Best Buy’s $200 Amazon Prime rival offers tech support and free installs

Best Buy has started piloting a $200 membership program meat to rival Amazon Prime and Walmart’s own take on a subscription service. It’s called Best Buy Beta, and while it’s a lot more expensive than a year of Prime ($119), it offers perks that focus on providing services to customers who have a bunch of electronics in their homes. Members will enjoy unlimited Geek Squad tech support on all technology they own, whether it was purchased from Best Buy or not. They’re also getting free installation on most products and two-year warranty protection on most of their purchases, including AppleCare on Apple products.

Its other perks are free shipping with no minimums, a 60-day extended return window, exclusive member sale pricing, 10 percent off subscription services billed through Best Buy and dedicated concierge support. The membership program, however, doesn’t include subscription to a streaming video platform like Prime Video. At the moment, the program is available at select stores in Iowa, Oklahoma and eastern Pennsylvania. It will expand to more locations across Minnesota, North Carolina and Tennessee in the coming weeks until it becomes available in 60 stores by the end of April.

A spokesperson told Bloomberg that Best Buy Beta will replace Total Tech Support, the company’s current $200 membership program that also offers unlimited tech support and discounted Geek Squad protection, in the pilot markets. It may end up replacing Total Tech Support across the US in the future, but that may depend on how well-received it is by the retail giant’s customers.