Best Buy is doing its part to stimulate the economy. At least, if you bought an HD DVD player from the company.

The retail giant has “exciting news” for you in that case—it is sending out $50 gift cards to those who purchased HD DVD players or HD DVD attachments from Best Buy before February 23, 2008. The company says most people will automatically receive the gift cards in the mail over the next few weeks.

If you haven’t received anything by May 1, have your receipt or credit card statement handy and call 1-888-BEST-BUY. The offer will be open until Dec. 31, 2008.

Starting this Friday, March 21, if you don’t want to keep your HD DVD player you can get an estimate and trade it in at BestBuyTradeIn.com, which will net you another gift card. Hey, you’ll be well on your way to a Blu-ray player when you add the two gift cards together.

Of course, if you want to keep your HD DVD player, you will now have $50 to play with at Best Buy—that might be able to get you seven or eight HD DVD movies pretty soon.

Arlen Schweiger - Editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen writes about home technology installations and product news and reviews for electronichouse.com and Electronic House magazine.