The dumb b!tch was wrong to do that. A return/exchange is a return. It should have been an even up swap. Even at that, if she was dumb and insistent you tell her you want to buy the new one in store and they need to match the online price. I've had employees do that before when there was a problem with my pick up once. In the "Price Match" dropdown there is a selection for AdvanceAuto.com for them to match.
You act like just because the Advance in your area has dumb employees that all Advances have dumb employees and that is just not true. In my area Advance is the go to. We have Auto Zone, NAPA, another large "Auto Supermarket", as well as local shops and Advance kills them all. Hell they just opened a new one about 10 miles from the other one in December as well.
There is one Advance in my area that I avoid at all costs. Luckily it is a further one from me, but when I used to work at one shop it was the closest so it was the one I had to go to for work. Idiots doesn't even begin to describe the employees they had, but that didn't taint my view on the other Advances in the area that had knowledgeable employees.
The local Auto Zone has been a mess for as long as I can remember. If I HAVE to go there I will walk in and there are several people waiting because it takes the dumbass employees so long to look parts up that someone buying oil or a light bulb has to wait 20 minutes to check out. Then the phone starts ringing and it rings 40 times before someone takes a second to answer it.
With online discount codes Advance gets 98% of my business.