Oh Say Can You See?

[RJSakowski]

Yesterday, I had a severe case of sticker shock. For seventy years, I have been fortunate enough to not need prescription eye glasses. I have had to use reading glasses for the past thirty years but those were easily and cheaply enough obtained over the counter. But at 78 years, my eyesight is deteriorating to the point where my far vision is also suffering so the time has come for a set of bifocals.

I stopped in a nationally franchised store with my recent prescription in hand. I had an complete eye exam a week ago, so none necessary. The first step was to pick out some frames. I knew fairly well what I was looking for so that wasn't too difficult. The next step was decide as to what lens options. This is where it gets a bit hairy because I had tried various options with bifocals, both progressive and traditional with disappointing results. However, I was told that if I wasn't satisfied with the new glasses for any reason. I could return them for exchange or full refund. I decided to go with the progressive lenses. From the plain progressives , I could upgrade to the premium or to the ultra premium for about $100 for each upgrade. From there, was an anti-glare coating for another $45 and a TruBlu lens, supposedly filtering out blue light while remaining clear for another $55. Finally there was $25 for lens warranty. By the time the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the bill came to $778. BTW, this is the buy one get one free (almost) store so that was for two pair of glasses.

Now, polycarbonate sells on McMaster Carr for about $.13/sq.in. for 1/4" thick and it would take about 12 sq.in. for four lenses for a total cost of around $1.50 The frames contain about an ounce of metal each. To be generous, there may be $20 in raw material in the frames. Unless the frames are made by skilled craftsmen in the Black Forest, it would be hard to come more than $20 labor value added. (As a comparison, Foster Grant reading glasses with titanium frames can be purchased at Walmart for around $20/pr.) If lenses weren't custom ground on a CNC machine, I would be very surprised. So add in overhead and margin, etc. and what is a reasonable retail price? The kick in the groin is that had I ordered the glasses online, the cost would have been just over $100 less for the exact same glasses.

There was a time when eyeglasses actually had glass lenses and someone had to laboriously grind and test a custom prescription. It would take hours of skiled labor to produce an acceptable product. Those days are long gone. Furthermore, the additional cost involved in upgrading from a standard progressive to a premium lens and then to an ultra premium lens is virtually nil; simply changing some lines of G code. I basically paid for a lot of marketing hype.

I used to think that lawyers and used car salesmen were at the bottom of the barrel. I made have found a new low. What say you all? Am I wrong?

Rant over. Your turn

 

[savarin]

<rant>
Why are airlines allowed to get away with their bulldust pricing.
A return flight fro Townsville to Sidney back to Townsville $246 plus tax
Same journey on the same airline with the same plane at the almost same times but a different day over $100 dearer.
It doesnt use more fuel, the airport landing fee is the same, the distance is the same unless there is something about plate tectonics I've missed.
Sheer greed and with zero investigations regarding it a touch of corruption possible.
The rampant greed of modern businesses knows no bounds.
</rant>

 

[matthewsx]

As someone who has worn prescription eyeglasses nearly all my life I'm happy to pay for quality glasses with options I need. Of course, my glasses are on my face from morning till night and I need them for driving. I do have vision insurance through work so I was able to get new glasses last year for $70 but I have paid nearly $500 and not been unhappy about it. Costco has good prices and decent frames, but the Italian ones are definitely better than inexpensive Chinese stuff.

I have ordered online and results are mixed to say the best, try measuring your PD (pupillary distance) yourself. As a necessary part of life for me having someone trained help to get it right is definitely worth it in my opinion.

If you think glasses are expensive just go shopping for hearing aids....

John

 

[RJSakowski]

As someone who has worn prescription eyeglasses nearly all my life I'm happy to pay for quality glasses with options I need. Of course, my glasses are on my face from morning till night and I need them for driving. I do have vision insurance through work so I was able to get new glasses last year for $70 but I have paid nearly $500 and not been unhappy about it. Costco has good prices and decent frames, but the Italian ones are definitely better than inexpensive Chinese stuff.

I have ordered online and results are mixed to say the best, try measuring your PD (pupillary distance) yourself. As a necessary part of life for me having someone trained help to get it right is definitely worth it in my opinion.

If you think glasses are expensive just go shopping for hearing aids....

John

Unfortunately, that is also coming up soon. Back when miniature vacuum tubes were used for hearing aids, minaturization was expensive and there was some justification for the high cost. With current miniaturization capability, that has evaporated. I realize that a good hearing aid is more than a simple amplifier but when I can buy a pair of Bluetooth ear buds for under $30, $4,000 for a pair of hearing aids seems far fetched. O keep getting mailers from Bel Tone and Miracle Ear and have seen ads for others running from $29.95 to $4K. I'm still on the fence as to where in that spectrum I want to be.

 

[FOMOGO]

The optometrist that I talked to when I got my latest set of bifocals said I would need cataract surgery in a few years time. She said the process was getting so good that I would never need glasses again, though I had been told some years earlier that because of my particular astigmatism that I would still need glasses for reading. She said that would no longer be necessary, and that there is a new and improved process working its way through FDA now that is even better. I paid in the same range as you for bifocals and prescription Ray-Ban's about a year ago, and yes we are getting ripped off. Mike

 

[RJSakowski]

<rant>
Why are airlines allowed to get away with their bulldust pricing.
A return flight fro Townsville to Sidney back to Townsville $246 plus tax
Same journey on the same airline with the same plane at the almost same times but a different day over $100 dearer.
It doesnt use more fuel, the airport landing fee is the same, the distance is the same unless there is something about plate tectonics I've missed.
Sheer greed and with zero investigations regarding it a touch of corruption possible.
The rampant greed of modern businesses knows no bounds.
</rant>

We buy our plane tickets and hotel accommodations through one of the online services like Expedia. We have also seen variability in pricing depending upon the travel dates. We try to leave a flexible schedule so we can find the most economical solution. For air travel and for hotel accommodations, it's a probability game. Making reservations early is usually expensive because they aren't knowledgeable as to demand so they tend not to discount as much. On the other hand, if you wait until the last minute to book, they figure they have you you by the short and curlys so no discount.

If you really want to see a price hike take a look at fare for next day travel as would occur with a death in the family. My wife was looking at travel for the funeral of a great uncle in the UK and she just about could have paid for the funeral instead.

 

[Flyinfool]

I had a new pair of safety glasses made for work. My employer paid most of the bill so it only cost me $150. The total bill was around $550. One of the options I had to pay out of pocket was anti reflective coating. When the glasses came in they had forgot to do the AR coating. Their first offer was to refund what I paid for the coating. but since I really did want the coating they had to remake the lenses since the coating must be applied before the lens is cut to shape for the frames. When I went back to get the new lenses, I asked what they do with the wrong ones. They said they throw them out since the chances of finding another person with my script and choice of frames is near nil. They ended up just giving me the wrong lenses, I figured they were better than nothing if I damaged the good ones. I looked up the P?N of the frames and found a source online for the exact same frame, I paid almost $200 for the frames from the eye doc and the online price for the exact same make and model was just $25 with shipping. So now I have 2 pairs of safety glasses.

 

[EricB]

My wife was an optician for most of her working years. She started in the lab of one of the super optical companies and went on to earn her ABO License. I've listened to enough of her talking about it over the years I swear I could grind a set of lenses, but that's far from true. She would have a field day with you.

Optical coatings on eyeglasses found their way from photographic lenses. They work and the do make a difference in how the light hits your eyes. Anti reflective and scratch resistant coatings are worth every penny if you do close up work. I tried to save on my last pair of close up lenses by leaving those off and wasted the money that was spent on the glasses.

Polycarbonate lens work is a hazardous process by the way. Most optical labs send the work out to a specialized lab. That costs extra. Poly lenses are also optically superior to anything else on the market. The processes used to create them are guarded trade secrets.

Yes, the markups are huge, but you only have one set of eyes. She would say a dentist can make you teeth you can eat with but no one can make eyes you can see with.

Eric

 

[Al 1]

We used to have insurance that would cover one eye exam and one pair of glasses per year. That's gone. Our exam is now paid for but not the glasses. For the last 8 or 9 years I have been purchasing glasses on line at one of two places. (depending on what frames are available. I do wear bifocals --scratch resistant --darken in uv. The most I have paid for these glasses is about 95. US. I use my last year's glasses (shop glasses) for doing work etc. I can't see (no pun intended) paying that much for glasses. Al.

 

[Provincial]

My wife's current set of contacts is the "no reading glasses needed" type. They do this by setting the focus of one contact to see distance clearly, and the other to see close clearly. Your optical resolution part of your brain figures out which eye is seeing clearest, and chooses that image to distribute to the rest of the brain. Most people adjust to this process well, but it does not work well for some. Many experience "eyestrain" at times when the brain has trouble deciding which eye to select, or the object being observed is in between the two focus ranges and neither are in focus.

Apparently, this system does not work well for night vision. When my wife complained to the Optometrist about lights being "fuzzy" at night, he prescribed a set of glasses that have a lens that converts the near-vision eye to match the far-vision side. The other lens has no correction so the far-vision eye retains the same focus.

Getting old is hard!