LEGO fans left frustrated as bonus BrickLink orders cancelled

The LEGO Group’s sale of surplus BrickLink Designer Program sets has left some fans frustrated, as seemingly successful orders have reportedly been cancelled due to ‘lack of stock’.

Redditor wow_cool_neat says that they ordered a copy of 910029 Mountain Fortress – one of 10 leftover BrickLink Designer Program Series 1 and 2 sets available to purchase in the US and Canada yesterday – from LEGO.com ‘without issue’, only to learn via email a few hours later that their order had been cancelled ‘due to lack of stock’.

At least 12 other users in the comments tell a similar story, having successfully purchased one of the few remaining surplus copies of the coveted castle set, but then receiving an email roughly four hours later informing them that their order had been cancelled. This doesn’t seem to have been the case for everyone, though: some redditors’ orders are still ‘waiting for stock’, while at least one is ‘in warehouse’.

The likeliest explanation here is that the LEGO Group took more orders than it had sets available, and given this BrickLink Designer Program restock was comprised of sets from cancelled crowdfunding pre-orders and replacements for lost or damaged pre-orders, chances are there were never very many up for grabs to begin with.

But what’s really stinging some shoppers is that 910029 Mountain Fortress was apparently available to purchase at least five minutes before the announced on-sale time of 8am PT. BrickLink users who received an email notification about the sale, and anyone with a direct link to add the set to their bag at LEGO.com (the same links originally used during the crowdfunding period), could get a jump on everyone else.

“Unfortunately it’s basically a case where some people know certain tricks and use them to get ahead of others,” redditor eraguthorak said. “It’s not fair, but then again this whole system was heavily designed around FOMO so it’s juicing up the competition from the get go.”

910029 Mountain Fortress originally cost £299.99 / $379.99 / €339.99 to pre-order at BrickLink, with a maximum of 30,000 copies snapped up almost immediately during the crowdfunding phase. The 3,995-piece castle currently fetches around £450 on the aftermarket, so it’s not surprising to see so many people eager to get their hands on it through official channels one last time.

For those who missed out – or thought they’d been successful, but whose orders will not be fulfilled – turning to the secondary market is now your only option for adding 910029 Mountain Fortress to your collection. Unless you happen to be attending a LEGO Inside Tour or Fan Tour in Billund in the near future, that is: leftover BrickLink Designer Program stock created for the European market will apparently be sold exclusively to tour attendees.

Your best bet for securing BrickLink Designer Program sets (and avoiding the headache of trying to snap up future series restocks) is to pre-order during the crowdfunding period. The next such phase will be for Series 5’s five fan-designed sets, and gets underway on June 10 at 8am PT / 4pm BST.

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