All 3 of us wear glasses. We keep the costs down by almost always going to For Eyes. They have a good selection, good service and reasonable prices. I usually get mine with their 2 pair for $99 offer, getting my regular glasses and my sunglasses. DW and DD also got their current glasses there.
DW has needed a new pair for quite a while now as hers got dropped and the lens chipped right in the center some time ago. We went to For Eyes and she couldn't find a frame that fit that she liked. She has to wear kids frames and it is sometimes hard to find a pair that looks okay on a 44-year-old woman. The bright blue ones with Spongebob on them just don't cut it. Also, many of them are too narrow for a bifocal lens.
We also looked at America's Best, another discount chain in the area, and didn't find anything there, either. So she put off getting new glasses. We didn't want to have to resort to the outrageous prices at LensCrafters or somewhere similar.
Well, yesterday, we broke down and went to Pearle. They advertise that AAA members get a 30% discount. I realize that the only reason they can give such a big discount is because their mark-up is sky high to begin with, but she was tired of looking through chipped glasses. She actually found a good frame quickly. It was priced at $120, 20% more than we pay for 2 complete pairs at For Eyes, but such is life. With lenses, the total was going to come to over $400. Fortunately, the frames happened to be on sale when the tech pulled it up in the computer, so they were "only" $80. That and the 30% discount for AAA brought the total down to just under $300. Still an obscene amount of money for a pair of glasses, but since the discount places didn't work out this time, we were kind of stuck. Yes, I know you can order glasses online, but there is no way that would work for her since she is so hard to fit and measure.
New glasses for DW $$
August 25th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
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Of course I dont think all employers offer vision insurance (my company just started).