This year I decided to clear all my pending redemptions with Panini and Topps. The Panini portion of the exchange was a tough pill to swallow because my pending items were Andrew McCutchen autos. I held out FOREVER with the hope that they would be filled, but finally it not so many words Panini customer service told me there was no chance.
I'll give Panini credit. After making email contact they did everything they could to give me cards that fit into my collection. I wrote about it here......
My Topps experience was easy in the sense that all you do is click a button online, but the execution is probably a little less desirable. After you click that you want to exchange, it is up to Topps on what they send. From what I can see they do a really nice job in terms of value but the system doesn't cater to getting you your chosen team. It feels that Topps automatically assumes you pulled every redemption out of the pack. This likely helps them weed through all the people that want Mike Trout autos in return for their Henry Owens redemptions.
This Amed Rosario was given to me in exchange for a pending Garrett Jones auto. Rosario is a highly regarded prospect, so in terms of value I have no complaints. Plus this will be a really nice card to trade to one of my Mets friends like Doug. It just isn't a Pirates card.
So both redemption experiences were completely different, but you really can't be angry at the results of either. If I had a higher end Topps redempiton I would have attempted to go the extra mile to make sure something I collected was sent back in the exchange. Since it was just a Garrett Jones that I had no money invested in I was happy with pot luck.
Thanks for reading.
