Blockbuster Hikes "Total Access" Rates, Again

If you're signed up for Blockbuster's mail-order DVD service—the one that lets you exchange movies in your local Blockbuster store—steel yourself for another hefty rate increase, just in time for the holidays. Talk about coal in your stocking.

Hacking Netflix (via Gizmodo) reports that rates for Blockbuster's three-DVDs-at-a-time plan with unlimited in-store exchanges just went from $24.99 a month to $34.99—a whopping 40 percent increase. Meanwhile, the two-DVD unlimited plan will climb from $21.99 to $29.99 a month. In an e-mail to subscribers, Blockbuster said the new rates will take effect on or after December 27, depending on your billing cycle.

It's a brutal rate increase, all right, but not unexpected, especially after the revelation that Blockbuster lost $37.8 million in the third quarter of 2007; company CEO James Keyes blamed part of that loss on Total Access "freeloaders" who were swapping out as many DVDs in Blockbuster brick-and-mortar stores as they could. The movie rental giant already raised monthly Total Access fees by $7 to shake off some of the money-losing subscribers—clearly, it's time for round two.

So, Total Access unlimited subscribers—will you keep you plans despite the higher rates? Or is it time to cancel?

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Blockbuster Raises Prices Again: 3-Out Unlimited Plan Now $34.99 [Hacking Netflix, via Gizmodo]