RIP Alpha Breeze
Story time! I’m posting here mostly because I’m not even sure what else to do at this point.
I bought an Alpha Breeze from REI just over a year ago. I saved up for it because it was definitely not a cheap tent for me but I bought it because I didn’t want some corporate garbage tent.
On our last trip, my girlfriend and I noticed two tears in it.. one on the outer corner of the tent and one on the inside corner. She also says we’re missing two velcro pieces it never had but every time she explains where they’re supposed to be, I get more confused, so I can’t say exactly where they’re missing from.
Since I bought it just over a year ago, I’m now slightly outside the REI return window. 6 days!! I reached out to Snow Peak and they have honestly been amazingly responsive so far. They sent me a FedEx label so I could send the tent in for inspection and possible repair, awesome right?!
Here's where everything went wrong...
I'm out of town for work until tomorrow, so I texted my girlfriend an hour ago and asked her to go into our storage unit and pull out the Alpha Breeze so I could send it in tomorrow morning.
Silence.
She calls me back 30 minutes later and tells me she threw it into our apartment complex's dumpster because she thought the tent was garbage now...
I wanted to throw up.
Even worse, the dumpster was picked up this morning.
So now I am not just slightly out of the return window. I am fully out my Alpha Breeze.
This is all happening right before my family’s 4th of July camping trip... of course. I was planning to use this tent for four days, so now I have to resort to buying a Prime Day tent (ironic, I know) just to get something I can afford. Probably a Coleman. I don't even know if I can afford that...
I’m mostly just venting. Snow Peak customer service has been amazing so far and I feel bad because they did exactly what I hoped they would do. The problem is now the tent they were supposed to inspect/repair is probably sitting in a landfill somewhere with my entire camping budget attached to it.
Anyway, happy almost July 4th! We'll be the couple in the cheap tent quietly admiring my brother's Amenity Dome 3 and thinking about how fast a year goes by when you actually need to return something...
I'm thinking of buying the following until I can get another Alpha someday (work is not the best right now).
(not sure if links are allowed in here)
$41.99 - Amazon Basics 4 person tent.
$47.49 - Campros CP 3 person tent