business cards free? $14.99? $3.99?

The folks at VistaPrint have an interesting setup. You can get 250 business cards just for their shipping/handling charge, which I think is $5.72 for 21-day delivery.

If you want the cards to look different from their standard "free" designs, though, you might pay a little more -- or no more, depending on the date on the calendar, the phase of the moon, and maybe (maybe) what other sites you visited. Here's how it went for me.

Some time ago, the lovely Carol said she'd love to be able to hand a card to people with the URL of this blog (and also my comments on Tyndale's One Tear Bible). Remembering that vistaprint.com had free cards, I took a look and then got analysis-paralysis while trying to pick the perfect wording.

Well, several months later, she mentioned it again, and this time, as luck would have it, vistaprint.com were having a sale -- all designs free! Well, with some help from my teenagers I found the perfect design and was getting ready to place the order, when something happened.

A week after that, no more sale, and that design was now going to cost $15 (OK, $14.99, but that's $15). This still represents a savings of $5.00 off their regular (??!?) price of $20 ($19.99), which I don't think anyone ever pays.

I was unhappy about that so I clicked around and found this offer from "freebusinesscardprinter.com" that quoted $3.99 for 250 cards -- hundreds (thousands?) of designs! That led me back to -- you guessed it -- vistaprint.com. But now my 250 "premium" business cards were only going to set me back $4 instead of $15. Curiouser and curiouser.

I'm not really sure if it's because I'm ordering today, or because I clicked on that other link, but it's $4 for those cards. I selected the cheapest possible shipping, so I expect to see these cards some time next month.

But it wasn't over yet! There was quite the gauntlet of other stuff they wanted to sell me (special offers they wanted to offer me): refrigerator magnets, return address stamps/labels, rental of a postal scale, etc. etc. etc.

Finally I got through all that (Just Say No) and I think the order is finally in.

Oh! But now they're presenting me with a Reward! And another Special Offer!

Just Say No... and I hope the cards will be on their way soon....