Cheapest Place To Buy A PT Surge

Hi all. I'm just writing this to save many of you the trouble of having to track down the cheapest place to buy a Princeton Tec Surge. I'm thinking about giving them out for Christmas presents and of course you want to find the cheapest price on something if you are going to buy more than one of them, so I've searched the net for a couple of hours now and I think I've found the cheapest possible place to get one, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I was going to buy from Texas Tactical Supply as I normally do, but then I noticed that they stopped selling Surge bulbs and they only have the Surge in one color now (Blue). I wonder if they are just sold out for Christmas or are they phasing out the Surge line. Does anyone happen to know?

The price at Texas Tactical was $22.99 plus shipping and if I recall correctly, their shipping is like $6-8 (please correct me if I'm wrong). I might have still ordered from them if they had spare bulbs, but they didn't. Anyway, after a long time of searching Google.com I found a place that sells the Surge for $25.25 with only $1.00 for UPS shipping! That's only $2.25 more than TTS and the shipping is nearly free for an order over $25.00. Here is the URL: http://www.shopalert.us Just click on flashlights. Another nice bonus is that they have all the colors, whereas TTS is sold down to nothing but blue right now. If anyone knows of a better deal than this on a PT Surge then please post it so that we all can benefit.

Also, while on this subject, does anyone happen to know of the cheapest/best place to get replacement bulbs for a Surge? Preferably with shipping charges that are next to nothing seeing as how a replacement bulb only weighs 4oz.

See http://www.candlepowerforums.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=003210

I don't recommend the Surge as a present unless you've installed batteries before and find it to be a non-issue. I'll probably throw my Surge away rather than attempt it again.

Buy your spare battries at the same time as the Surge....tht way you don't have to pay shipping for the bulb!

X-Cal,
When William doesn't have something in stock, he takes it off his site. Keeps him from getting too many back orders. Why don't you drop him an email & tell him what you're looking for & see when he'll be getting it. Could be getting shipment any time. TX

When I buy a car (or a house, etc.), I always go with the best price, because saving even one percent can mean hundreds or thousands of dollars. But for a $20+ flashlight, why not just go with TTS? Many times that buck or two you save will come back to haunt you using the other vendor you find through those broker-style net search engines. Unfortunately I speak from personal experience.

txwest: Thanks for the info. I was afraid that TTS was going to stop carrying the Surge since the pic was missing, they only had one color and they don't carry the spare bulbs for it anymore.

MR Bulk: I couldn't agree more with what you said. Many times I pay a few dollars more for a product just to buy it through a known reputable dealer, but TTS only had the blue Surges in and they stopped handling the Surge bulbs to, though I'm not sure if that is temporary or not. Of course if there is a substantial amount of $$ involved (like when buying in quantity), it pays to shop around. Plus it is always nice to have an alternative place to buy from in case one place is out of stock when you get ready to order. Then there is the sad fact that I'm just a poor college student so sometimes I have to penny pinch just to make ends meet so it often pays for me to shop around in order to fully utilize my very limited budget.

Yeah, I agree with MR Bulk. For the sake of a few dollars (the cost of say abstaining from 1 coffee or beer!) is rarely worth the "what if...?" situations with less than reputable vendors.

Botach has them for $20.99 last time I looked.

Hmm... I just checked TTS again and the Surge isn't even listed there anymore. Not even the blue one that they did have earlier today. I guess they must be completely sold out of Surges.

I just found another reasonalby priced place to get a Surge and they also have the bulbs priced at $4.13. That is about the same price that TTS was selling them for. They are selling the Surge itself for $23.81. I don't know how much their shipping is though. They have all Surge colors, even a "granite" colored one. Up till now, I did not even know that the Surge even came in a granite color. It's a shame that they don't have a pic up for the granite one. Here is the URL if you guys want to check it out: http://lowprice4u.com/grouplist.asp?SID=1284

Just make sure that they actually have the colors you want in stock before you order.

Sean: Good point.

Well, I placed an order with www.shopalert.us and I will let you guys know the results. That one dollar shipping was very hard to resist. I only ordered the one Surge to begin with though just to make sure they were on the up and up. If this does turn out to be a reputable dealer, then this will be the cheapest place that I've seen anywhere to order a single surge, when you take into account the shipping charges of course.

Most places will charge you a minimum of $6-10 just to ship an order of any size (or cost) via UPS ground so that has to be factored into the price as well. Some deals that look great at first don't seem to look so great after you get ripped on shipping and "handling" charges. If you ask me, "handling" charges are one of the biggest rip-offs ever. I mean, I always thought that the cost of "handling" a product was made back when they mark the price up by 20-200% (or even much more in some cases that I've heard of) from what they paid for it initially at wholesale prices.

A great example of this principle is the other day when I was preparing to order a few DVDs at an unbelievably great price only to find out that they wanted to charge me like $30.00+ just to ship them! That experience made me all the more wary about always taking into account the subtle scam of "handling" charges. Now, more so than ever before, I try to find out up front what shipping is going to be for an order before placing it. I've also noticed that with the more reputable and honest businesses out there that they don't even attempt to tack on any "handling" charges what so ever. They only charge the true cost of shipping and insuring an order. Anyway, I hope by sharing this recent bad experience of mine, that it will help you guys to be much more alert and cautious concerning the scam of jacked up "handling" charges.

I just got a UPS tracking number from www.shopalert.us and the Surge should be in on Monday. So far this seems to be an honest place to buy from and is definitely the cheapest place that I've seen to order a single surge and have it shipped. I will comment again once I actually get the Surge in on Monday.

X-cal, I apologize about the dollar difference comment, did not know you were a student (you write so well, heh heh). And of course when you are buying a bunch of them as gifts, the difference can grow pretty fast.

MR Bulk: No need to apologize. I fully agree with you that under most circumstances it is best to spend a few dollars extra (within reason) in order to go with a reputable dealer and not risk getting ripped-off, but in this particular circumstance, TTS has apparently run out of stock on all Surges and so an alternative had to be found anyway. Another reason that I was more willing than usual to take a chance on this company is that I noticed that they were also selling a great deal of religious material as well and while this does not guarantee that they are an honest operation in and of itself, I would be inclined to believe that someone that was selling religious material with the left hand would be hard pressed to justify risking hellfire by cheating people with the right hand.

Just ordered some surges this week from TTS, even though they weren't on the web site they had a few in stock and also got a new shipment of the bulbs in that were not listed on the web site.

dave

Get ready to be dazzled X-Cal. Those Surge's are bright as heck.

Onyx: I can't wait. The Surge has been on my wish list for so long that I can taste it, er, uh, see it.

Is the bulb Xenon or Halogen? I went to Princeton Tec's and they have Halogen. I talked with Brightguy.com and they said that in their 2003 Catolog the Surge comes with Xenon. Can you Surge owners help me????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Originally posted by James Van Artsdalen:
I don't recommend the Surge as a present ...

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've revised my opinion. Installing the included batteries was hard the first time because it was hard to get the empty battery holder out of the flashlight. It's not a problem now because the battery holder pops right out with the weight of the previous set of batteries.

I think Bright Guy carries the Surge and bulbs too, but he's out of the flashlight.