Just scroll down past the retailer listings, and you'll find a mixed CDN/US graph show Canadian rebates, followed by a US graph, showing US rebates. You'll see the price did drop a fair chunk with the rebate. You'll also see this is the only US rebate in over 3 years, so you're probably not going to get another deal like this anytime soon.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm going to sleep on it tonight.

Dave

Have you thought about buying used? B&H has outstanding used inventory. Anything rated 8+ or higher is usually hard to tell from new aside from the box.

I decided to place the order tonight. It's supposed to be here Thursday!

Dave

I finally received the lens after significant grief with B&H and their shipping policy.

Perhaps I should have known better before placing the order, but I was surprised to find out how difficult it was to receive my package. I work and my wife works so no one is home. I do not feel comfortable having personal items shipped to my place of employment. There is no option with B&H to have the package shipped to a Fedex store location for me to sign when I pick it up (contrastingly, I use this option with Lensrsentals exclusively without issue).

The only answer I appeared to have, short of wasting vacation, was to head to the local Fedex office to pick up the package. That part of the deal was absolutely not understood when I made the purchase. The process was stressful and quite frankly my zeal for receiving the new lens has been greatly dampened.

Now that I completely understand their shipping policy, I do not think I would consider buying any significant items from B&H again. I'm sure many of you are great fans of theirs. Please note that the intent of this post is not to flame them or tell anyone where to shop, but I would like to encourage people to fully understand shipping policies prior to ordering.

Dave

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dave Throgmartin

I finally received the lens after significant grief with B&H and their shipping policy.

Perhaps I should have known better before placing the order, but I was surprised to find out how difficult it was to receive my package. I work and my wife works so no one is home. I do not feel comfortable having personal items shipped to my place of employment. There is no option with B&H to have the package shipped to a Fedex store location for me to sign when I pick it up (contrastingly, I use this option with Lensrsentals exclusively without issue).

The only answer I appeared to have, short of wasting vacation, was to head to the local Fedex office to pick up the package. That part of the deal was absolutely not understood when I made the purchase. The process was stressful and quite frankly my zeal for receiving the new lens has been greatly dampened.

Now that I completely understand their shipping policy, I do not think I would consider buying any significant items from B&H again. I'm sure many of you are great fans of theirs. Please note that the intent of this post is not to flame them or tell anyone where to shop, but I would like to encourage people to fully understand shipping policies prior to ordering.

Dave

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Dave, I have the same problem with no one home so I rented a box at the UPS store which elevates that problem entirely. But, another option is to go into the FedEx site once you have a tracking number and have it routed to a different address. That used to be an option, don't know if it still is. Truly though, with as much on line fraud that exists and reshipper schemes being very common, you'll find this isn't a policy that is unique to B&H.

Dave, I am not sure what policies you are refering. Any time I have ever bought anything on line I always knew that if it were coming UPS or Fed X and had substantial value I would want it signed for. Really the receiving part is on our (the buyer) end and not the shippers. All of my purchases I had shipped to my work address because I knew there would be someone to receive it. But when you buy from B&H you designate the ship address, if you had a friend, relative or a drop box service you could ship to they would deliver there. Really I would never want a $1000 lens dropped at my door and left by UPS or Fed X, I would think for security reasons most people wouldn't. I would think a simple call to the local fed x office they could have told you how to address the package and ship directly to them and could have entered that info in the "Ship To" address information that you have to fill out. I personally have used mailbox type shops and the UPS office to do this kind of thing.

The problem I had with the policy is that the ability to "hold" a shipment at Fedex store of my choosing was not available. I also don't think I could change the address once it shipped. My only 2 options at the end were to either: a) be home or b) head to the Fedex local office.

The local office is a big difference from Fedex stores. I think there are 4-5 stores in my local area, but only one office. I rented a few lenses the past year and lensrentals.com was very accommodating in shipping to the Fedex store of my choosing. I certainly understand they require a signature.

It appears the smarter approach would have been to ship it to family that I know would be home.

Either way it is over and I don't want to write anymore about shipping problems :) Thanks to everyone for their help!

B&H Policy "A signature may be required upon delivery (depending on your location and at the discretion of the FedEx delivery driver). Packages cannot be rerouted or picked up from FedEx."

It is curious they do not offer those options. Perhaps they have been burned in the past doing this.

My experience with FedEx = Completely Inflexible. When I order through B&H they 100% use UPS. Maybe it's a regional thing? Also, it seems that the UPS cutoff for required signatures is $1,000 (when dealing with B&H).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mark Elberson

My experience with FedEx = Completely Inflexible. When I order through B&H they 100% use UPS. Maybe it's a regional thing? Also, it seems that the UPS cutoff for required signatures is $1,000 (when dealing with B&H).

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Probably not a regional thing. It is the same here very inflexible and it is a pain if you miss a package. Primarily I use FedEx for documents and they are good at that (10:00 delivery signature required type stuff), and I use UPS for packages. I don't know if it is the same now but years ago you could sign a waiver with fedex and they would leave packages without signature.

Borrowlenses.com uses Fedex and that alone may force me to look elsewhere to rent lenses. I like borrowlenses.com, but I hate the local Fedex facility. It's a Fedex/Kinko's store with only one shipping desk and it's in the middle of the university, so it's rare to walk in there and not be in a long line of people with unpackaged stuff that they need to ship. The last time I was in there I only needed to drop the package and get a receipt. It was all packed and properly labelled. Still, it took 20 minutes just to do that. The local UPS store would have had me on my way in less than a minute.