2-Pack Ryobi ONE+ 18V 4.0 Ah Battery/Charger Kit + 1x Bonus Ryobi ONE+ Tool Expired

I kinda disagree. I purchased a Ryobi kit 5 or so years ago on the black friday deal figuring it would last in my work truck for 6 months if I was lucky before it broke. I do irrigation, fence building, decks, landscape, as well as use them around the house. It took over 5 years before my first tool broke, the basic drill. That just broke because I had gotten so used to them not breaking I finally threw the thing down from a patio I was building and from about 10 feet up the thing cracked on the handle. That is the first Ryobi tool I had break. I don't use them 8 hrs a day 5 days a week but definitely use them weekly and they get abused. If you go with the price vs how long they last vs if they get stolen or lost then you aren't out much, I much prefer Ryobi to the other more expensive Mil, or Dewalt tools we have owned. My dewalt drills and batteries haven't lasted or performed as well as the Ryobi stuff. My guys have left the tools in the back of the truck, thrown them around, gotten rained on. Short of us losing the batteries regularly the equipment itself has performed about 20 times better than what I expected when I first purchased it. Probably wouldn't want to build a house with them but I've done countless 10-20k projects with them and have had no issue at all. That's my experience at least. I had the same "Im gonna be embarrassed even showing up on a job with this crap..." thought when I first started using them. But the equipment works great and folks don't care what you use when the project turns out perfectly.

Is this Home Depot's counter to the popular "hack"? List both the batteries and tool as one piece so they don't get itemized on the checkout page. Touché, Home Depot, Touché.

Not sure why you got thumbed down. But it does look like that's the case. You cant return the batteries and keep the free tool, they are counted as one purchase while the "hack" was two separate transactions.

Who know's though if it's a decision on HD part or Ryobi's. And if this becomes the new trend, the ride was fun while it lasted. Considering they were the only retailer tool brand that allowed such a thing. Everyone else sells you a product and throws in a "free" something or other that's the industry standard for everything.