I want to recommend that this thread or one like it stay open for next year. If we could have someone keep the first post updated for the next 10 months we'll have a quick "READ THIS TO START GS 2012" guide. Many people who did GS 2010 had foggy memories about how some of the hits work (like Officemax). And as a newcomer this year I had a hard time even comprehending what the grand slam was until I saw the official US Airways announcement.

Also I think it's great policy that we should encourage shipments from those outside the US for purchases to people who are actively maintaining the first post in a thread. That gives them a nice (if small) reward for their hard work and might lead to more comprehensive guides next year. This year some of them were great (other partners, hotel stays, hotel transfers) but some were not (car rentals would have been a flop if not for Beltway's second post).

I agree with the theory of starting early (especiallyfor retail partners). While we did have a few instances of things getting cheaper (Network Solutions had a coupon later on) there were also many cases of cheap options selling out (especially at the flower sites). And since many purchases take 1-2 months to post it's very good to do things ASAP so you know towards the end if you need to do any extra purchases/activity to make up for foul balls.

With 5 days left in the promo I have 34 of 35 hits posted, with one more hotel stay this weekend. Since I have only two hits left to post (and the other one was a hotel this past weekend) I am not going to do any safety hits and I'm confident I won't need any. And at the upper levels a "safety hit" can be very expensive if you've already done all the cheap hits ($50+ per hit for those last hits).

I think I did about 16 hits in the first 24 hours of GS 2011 and that worked out very well for me. That's maybe a bit extreme, but doing all that are possible in the first two weeks I think is a very good strategy. I haven't been following this forum for the past month or so since I have my hits posted already.

Basically the longer you wait to get your hits the more safety hits you might feel you need since without seeing any posted activity it's hard to gauge if there will be problems. I see posts recently of people doing 3-4 safety hits (above 36) which would be completely unnecessary if they had started earlier.