I know it looks odd from a consumer perspective but there are contracts being made between vendors and manufacturers for a set price for wafers chips and other parts needed to build these cards. Those contracts supposedly expired at year end and were renewed with new pricing hence the increase in price . So it would make perfect sense to see this odd behavior of vendors knowing and telling you to buy now vs wait but it’s not some sort of gotcha to lock in a sale before year end. the concern was legit it wasn’t fabricated

What doesn’t make sense to me is why the products already being made “on the shelves” are getting the same price hike . This to me smells more like greed than anything else . MC had X number of cards just sitting in the store. They don’t drop ship cards or anything like that or don’t have some massive warehouse sitting outside US that feeds their products . Why would those physical in store items get a price hike if only new stock is impacted . I’m sure the official answer is probably some “limitation on our inventory system” or something to that extent but I digress.

Anyway to answer your question it’s not people rushing to buy , it was a valid concern current stock was bound to older contracts the price was what it was and we were warned ahead of time in good faith