No Frills, the good, the bad and the ugly...

[khipson]

Campbells Chicken Broth 900ml - on sale for $1.00 - used a coupon for $1.00 off when you buy two, making them $0.50 each!! At that price, I stocked up a bit and bought ten of them. I gave several of those coupons to a friend who was there shopping as well.

Knorr Lipton Sidekicks - all of them on sale for $1.00! I have plenty of the pasta ones already kicking around here, but this sale included the instant potatoes & gravy, and their rice blends, so I bought five of each, and used "save $1.00 when you buy two" coupons to bring their price down to $0.50 each.

Minigo 6pk - on sale for $1.00, and I had two coupons for $0.50 off so I picked up a couple. If I can get more coupons before the sale ends, all the better, because these freeze nicely into little yogurt pops.

Danone Fruit Twists - on sale for $1.00, and somewhere in my travels I acquired two coupons for $1.00 off, so I got two of them for free!

Clorox Disinfecting Wipes - on sale for $1.00, and I had one $1.00 off coupon from websaver.ca so I grabbed one of them. I don't use them often but they're nice to have in the bathroom. Big points for the lady working the floor in grocery as she went to the back room and retrieved one for me (the shelves were already empty at 7pm Friday).

Eggs - $1.99/dozen, used a coupon for $2.00 off when you buy two dozen so one of them was essentially free

Egg Creations - on sale for $1.00 and I had a coupon for $0.75 off, so I picked one up. I don't care for them much as scrambled eggs, but I plan to try it in baking.

All of that is "the GOOD."


Finally, Campbells 'Ready to Eat' 540ml soups, on sale for $1.00. And I have a pile of "save $1.00 when you buy 3" for the new 'blue band' soups. Turns out, yes they were included! Yay! So I piled 20 cans into the cart. Which should have translated into being able to use 6 coupons. (I read it wrong at first and thought it was "buy 3 get one" so I was planning 15 + 5 free)

Unfortunately here is where I experienced a minor cashier fail. The BAD :-(

See, No Frills has this thing where after 20 coupons the cashier needs an override from a supervisor for additional coupons. And I forgot about it, otherwise I'd have split the transaction (I had 23). So we hit this "too many coupons" warning. And the girl who had up til now been doing great, had never seen it before. So she thought it was some kind of warning meaning I hadn't bought enough of the right product. Well, that would apply if we were in the US where they scan the barcodes. But we're not - we're in Canada where they just punch in the dollar value of the coupons. The computer doesn't know whether they match. So I said, "No, that's not it, I bought 20 cans of soup so I would be able to use 6 coupons. I only gave you five." "Oh! Yeah, you're right!" She tried again but still got the beep. "The problem is, you need an override to allow more coupons." (Don't you love when you need to train cashiers. LOL)

So she called over her supervisor. Who was busy and irritated. (The UGLY starts here.) Unfortunately there was also a busy spell right then. So she came over, looked at it and said, "It's one per purchase." Yes, and I bought twenty cans so there are enough purchases to cover it. "No. It's one per purchase." Cashier - "It already took two." "It did??? .... Well, she can't use any more." And she proceeded to take my other three coupons and stuff them beside the register. So I spoke up pretty quickly and told her, "You know what, never mind, but you do need to give me those back." "Oh, right." (me - inward groan) After she left I told the cashier, "The manufacturer says one per purchase means one per product but you're busy and I'm not going to argue with her so I'll let it go." So that supervisor cost me three dollars... if there hadn't been a line up I would have been tempted to have her void off some soup to make up for it and demonstrate the loss to the store that the attitude cost... but I didn't.

I did, however, write to Loblaws head office to get copies of their policies. Because this is the same store that a cashier told me they wouldn't price match something unless it was also in THEIR flyer, when the flyer clearly says they will price match ANYTHING in their store that is in a competitor flyer.

I have a suspicion I might become "known" to some of the staff there. I'll have to watch my step a bit, particularly since that show "Extreme Couponers" came out and people are more suspicious than ever of us freaky people who are looking for a good deal.


Anyway - lessons learned:

- When using coupons at Loblaws stores, split your purchase into multiple transactions if you are going to use more than 20 coupons.

- Try really hard to avoid involving cranky-looking supervisors.

- Carry a copy of a store's corporate coupon and price-matching policy with you when possible.

[chelseac]

Great attitude and insights too!

[free*is*best]

Nice shopping
ya some cashiers and supervisors need a "coupon training course" lol
alot of them don't get one per purchase

[mamasavesmoola]

Great job! That's terrible that you had trouble with those coupons.

I know the override limit in our area is based on $ value - they have to override when it hits $10 in coupons.

[Cher_montreal]

i hate training cashiers... why they don't teach coupon decoding? the other day at maxi i had to make the line 2 times cause the first cashier was too attach to the store's Christmas leftovers (50% off)

[Lattelady]

I had the young cashier that did not understand how you buy an $1 item and use a $1 coupn that you get it free....she had to call someone, she thought I was doing something wrong and I had 16 items that were $1 and had $1 off coupons. She did get a good lesson from my purchase.

[frugal_gal]

Great shopping!
Like you, I tend to pick my battles so to speak. There are times when it's best to leave things as they are at the moment and follow up later.
I find that some cashiers find coupons overwhelming if not 'scary' especially when you have several of them to redeem and moreso if it make the item free or almost free. As soon as they realize you'll get your purchase for free they seem to 'panic'. I suspect it's more a matter of the cashier not being sure they are entering and scanning everything properly and their fear of being reprimanded or job loss for accepting the coupons and customer walking away seemingly having paid nothing for some items; they get flustered and likely fear being reprimanded.
There are cashier who just honestly give us a hard time just to give us a hard time and for some reason don't feel we have the right to such savings.
There are also cashiers who are amazed by the savings and ask where you found the coupons; they often to also be coupon users/savy shoppers.

[ahatt]

Great job, sounds like you got some great deals!

Ughh that's irritating...I would be very annoyed too. Loblaws/No Frills, etc also need an override if the coupons total more than $10.

[ninna]

aww. Good shopping. Sucks about the coupons though.

Our RCSS has a limit of 6 coupons before manager override is needed. Still, I hate that because you just never know if the manager you're gonna get is gonna be good about coupons or miserable.

And I do find that `coupon rejection`seems to happen less often when there`s only one person handling the coupons (ie the cashier) and more frequently when there are 2 or more people handling the coupons (ie. the cashier, the CSR, the manager etc.). When there`s more than one person, I tend to feel a little ganged up on; less able to stand my ground and argue the argument too.

[FallenPixels]

Loblaws stores are not just 20 coupons, my local NFs has different levels of cashiers but most of them need overrides once the coupon total goes over $10, also their official policy IS one per purchase = one per transaction. Most stores count it as per item but if you pull out their coupon policy to fight one aspect of it (in any store), you can be sure they will make sure you follow the whole policy

Something I also found with NF is that not all of their stores follow a pricematch policy, we get the flyer in the mail and it is valid at one of the stores (the closest one) in my city, but the other one doesn't have the same PM language on theirs and they only PM items in their flyer on the front page?

[cheapNcheeky]

I always thought that one per purchase meant one per item but I wrote walmart and they sent me back the following email

Thank you for contacting us. In regards to your email, please see our coupon policy below.

Yes we will be accepting internet coupons as long as the following criterias are met:

• Item matches coupon (size, style...)
• Scanable barcode is present
• Dealer address to redeem coupon is present (Canadian address)

We accept them. Make sure price is entered on free coupon offer.

When the customer brings you numerous quantities of the same coupon, we should be looking to see if the coupon reads "one coupon per purchase" or "one coupon per item". The checkout associate should be accepting the coupon in accordance with these coupon instructions. So it should play out in the following way:

• "One coupon per purchase" means one coupon per transaction
• "One coupon per item" means one coupon per each individual item. So that more than one of the same coupon could be used in one transaction

When the coupon value exceeds the value of the product , we indicate the retail price of the product on the coupon , to indicate the amount we will be redeeming when sending in the coupon.

[julyprincess]

I always (or most of the time) follow rule #1:

When using coupons at Loblaws stores, split your purchase into multiple transactions if you are going to use more than 20 coupons.

I just hate overrides because a) I feel I am holding a line-up, if there is one b) I feel the supervisor always has something to say

[FallenPixels]

My NF will not split it into two unless I have someone with me, I tried a couple of times with different cashiers and they all said the override is there for a reason. Now I can never work out which cashier has a 20 coupon limit and which ones are $10 maxed so I just tell them from the start they will need an override (plus I PM too so they need an override for that)

[julyprincess]

My NF will not split it into two unless I have someone with me, I tried a couple of times with different cashiers and they all said the override is there for a reason. Now I can never work out which cashier has a 20 coupon limit and which ones are $10 maxed so I just tell them from the start they will need an override (plus I PM too so they need an override for that)

Really??? I have never ever heard of someone getting denied for splitting it up a purchase?!?!?!? That doesn't make sense. Maybe I am buying something for someone else and I need to put the products on a separate receipt, what's wrong with that??? Maybe you don't have to tell them you are using coupons that's why you need to split them. Man some cashiers are

[tdjca]

I went to NF's today as well and had a run in with the cashier. She refused one of my coupons because it was a penny over the price. I asked her if she couldn't just adjust the amount of the coupon to match the product and she refused. I told her to keep the product then.

Why do each location try making their own rules.