At Consumer Reports, we usually advise you to lie on any mattress you’re considering for at least 15 minutes. But because warehouse clubs display mattresses standing up and websites offer only pictures and descriptions, you need to rely on those companies’ return policies. And from our research, buying from them is fairly low-risk. Here are three top-pick memory foam mattresses from our mattress tests that you can buy online or at Costco. This warehouse club received the second-highest satisfaction score from readers in our survey of subscribers’ experiences with mattress stores. Costco doesn’t say outright what its return policies are for mattresses, but from what we can tell, the company aims to satisfy and won’t charge for shipping and handling if you contact them within a reasonable period of time, such as a few months after purchase. That goes for the website and the stores. You don’t need to save the box. Recommended mattress from Costco: Spring Air Back Supporter Natalie, $1,200.
If you really need to try the company’s mattress, you’ll have to go to either New York City or Los Angeles for one of Casper's only physical showrooms. Casper offers just one model in six sizes. Otherwise, you get 100 nights to decide whether to keep it. If not, Casper will let you exchange or return it for your money back with no restocking or other fees. Shipping is free, too. Recommended mattress from Casper: The Casper, $850. You can try both mattress models that Tuft & Needle offers at its showroom in Phoenix, and it has a 30-night trial period. No mattresses actually go back to the company; instead, you’re asked to donate it to a charity and show the seller the receipt for a full refund—or full credit toward an exchange. (If no charity is nearby, the company will arrange to have the mattress picked up.) No need to save the packing materials. Recommended mattress from Tuft & Needle: Tuft & Needle Ten, $500. Prefer to try it in a store? For more choices, including top-rated innerspring, memory foam, and adjustable air mattresses see our full mattress Ratings and recommendations.
—Ed Perratore (@EdPerratore on Twitter)WELCOME TO Mattress King 120 Day Price Promise 120 Night Comfort Promise Apply Before You Buy! All The Best Mattress BrandsI was so looking forward to buying a new bed. Having a 15-year-old mattress that had started to sag, I began looking at various options — department store sales, online offerings, and local mattress stores. I eliminated the online option because I couldn’t see buying something to sleep on that I’d not tested out in person. The department store prices seemed high, with no room for negotiation, so I went to several area mattress stores. In the Los Angeles area, that meant Sit ‘N’ Sleep, Leeds Mattress Stores, Ortho Mattress and Los Angeles Mattress Stores. While the sales staff at the Los Angeles Mattress Store and Ortho Mattress in my area were pleasant, the prices were on the steep side. Sit ‘N’ Sleep and Leeds Mattress had better deals, but the sales tactics were all aimed at upselling.
While you’d think a mattress store wouldn’t sell flimsy bed frames, one Sit ‘N’ Sleep salesman said I could either get “the standard” so-so frame with my bed “for free,” or pay a little more to get a sturdier frame that would last. I ended up going to Leeds Mattress, where one patient salesman let me lie on bed after bed, without offering any opinions. Once I decided on a Stearns & Foster Tonya Luxury Plush at Leeds, I ordered a queen size mattress set, which comes with a 25 year warranty. The retail price at the time was $1,699. I haggled it down to $1,000, plus tax. (Retail prices change all the time, and mattress stores put things on sale at every holiday, so if you can, start shopping before you really need to buy to determine a pricing strategy.) This column would have been about how to choose the best mattress and price strategies, except… Within a week of delivery, I was changing the sheets on the bed when the phone rang. I answered it, sat on a corner edge of the bed, and fell to the floor.
Fortunately, the carpeting saved my rear end and nothing was injured. I went around the three exposed edges of the bed, sitting on them, and discovered that one side and one corner were firm, while the other side and other corner immediately gave way when I sat down. Not long after that, the bed started sagging underneath my body, and I’d wake up with backaches. When I complained to the Leeds store manager, he said if it was defective, it could be exchanged at no charge, but to be frank, it would be very hard to prove that the mattress was defective because the industry standard is to measure the dip (without a body in the bed), and the sag must be at least 1 1/2 inches deep. You can forget about edges that don’t hold up — the inspector won’t sit on the bed — so you’re stuck with that problem. He insisted that customers must sleep in a new bed for at least 30 days, so that the body has time to adjust to the new mattress. I can understand giving it a couple of weeks, but why give yourself a continual backache when you know the cause is the bed you bought?
Another option, he said, would be a “comfort exchange,” where I could give up the warranty claim and just pay a 20 percent restocking fee, a $50 delivery charge, and oh… any difference in cost between what I paid and the one I’d prefer (at the list price, not the sales price). As you can imagine, I hit the roof. While the first two requirements had been explained before the sale, no one mentioned having to also pay a difference in cost at the list price, making a “comfort exchange,” in essence, paying double for a new mattress set. So I called Sealy — the manufacturer of Sealy, Sealy Posturepedic, Optimum and Stearns & Foster — to discuss the issue, and ended up filing a warranty claim. Allen Platek, vice president of marketing for Sealy, explained that warranties are based on mattress defects, and are not based on the product being worn out over time. “We rarely see defects beyond the first year,” Platek said. “The main reason products are returned are due to body impressions (that 1 1/2 inch sag).
Stitches could have been missed when sewn, or come loose and become unraveled; an edge blows out.” When it comes to choosing a new mattress, Platek offered some simple recommendations: * Go online before you shop to see what’s on the marketplace. Read blogs and mattress reviews before you set foot in a store. * Lay on the mattress for at least 10 minutes to see if it’s comfortable to you. Never buy a mattress based on how many springs are in it. One may have 1,000 springs made of light wire gauge, and another with 600 springs that are made of very heavy wire, making the latter the one with better quality. * Do look for the quality of the foam and its density. The standard average density is 1 1/2 lb. per cubic feet. * Comfort is king. You need to find the mattress that allows you to sleep the longest without waking up. For some people, that means sleeping on a plush or pillowtop mattress. Others may prefer a firm or ultra firm mattress. Stephanie Sheron, supervisor of consumer support and contract at Sealy, says comfort is sometimes hard to determine because there may have been 300 to 400 people who have lay down on a floor model, making the mattress seem softer than a new one will be.
“We have some consumers who purchase online from Walmart or Amazon, who are getting a good price, but they’re not laying on it and touching it,” Sheron said. “When it comes to breaking in a new mattress, we ask people to sleep on it at least a couple of weeks. You can make a firm mattress softer with a bed topper, but you can’t make a soft mattress firmer.” She says Sealy warranty replacements are less than 2 percent a year across all its brands. Going through the warranty or comfort exchange is an extremely frustrating process. Since the retailer doesn’t want to lose money, customers are put through every hoop imaginable. What happens to the mattresses that are returned in “comfort exchanges”? “We can resell a return if it’s sanitized and tagged,” said Mike Moshiri, a regional manager for Leeds Mattress Stores, “just like we can sell floor models where people have lay on them, but they’ve not been taken home and perspired on. “For us, it’s a tax write-off when the mattress comes back.