It gets harder

In our continuing saga of Finding an eyeglasses retailer who
1. accepts our VISION PLAN
2. can do high power prescriptions
3. charges reasonable rates
4. is not 1,000 miles away
We stopped at two more eyeglasses stores today on the way to somewhere else.

One was not open, that was easy.

Two was open and helpful (too helpful and hovering?) and got us all set up with a pair of glasses (after much thought and more thought by Tristan) and then said our part of the bill, less VISION PLAN payment of $149 would be $200. Yes this would actually cost more than going out of network to our original eye doctor. $350 for one child's pair of glasses and not a particularly special pair at that. When we asked if they had frames that were perhaps less expensive we were told they were all the same price. Okay.

While optimistically trying glasses Tristan found these cool magnetic sunglasses. They magnetize right to their matching glasses. Adult sizes only though!


He finally settled on these glasses until we got the over sized quote.

Later in the day I looked online and called the horrid VISION PLAN and found that we can't even look further now because the overpriced store put in a claim already and we are only allowed one pair of glasses a year. It just gets more and more complicated. The horrid but somewhat helpful vision plan said she can cancel the claim on Monday and then we can try again. She suggested a Walmart in the southern part of the state as they actually still accept this awkward vision plan and have good prices. I guess it's worth the drive to get the NotFreeButLessExpensive glasses through the vision plan, which I might add we don't plan to renew next year!

Thank goodness for the online retailers but I am still determined to actually use the VISION PLAN which we are paying $20 a month for!