Thursday, June 21, 2012

#1159: The Artist

10:57 PM / Blu-ray / Comments15 Comments

BD

(BD, Sony Pictures, Region A (mislabelled ABC), USA)

This will be the last BD I ever receive from PlanetAxel, which went bankrupt on Monday. I'm truly sorry to see them go. They were my number one source for US BDs and DVDs for the last couple of years and offered truly excellent customer service. RIP PlanetAxel. You will be sorely missed. :(

 
15 Comments

1. FoxyMulder said:

I'm sorry too, i had points saved up and was going to get a free Blu ray soon but i guess that won't happen now.

Movietyme is kinda expensive now so options for importing are more limited than ever, maybe i'll just use Amazon now.

(Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 7:42 PM)

2. Author Profile Page Michael said:

The problem with Amazon is getting stung by the £15 customs limit. Unfortunately there really aren't that many alternatives left these days for stores that pre-pay the customs charge a la PlanetAxel. MovieTyme and DVDWorldUSA do, but they're both quite expensive and don't offer anything like the rewards scheme Axel used to have.

To be honest I don't object to paying the customs charge and if that was all I got hit with I'd just order from Amazon and be done with it. What I really baulk at is paying the ridiculous £8 Royal Mail "handling fee".

(Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 at 8:27 PM)

3. FoxyMulder said:

I forgot that our "fantastic" government had lowered the customs limit, roll on 2015, although i may be living in a cardboard box under some bridge by then.

Yeah Royal Mail charges, i remember getting stung for around £17 when i bought the Japanese full DTS and fully edge enhanced version of Cutthroat Island off CDJapan many years ago, i contested the additional charges through American Express and got my money refunded, nowadays i doubt they would be so nice about it.

(Posted on Monday, June 25, 2012 at 10:16 PM)

4. FoxyMulder said:

Just reading the customs import tax rules....If it's a gift you can get away with up to £40 and Amazon does allow you to choose gift options.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 9:48 AM)

5. Author Profile Page Michael said:

^^ Ah, that's good to hear. I'd forgotten about the gift allowance. I'll need to try it some time with an Amazon order and see if it gets through unscathed.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 10:24 AM)

6. John said:

If you select expedited shipping on Amazon it includes import duties in the shipping costs.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 4:02 PM)

7. Author Profile Page Michael said:

^^ It's also prohibitively expensive, though. For instance, at the current exchange rate, the standard edition of PROMETHEUS would cost nearly £30 (vs. just under £23 including postage at DVDWorldUSA).

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 4:10 PM)

8. Randy said:

This site ain't that bad: http://www.wowhd.co.uk

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 5:23 PM)

9. FoxyMulder said:

I wonder if this site is worth a shot.

http://www.hdmoviesource.com/

Seems to be two prices, one is a members price, probably get caught with fee's again but might be worth it for the cheaper sale items.

If you find a good retailer that pays the custom fees and associated duties upfront please let me know.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 6:46 PM)

10. FoxyMulder said:

Disregard last post, just read their shipping charges, way too high and it will ensure any order goes over the £15 limit.

(Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 6:48 PM)

11. bosque said:

With axel you knew you wouldn't get clobbered with the infamous handling fee. The other options seem to be hit or miss. I ordered the new Blu-Ray of The Big Heat (a "limited" release from the US company Twilight Time) through amazon and it arrived inside a week with no customs fees; if I tried it again I might not be so lucky.

(Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 10:49 AM)

12. FoxyMulder said:

Hey Bosque, did you order via Amazon, i ask because Twilight do sell via Amazon under screen archives and i would love to know if ticking the gift box option works with regards custom's fees.

(Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 1:35 PM)

13. bosque said:

FoxyMulder: I did order via Amazon but didn't tick the gift box option, just ordered normally.

(Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 7:53 AM)

14. David S.H. said:

I had only started using PlanetAxel recently with the free shipping there were some great deals to be had. Typically them going bust coincided with my picking up an ABC player, so for a lot of releases (Criterion, Disney etc) guess I'll have to try and order when they go under £15, approx $23.25 at current exchange rate.

I see "Entertainment in Video" handled the UK release of The Artist, do you think they merely distributed it for Sony, or produced their own encode?

(Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 5:37 PM)

15. FoxyMulder said:

Unfortunately David they also count postage when deciding whether to add charges, this makes it difficult with such a low limit.

(Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 9:46 PM)

 
To combat spam, commenting is automatically disabled on entries older than 30 days.

Did a comment you tried to post accidentally get eaten by the spam filter? It happens from time to time. I get upwards of 200 spam comments every day and unfortunately don't have the time to weed through all of them in case something genuine ended up there by mistake. If one of your posts gets incorrectly flagged as spam, email me at m.r.mackenzie[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll do my best to retrieve it.

 
Navigation