Thursday, May 26, 2011

New Rite Aid coupon policy

Rite Aid has updated their coupon policy. (The file still says "August 2010," but at the bottom the document now says "Revised May 2011.") Take a look, but here are the changes:
  • "Buy One Get One Free coupons cannot be used in conjunction with a Buy One Get One Free promotion." To which I say, boo hiss! I have previously ranted about this (about halfway down that post) and the ridiculous idea that using a BOGO coupon with a BOGO sale somehow "cheats" the store.
  • "A customer can use one “cents off” coupon in conjunction with the item they are purchasing on a Buy One Get One Free promotion (or with a Buy One Get One Free coupon), although the value of the cents off coupon cannot exceed the selling price of the item." OK, there are 2 separate issues here. 1) If the item is on sale BOGO, you can only use one $X/Y coupon, not two. Again, boo hiss. 2) If you have a BOGO coupon, you can also combine it with a $X/Y coupon. Which is fair.
  • "Rite Aid may accept up to 4 identical coupons for the same number of qualifying items as long as there is sufficient stock to satisfy other customers within the store manager’s sole discretion." Hopefully, this will help will help prevent people from clearing shelves, if Rite Aid actually enforces it!
  • "When making a return for a product that had a coupon attached, Rite Aid cannot refund cash for the value of the coupon and cannot return the coupon that was used." This one worries me a little. I hope that it means that in those case they will give you a merchandise credit for the full value of the item. To do otherwise would be coupon fraud on their part, since they would be getting the full value of the coupon from both you and the manufacturer. Say you buy a $10 item with a $2 coupon, which you later return. If they insisted on only giving you back $8, and then also submitted the coupon to the manufacturer, then you would be out your coupon, the manufacturer would be out $2, while the store would get the $2 and still have the product on their shelves. We will see how this plays out, but if you are at all worried, just return your items without a receipt and take store credit.
It seems to be the consensus in the blogosphere that these changes are the result of the Craziness exemplified by Totally Loco Channel and their "Extreme Couponing." I finally broke down and watched it the other day (I was home sick! There was nothing else on!) and somebody buy me a vowel, because OH MY GOD. These are exactly the kinds of people who would scheme to buy items with coupons and then return them for cash. They are also the ones who habitually clear shelves, use coupons on the wrong products (yes really) and generally screw things up for the rest of us. So glad that now they have their own reality show to spread the Craziness and make others think a) this is OK or b) that's what all couponers are like.

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