Buying decision

Where and When to Buy a TV

Last verified September 1, 2026 · How we are paid

The short answer

A TV is the rare thing where waiting really does pay. November is the low of the year. Right now LG's OLED sale ends 9/13/26 and Samsung has posted no deadline at all. Buy this week only if you need a TV this week.

Where to buy

Costco, if there is one near you. Ninety days to return a TV and a free second year of warranty are worth more than a few points off something you keep for a decade. For the deepest cut today, LG direct. ^{1
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When to buy

November, if you can wait. Black Friday is the year's low and the Super Bowl run-up is second. If you cannot wait, LG's OLED deal ends 9/13/26 and TCL is clearing summer stock at up to 60% off. ^{1
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Codes

None. We checked Costco, LG, Samsung, TCL and Electronic Express and found no TV code at any of them. The money is already off the sticker. Samsung's extra 10% on Micro RGB is marked expired on its own page. ^{1
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Cards

The Costco Anywhere Visa returns 2% on Costco purchases, no annual fee, membership required. Read Samsung's financing before you take it: Affirm is advertised at 0-36% APR, so 0% is the best case, not the offer. ^{2
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Where to buy it

Retailer	Cashback	Code	Good for	Watch out
Costco ^{4 5}	—	—	Best terms of anyone here, and they cost nothing. Costco accepts TV returns within 90 days, and extends the maker's warranty to two years free. On a $1,500 set that second year is worth more than most Labor Day discounts.	Membership required, and selection is narrow: you buy what is in the warehouse that week, not the model you researched. We could not read Costco's own TV listings or prices, because costco.com blocks us. The two policies above come from its help centre, which does not.
LG ¹	—	—	The deepest verified cut this week and the only one with a printed deadline. Up to 30% off a bestselling OLED, which LG says is lower than its own Fourth of July pricing, plus free installation and a free wall mount or stand on select sets. Up to $1000 off big-screen models.	Valid through 9/13/26, so this is the shortest fuse on the page. The 30% is a ceiling on bestsellers, not the catalogue, and the free mount covers select TVs only. LG runs a separate appliance promotion on the same page: that one is not a TV offer.
Samsung ²	—	—	Labor Day Savings, per model: up to $1,000 on the Micro RGB R95H, $700 on the OLED S95H, $600 on the Neo QLED QN80H, $400 on The Frame Pro, $200 on the Mini LED M80H. Trade in an old set for credit toward the new one.	No end date is posted anywhere on the offers page, so nothing tells you how long this lasts. The page also still shows game-day promotions, including an extra 10% off Micro RGB, with an Expired badge on them. Read the badge before the number.
TCL ³	—	—	The biggest headline percentage of anyone: an End of Summer Sale at up to 60% off. If your budget is the constraint rather than the panel, start here rather than with the premium brands.	No end date and no code. The words Labor Day appear nowhere on the page, so this is summer stock clearing rather than a holiday event, and there is nothing to tell you when it stops. Sixty percent is a ceiling across the range, not a discount you can count on.
Electronic Express ⁷	—	—	A regional chain worth a quote if the big names are out of stock. It advertises that it guarantees the lowest prices, and free shipping delivered in two days or less.	Its Labor Day banner names no discount and no end date, so there is nothing here to compare. We hold this chain twice, on two networks. One stopped attributing orders on August 19, 2026. The other still works, but it has no store page here. Either way you would earn nothing coming through us, which is why it is not linked.

When to buy it

Right now, through Labor Day on September 7, 2026: One real deadline and two open ends. LG's OLED deal is valid through 9/13/26. Samsung posts Labor Day Savings with no end date. TCL is running an End of Summer Sale, also undated, and does not call it Labor Day at all. ^{1
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Black Friday to Cyber Monday, November 27-30, 2026: The low of the year. Consumer Reports pricing data, cited by BGR, shows November delivering the largest TV discounts of any month. Thanksgiving falls on November 26, so Black Friday is the 27th. ^{8
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One to two weeks before Black Friday: Retailers open their November pricing early. If you want November money without the November stock problem, this is the window rather than the Friday itself. ⁸
The two weeks before the Super Bowl, early February: Second best of the year. Retailers pair clearance on the outgoing models with big-screen marketing, and flagship sets reach some of their lowest prices of the cycle. ⁸
March through May, after the new models ship: Makers show next year's sets at CES in January and ship them in spring. Retailers then cut last year's models to clear the floor. Those sets are still excellent and considerably cheaper, which is the single most reliable saving on this page. ⁸

The long answer

Waiting pays more on a TV than on almost anything else you buy

Most categories reward patience by a few percent. Televisions reward it by a model year. Consumer Reports pricing trends, as reported by BGR in January 2026, put November at the largest discounts of the year, with a second drop around the Super Bowl. Underneath both sits the model cycle: new sets are announced at CES in January and reach shops in spring, and the outgoing model gets cut to make room. That set is the same panel it was in December. If your current TV still works, the question is not which sale to buy in, it is whether you can hold until November. ⁸

The free second year is the largest number on this page

Costco extends the manufacturer's warranty to two years, free, on televisions, projectors, computers and major appliances, and it accepts returns on televisions within 90 days. Neither is a discount, so neither shows up when you compare prices, and both are worth real money on a purchase you keep for eight or ten years. Weigh that against a Labor Day percentage before you decide the percentage wins. The catch is selection: a warehouse carries what it carries. ^{4
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Read the badge before you read the discount

Samsung's TV offers page carries live Labor Day savings and dead game-day promotions in the same scroll. The extra 10% off Micro RGB, and a $700 OLED card, and a $200 Mini LED card, all sit under an Expired badge, while the Labor Day Savings block below lists current numbers without one. A summary of that page, human or machine, will happily report the expired offer as available. This is not Samsung being sneaky. It is what happens when a promotions page is a carousel rather than a document, and it is why every number on this entry was checked against the page bytes rather than against a description of them. ²

Only one seller on this page will tell you when the sale ends

LG prints 9/13/26. Samsung prints nothing. TCL prints nothing. Costco is not running a dated TV event at all. That asymmetry matters more than it looks: an undated sale cannot create urgency honestly, and it also cannot be relied on to still be there next weekend. Treat LG's date as the only hard constraint here, and treat the other two as prices that happen to be true today. ^{1
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Zero percent is the top of a range, not the offer

Samsung advertises financing through Affirm at 0-36% APR. That is not a typo and it is not unusual: the headline rate is what the best-qualified applicant sees, and the spread above it is where most people land. Separately, watch for anything worded as no interest if paid in full, which is deferred interest rather than a rate. The CFPB is blunt about how that ends: "you would owe all of the interest back to the original date of the charge." On a $2,000 television, financing chosen carelessly costs more than every discount on this page combined. ^{2
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Questions people ask

When is the best time to buy a TV?

November. Consumer Reports pricing data, reported by BGR, puts the largest discounts of the year in that month, and Black Friday 2026 falls on November 27. The two weeks before the Super Bowl come second. ^{8
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When do TVs go on sale?

Four times a year that matter: November, the Super Bowl run-up in early February, spring clearance from March to May as new models ship, and holiday weekends like this one. The spring window is the quiet one and it is often the best value. ⁸

Where is the best place to buy a TV?

Costco for the terms, if the model you want is in the warehouse: 90-day returns and a free second year of warranty. LG direct for the deepest cut this week. TCL if the budget is what is binding. ^{1
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Is there a promo code for a TV?

We found none. Not at Costco, LG, Samsung, TCL or Electronic Express. TV discounts are applied to the price rather than typed at checkout, so a site offering you a code is selling you a click. ^{1
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Should I buy last year's model?

Usually yes. New sets are shown at CES in January and ship in spring, and retailers cut the outgoing model to clear space. It is the same panel at a considerably lower price, which is why March to May is a real window. ⁸

Does Costco really extend the warranty?

Yes, in writing, and televisions are named. Costco extends the manufacturer's warranty up to two years from purchase, or from delivery if you bought online, on televisions, projectors, computers and major appliances. ⁵

Sources

How we are paid

We make nothing on this page. Not a cent, from any of the five sellers listed, and there is no cashback offer anywhere on it. With Costco, LG, Samsung and TCL we have no commercial relationship at all. Two need a straighter answer than that. Sony is a programme we joined on the network that stopped attributing orders on August 19, 2026. Electronic Express we hold twice: once on that same network, and once on a network that still works. The working one has no store page here, so either way there is nothing to send you through. Sony is also absent from the table for a second reason: its own US electronics site blocks us, so we could not verify a single fact about its TVs and would rather list nothing than list something we had not read. The order of this table is what you keep rather than what is advertised, which is why Costco leads on a week when it has no TV sale running: ninety days of returns and a free second year outlast a Labor Day percentage.

What we don't cover

Best Buy. Every attempt to read it failed, by two different clients. For the question "best place to buy a TV" that is the single biggest hole in this page, and it is a gap in our access rather than a judgement about the retailer.
Amazon, Walmart, Crutchfield, Abt and B&H. All five blocked us too. Walmart served a bot check rather than a page.
Sony. Its US electronics site returned 403, so nothing about its TVs is on this page.
Open-box and refurbished grading. Best Buy runs the largest open-box programme in the category and we could not read a word of it, so we say nothing about what the grades mean or what they save.
Actual prices. Every figure here is a discount claim from a seller, not a price we watched over time. We do not track TV prices and cannot tell you whether today is genuinely low for a specific model.
What other cashback sites pay on TVs. We do not track their rates and cannot tell you whether one beats zero, which is what we are offering here.
Card rewards beyond the Costco Anywhere Visa. We have no card database, so retailer store cards and their financing offers are outside what we can check.
Delivery, wall mounting and haul-away costs. LG bundles installation into some offers; nobody else on this page states a price, and it can run into the hundreds.
Whether these windows repeat. Our timing sources describe the industry cycle and last year's data. That is evidence, not a promise about 2027.
Picture quality. We do not test televisions. Every line here is about price, timing and terms.