Amazon Prime Day is coming up in mid-July, and Newegg, Micro Center, B&H Photo, and others will be holding rival sales to rival Amazon.

And Best Buy... In fact, they just started today. And the good news is that you can pretty much ignore it. I looked around for a while at the "Member Deals Days" promotions and didn't see much for PC gamers looking for bargains.

Almost every time I found something that looked a bit promising, with attractive additional discounts for My Best Buy Plus members, I could find something better or cheaper elsewhere. FYI, My Best Buy is the company's membership program, which is free to join and offers free shipping. However, if you pay $50 per year to upgrade to a My Best Buy Plus membership, you get exclusive member-only discounts.

So far, however, we have yet to see any deals that would make us feel that it is worth spending $50 for the offset discounts that we may see in this week's sale.

Admittedly, the Amazon Prime Day event is based on a similar members-only deal concept, but it's not really equivalent, since they give out free 30-day memberships like they give out balloons on a child's birthday.

The Best Buy Total membership costs $180 and includes cheaper repairs, 24/7 technical support, and a protection plan, but you'd have to be a total @$%* to spend that much on a retailer membership card.

But in Best Buy's defense, if you're already a Plus member, you can find a decent deal on a cheap Logitech mouse for your sins. But even then, you're not going to be frantically searching around for a credit card to register.

So here are some reasons not to bother with Member Deals Days.

If you buy a 2023 Razer Blade 14 at Best Buy, you'll save a whopping $237 more off the already discounted list price. This makes for a total discount of $500 off one of the best compact gaming laptops of the last generation. This brings the final price for Plus members to just $1,899.99.

Coincidentally, this is the exact same price you can buy the 2023 Razer Blade 14 on Amazon and Razer, but Best Buy is offering the RTX 4060 version to members at this price, while Amazon and Razer are offering the $50 RTX 4070 for the same price without membership purchase.

The 49-inch Super Mega Ultra Wide OLED has absolutely tanked in price since its launch. And it wasn't that long ago that they were released. We first saw such a beast in Samsung's Odyssey G9 and again in Asus' ROG Swift OLED PG49WCD. So when Best Buy offers the same MSI MPG 491CQP for $1,000, but with a $50 discount for members, it is $50 more than the Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ, which even Best Buy sells for $900 without membership.

The situation is similar for graphics cards in the Member Deals Days sale. Members are getting offers from all over the interwebs that are weaker than what a normal person can get: the Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Super Aero OC for $880, which is an additional $50 off for Plus members.

Well, it makes sense for existing Plus members, especially if they are looking for a white beauty, although they may have to pay an extra $30 over the price of the triple-fan, well-cooled Zotac RTX 4070 Ti Super. But it's not likely to cause the rest of us to rush out and buy a membership card.

"But it's overclocked, right? They might cry.

"Nobody cares. The response would be. Not a single person will notice a performance boost with a slight, totally nominal 45 MHz clock speed increase. Save your money and buy a Zotac instead, even if you are a Plus member.

Best Buy is offering the Microsoft Elite Series 2 controller for $179.99. This is $150, the lowest price for an Elite pad, but only if you are a Plus member. However, Newegg offers it for less than Best Buy's standard price if you are not a member.

However, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, there are a few products that make me at least not unhappy, if not satisfied, with having paid $50 for a Best Buy Plus membership. That said, honestly, these are already good deals even before you become a member, and Plus will save you only a fraction of the cost.