We have some coupon policy updates at Walgreens that I want to make you all aware of. I’m sure we’ll continue to see awesome Walgreens Deals, but we’ll have to make some minor adjustments. You can see the full Walgreens coupon policy HERE
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Most of the policy remains the same, however here are some changes that we need to keep in mind. Here are the changes you should be aware of…
- Walgreens will not accept coupons that exceed the selling price of an item and no cash back is ever provided in exchange for any coupons.
Walgreens will no longer adjust the coupon down to the price of the item. This really has minimal impact on us. There are very few instances in recent history where this came into play. Most manufacturer’s coupons nowadays exclude trial size.
- For offers when multiple items are purchased and additional items are free (buy 1 get 1 free; buy 2 get 1 free, etc.), the number of coupons applied to that offer cannot exceed the number of items required in the “buy” portion of the offer. Coupons may not be applied against any free item received in any offer.
Walgreens will not except two coupons on a B1G1 Free sale. So if you have a $1/2 coupon you would need to buy (4) in a B1G1 Free Sale. Based on my Super Deals for the past few months this would impact about 2-3 Super Deals out of about 18-22 per week.
- When items are featured in a Buy 1 Get 1 Free promotion, at least one product needs to be purchased. A maximum of one BOGO coupon is permitted per two qualifying items in a BOGO offer.
If you have a B1G1 Free coupon and want to use it on a B1G1 Free sale you will need to purchase (4) items. You would pay for (1) and get (3) free. We rarely have B1G1 Free coupons to use on a B1G1 sale so this should also have minimal impact.
Essentially the only change that has any real impact on couponing is not being able to use two coupons on a B1G1 Free sale. Honestly, it makes no business sense since accepting two coupons just means they are getting reimbursed by the manufacturer instead of the customer. But, like I mentioned before it should only impact a few of deals a week, most of which are still great deals if we have to buy (4).
All the other rules still apply. We will still be able to use two coupons on a B1G1 50% off sale, we can still stack a Manufacturer’s coupon with a Walgreens coupon. We can still stack manufacturer’s coupons, Walgreens coupons and points or Register Reward deals. And we still have those fabulous bonus points offers, like the $5 web $25 coming our way 6/8. 🙂 We’ll still continue to see great deals but I wanted to make you aware of these changes.
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
The B1G1 confuses me a little. If you have to buy 4, and you have 2 B1G1’s, how would you only pay for 1, wouldn’t you pay for 2 and get 2 free?
If it’s a B1G1 sale and you a 1 B1G1 Free coupon you’ll have to buy (4) items to use it. It’s like they want you to pay for something yourself. So let’s say Windex is B1G1 and I have a B1G1 Free coupon…
Buy (4) Windex B1G1 Free at $4
Total = $8 (Two Are Free from the sale)
-(1) B1G1 Free Windex Coupon (-$4)
= $4 for All (4)
No. She is saying if an item is on sale b1g1 and you have a b1g1 coupon, before you could just get 2 items for free (store sale paid for one, mq paid for the other). Now you would have to buy 4 items to use “1” b1g1 coupon. Out of 4 items, 2 are free because of the sale. Then the 1 coupon pays for the 3rd item which leaves you paying for the 4th item.
Well, this sucks. Looks like CVS is going to receive my business the most now. I switched to Walgreens because Rite Aid doesn’t take 2 coupons on bogo sales.
Wonder what prompted them to change it now?
I think it’s a bad, reactionary and short sited business decision. I think they want to limit “extreme couponing” and aren’t savvy enough to realize this isn’t going to solve that problem. It’s like giving someone crutches for a headache.
It would not surprise me one bit if the (2) coupons on a B1G1 eventually changes back.
Thanks for saying this, Christie. While I’m sure we should not look forward to the policy changing back or hold our breath, it would be nice. I was wondering if anyone else thought this might be possible and you answered my question. I agree with you about this decision being short sited. I hear many complaints from the staff that they do not have as many problems with coupons as much as they do the confusion between the Register Rewards and Bonus Point on top of sales and store coupons. Just seems they have too much to look after.
Pressure from manufacturers regarding reimbursement of coupons.
So dumb. So basically I can’t use a $1.00 coupon on a 99 cent item now?
Christie, thank you so much for the update on the new coupon policy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are welcome Donna. 🙂
Hanna, lets just hope CVS doesn’t follow suit. Usually when one store makes changes, others jump on the bandwagon. The Walgreens stores in my area haven’t allowed 2 coupons on a BOGO sale in months, the register will just not accept them and the cashiers can’t override. But if a coupon is $1/2, the register will take it. Crazy. I hardly shop at Wags as it is, this just ices the cake.
I’m tired of Walgreens. This is ridiculous. I think a lot of us saw this coming and knew it was just a matter of time. You’re right Christie, it makes zero business sense. Just like when I had to call corporate, because my store wouldn’t adjust down a $1.00 MQ to a $.99 item. The cashiers accused me of fraud, dishonesty and everything else you can think of (over a penny!). I’m almost glad they got rid of that one, because no one around here knew what to do anyway, and I was tired of it!
I basically stopped shopping Walgreens for my couponing when they went to the whole “Balance Rewards” thing. It just became too much of a headache for me. I long for the old days of couponing… before it became so trendy.
Do you think stores will modify the price of the item up so the coupon scans? I know some stores already like to do this.
I think it’ll depend on your store. If your store has always done it that way, then there’s a decent chance they’ll just continue to do it. It certainly seems the easier choice to me.
I found that most employees in my area don’t have a clue about that particular rule, which I don’t blame them for – at all. You can’t know what you aren’t told.
My Walgreens already does this. I’ll have to talk with the manager to see if they’ll continue to do this.
Stores are not allowed to modify the price of an item unless it’s a price discrepancy on the shelf. In a perfect world all items would ring correctly, so modifying an item to fit a coupon should be necessary. I this there is confusion around this…manufactures pay up to the amount listed on the coupon, so I think they can still adjust the coupon
Yeah that’s the thing that gets me with coupons–it’s like no one understands that a manufacturer coupon is just payment directly from the manufacturer as opposed to the customer. No one is losing out in the transactions between the store (who offered the sale price in the first place), the manufacturer (who offered the coupon), and the customer (who pays whatever doesn’t get paid between the sale price and coupon.) Plus, the store gets reimbursed not only for the value of the coupon, but usually also for an extra $.08 for shipping/processing per coupon, so in reality they get a little bit more back than they were willing to accept with the sale price (although I’m sure there is also a bit more work that goes into sending in coupons for reimbursement.) I’m sure if they get enough of a reaction from the couponing crowd, they will change the policies back. I’ve used the “2 MQs on a BOGO deal” rule quite often at Walgreens–it’s one of the main reasons I would purchase an item there as opposed to somewhere else (my husband’s deodorants for example–I’d pick up a couple every time those BOGO deals came around with MQs!) What needs to happen if people are unhappy is they write to corporate either directly or via Facebook/Twitter, etc. and voice their opinions. I’m planning on doing that. Quite honestly, CVS usually has similar deals at the same time as Walgreens, plus I can take advantage of their 2% quarterly rewards and Beauty Bucks programs to get a little extra out of my shopping, so if Walgreens doesn’t have the better deal anymore then they won’t be getting my business. Capitalism in the works right there 🙂
I love my WG and rarely go to CVS. The main casher at my store is a big couponer and understands how q work and all the wording. I don’t think these changes will impact my shopping.
Makes sense now, thank yoU!! I wasn’t accounting for the fact that hte sale would take off a 2nd free as well, then the coupon a 3rd. Thank you!!
Hi Christie! Someone forwarded your link to me as Wags hasn’t been on my radar for over a year. The employees in my area don’t understand couponing so they treat you like a crook. Got tired of it–but, for the longest time, I DID try to be patient and explain and encourage the employee to understand. I don’t have the time to do my job AND theirs! Oh, and all the hot (or even warm) items were never available. I can’t buy what they don’t have. Period.
Learned some time later that some couponers go inside the store ahead of the sale and HIDE the items they are going to come back the next day and buy. That makes me sick. Fail.
Something new to me at my walgreens yesterday. My printer was low on colored ink but printed fine , just color not quite right. No problem with black ink. Manager said they could not take the coupon because little yellow circles were not visible in the space where the expiration date is. I had no idea what they were talking about. Said it was a security feature. Coupon scanned fine but they still said no. I determined that when low on colored ink, yellow did not show up. So now have to be sure I have colored ink at all times. Anyone else ever heard of this? I,m pretty new to couponing but I felt like they suspected something fraudulent. Not the case, just didn’t know about that required feature. Learn something new every day 🙂
I had something similar. There was no watermark on the expiration field and Wags refused to accept the coupons and said that they were fraudulent. (just basic coupons.com coupons)
My CVS will not accept any coupons when they don’t have the “dots”. The coupons I print from redplum never have it and I have fresh ink. It has been like this there since the beginning of the year.
Hi Christie, I am confused regarding the last topic in the policy. It’s mentioned that we are not allowed to use store coupons or on sale items with store promotions such as friends and family, circular coupons with 20% off… could you please help me out with these?
Sure – for example if it was Friends & Family Day which is a 15% off discount with coupon – you couldn’t also use a coupon for 15% off your purchase that you got from another place.
Or if you were an employee and had 15% off you couldn’t get that discount plus the senior discount for example for a total of 30% off.
Bummer on these changes. I have also heard that sales prices and balance rewards points will actually start on Sundays – no double dipping on Saturday evenings. Anyone confirm that?
Confirmed, no more double dips at my store as of june 7th.
It bites. Guess I will make one last trip this Saturday evening and then go for a while on my stockpile. I do not like going on Sundays due to the extremely rude and aggressive couponers. Sad.
The stores in my area stopped double dipping 6 months ago.
Walgreen get worse Avery day I hate cashier they are too krazy I prefer to go to my super CVS I don’t spent a dime at Walgreen
I haven’t couponed at wags in weeks since it has become so difficult with cashiers and managers changing the policy every time I go in there. This is just making me want to shop there even less.
I gave up last year trying to get my local wag’s to adjust coupons down. Most employees didn’t know how or they said it was against policy (even tough it wasn’t). So that policy change won’t effect me.
As to the new B1G1 coupon change, I didn’t realize wag’s offered that many B1G1 sales. Maybe they do but I can’t remember too many that I was interested in if they have those sales often.
Overall I have cut back on my Wag’s and CVS shopping. CVS seems to have cut back on their coupon deals lately and Wag’s has really lost me with their egister rewards/ points system , too much work especially with the short expiration dates on the RR’s. For now I will stick with Publix and Target to stock up on items that I normally get deals on at the drug stores. I know wag’s will go back to consumer friendly soon, at least I hope so.
Not only has Wags changed cpn rules for their customers but they have made changes for their employees shopping in the past couple of weeks. Employees are no longer allowed to get their employee discount on a sale item. Makes you wonder if they are having $$$$ issues that haven’t been released yet. They also made a change in employees hours. They are now requiring them to hang sale tags from 10-12pm instead of during normal business hours. That means in the long run that we, the shoppers, will be hurt as much as the employees that were hired thinking they would not be working until 12 pm, unless they were hired at a 24 hr store for those hours. It means less employee hours during normal shopping times thus meaning longer wait times for the customers for checking out and getting help on the floor. I am EXTREMELY disappointed in Wags these days!!!!!:(
Do you know when this went into effect?