With an unusually large number of people posting coupon issues with Jewel recently, it seems like a good time to clarify a few things for everyone about Jewel-Osco’s coupon policy. The most prevalent issues people have been writing about have been acceptance of manufacturer coupons with other stores’ logos on them, acceptance of a competitor’s store coupon for a house-branded item, and acceptance of coupons for an amount over the face value of the product.
Acceptance of Manufacturer Coupons with another store’s logo: Jewel DOES accept manufacturer coupons with other stores’ names or logos on them, even if the coupon says “Redeemable only at Dominick’s,” and this is covered in Section 1 of their policy:
Jewel-Osco and other retailers issue coupons such as printed ad media coupons that are manufacturer coupons and contain the words “redeemable only at their retailer (e.g. Dominick’s, Walgreens) this type of coupon is redeemable at Jewel-Osco as long as the coupons states “Manufacturer Coupon”.
Acceptance of a competitor’s store coupon for a house-branded item: Jewel also DOES accept a competitor’s coupon for a house-branded item if the store-brand product in question is of the same size and variety specified on the coupon. This is covered in Section 5:
Competitor Coupons are other retailers’ company discount offers. Jewel-Osco will only redeem the following 2 types of Competitor coupons:
A. Competitor ‘Own Brand’ merchandise coupons on:
Exact size and type of Jewel-Osco ‘Own Brand merchandise’
At the face value of the coupon
Within the valid dates of that coupon(i.e. $.50 coupon for Dominick’s brand 16oz loaf of Whole Wheat bread may be redeemed when a 16oz loaf of Jewel Whole Wheat bread is purchased). If the exact size and type can NOT be matched, the Competitor “Own Brand” merchandise coupon may not be redeemed.
I’ve received a -lot- of email this week with people having difficult experiences with stores refusing to accept the Dominick’s store coupons for the marshmallows, sugar and spices, even though the sizes and types specified on the coupons do match.
After being turned down with the marshmallow coupon, one reader even asked her cashier to read the statement about the Dominick’s bread right from the policy, substituting “Dominick’s brand of 10.5 oz. bag of marshmallows” for “Dominick’s brand 16oz. loaf of Whole Wheat bread” and the cashier was still reluctant. I’m honestly not sure why the competitor coupon acceptance is causing such a problem for people, and Jewel-Osco’s corporate agrees that the stores should be accepting these coupons. They will be placing another message out to their stores, specifically calling out these coupon types and what is acceptable.
Acceptance of coupons for an amount over the face value of the product: This is the one that’s going to change the way a lot of people shop at Jewel, at least temporarily. Regarding coupons that exceed the face value of an item, the section entitled “Coupon Handling Procedures” states:
A coupon can NOT exceed the price of the item. A coupon value can NOT be altered.
Short and sweet – if you have a $1 coupon for a .99 item, the store will not accept it, and they will not adjust the value down to .99 either.
Jewel has recently made all of the stores aware that they’re enforcing this portion of their policy, and if you try to use a $1 coupon on a .99 item, they are correct according to policy in denying that coupon. The coupon policy also does not allow them to “adjust down” the dollar value of the coupon, and so, for the time being… we cannot use a $1 coupon on a .99 item.
I’m sure the question on everyone’s minds is (as it was in mine too!) — why can pretty much every other store handle these coupons without issue, either allowing the coupon overage or adjusting down the coupon to match the price of the item? Dominick’s, Target, Walgreens and others have clear specifications on how to handle coupon overages in their policies. The answer that I received from Jewel is as follows:
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We cannot knowingly alter the price of a coupon (face value) as this is the Manufacturer’s offer and we are required to abide by their redemption policies (often times referred to in the RETAILER: section on Manufacturer’s Coupons) and NOT alter its face value. As a company that wants to accept Manufacturer Coupons from our customers, we’ve agreed to follow their policies so we do not risk NOT being reimbursed and so we can keep this service for our customer. We cannot speak to why these other Retailers are not following the Manufacturer Redemption policies; there is risk to doing that and simply put, they are not following the policies around the redemption of those offers. Those policies are usually outlined briefly on the actual coupon, and further information can be found on the manufacturer’s website regarding their redemption policies and procedures regarding coupons. For retail loss reasons, our cashiers are not allowed to alter the retail price of an item rung up at the register. There could be a number of reasons why other retailers feel they can alter either the coupons or the retail amount of the product, however, the point is: we WILL NOT put ourselves a risk by doing so. Besides, it’s the manufacturer’s offer and as a business partner— wouldn’t we want to support them when they are putting things out there to help get the customer into the stores? Of course we would! Please know that store associates are being reminded and retrained on these policies so we can work to continually improve our service to our shoppers by providing a clear and consistent message! |
To avoid confusion among my readers, I will not be blogging any Jewel deals that involve coupons exceeding the face value of the item until we’re able to use these again at Jewel. I do believe in following our stores’ coupon policies, and this is one of those things that’s actually been in the written policy since May, but it wasn’t enforced, and most of us were not aware of it, nor were aware that a penny’s overage would be problematic in any way for the store.
I got in touch with Jewel-Osco’s corporate to ensure that all of the information I’ve posted is correct – a big thanks to Megan Stevenson there for her help with clarifying all of these points.
And, if you do anticipate any issues at your store, print and carry a copy of Jewel-Osco’s coupon policy – this PDF was sent to me on Jewel corporate letterhead and is reposted with corporate’s permission.
cmjohanson says
Thank you so much for posting this! After 2 managers and 2 cashiers denied my Dominicks coupons for marshmallows and spices, I returned to the store with a copy of the coupon policy printed from Jill’s site. Thanks! They were very nice about it, redeemed my coupons, and asked to keep the print out. I warned them that there would be a lot of these coupons surfacing thanks to the blog-o-sphere (this was 2 weeks ago).
Remember to always be nice! I couldn’t argue with them because they were wrong, because they “knew” they were right. I did get a little satisfaction out of bringing back their own coupon policy. Then they asked if I was Jill! HA! I WISH! Thanks for all you do, Jill.
pwill69 says
A big thank you for posting this. I’m still not sure why changing the price of an item up to match the coupon presents an issue for them as it does not seem to be a violation of the manufacturer’s coupon policy but rather an internal policy for “retail loss reasons” whatever that may be.
Walgreens routinely will change the price of the product up .01 so that I’m able to use the coupon.
Walmart changes the value of a coupon to match the price of the product. They also have price compete so if you see an item for .99 in the Jewel ad and have a $1 coupon you could always take the ad to Walmart to price compete the item and then use the coupon for the value of the product. That will be my short term solution until Jewel decides if they can fix this by upcharging the product. You’d think that cashiers would have this ability within a few cents without being a “retail loss reason”.
Target right now is giving the overage – makes sense when we were not given the full value of our coupons before so I figure in a few months I’ll be even there – LOL! I’m sure that isn’t their intent to give overage but it was the quickest thing they could do to stop shorting customers their coupon value. Oh, and Target also price matches so you could take your Jewel ad there too and get your overage right now.
pam and family says
Well, if they want to honor the intent of the coupon manufacturer, they should give you the full price of the coupon. So, if the coupon is for $1.00 off (and that is what they will in fact get reimbursed for), and an item is only 99 cents, and you are in full compliance with the coupon (right size, product etc) they should give you the full dollar off. Are they really going to argue over the one penny that they will in fact get back anyway from the manufacturer? I could understand them not wanting to give you cash back, but if it provides a penny overage to your order, so what?
They state “As a company that wants to accept Manufacturer Coupons from our customers, we’ve agreed to follow their policies so we do not risk NOT being reimbursed and so we can keep this service for our customer. ” An easy way for them to do this is to accept the coupon for the amount the manufacturer stipulates, regardless of what the store’s current selling price is. The coupons do not specify what the selling price of the store must be in order for the coupon to be valid.
Coupon savings says
instead of 99 cents, since Qs are often for round numbers. Meijer has the $1 sales all the time and people are smart enough that they will not think 99 cents is so much less than $1 – I understand the marketing part but that would help.
PatK says
just yesterday, when she came to my Zone bar $1 Q’s after my order had been rung up, credited back the Zone bars at their sale price of $.99, and rerang (rerung?) them at $1 each, so that my coupons were in compliance. When she had explained what she’d done, she told me that they couldn’t accept the coupon for a penny less than the sale price and this is what they’d been doing. It worked for me- still free Zone Perfect bars.
frugalsheila says
You wrote above, ” I will not be blogging any Jewel deals that involve coupons exceeding the face value of the item until we’re able to use these again at Jewel.” It sounds like you think this is a temporary thing, yes?? That eventually their policy will change somehow so that we can go back to using $1 coupons on $.99 items?!?!?
I’ll be honest, the response you got from Jewel brass doesn’t sound like there’s any flexibility here…. or that they’re interested in resolving this issue in any other way.
Do you have another perspective? Could this still change??
seemarysave says
I had to laugh when I saw this blog post as I had fired off an email to Jewel corporate asking for clarification on their competitor coupon policy since my Jewel didn’t want to accept the Dominick’s brown sugar/powdered sugar coupons I presented. The cashier told me no, I explained my understanding of Jewel policy, she called the service desk who said – only competitor Catalina coupons. After checking out, I pulled out my copy of the Jewel coupon policy which I showed the service desk clerk who still insisted – it was only catalinas. She reimbursed me the value of the coupons, but grudingly so. I very promptly heard back from both Jewel corporate and a store manager who clarifed that my undertstanding was correct and that they had reviewed this with their checkers. I did explain in my email that I was not complaining about the service, but rather that I wanted to be an educated consumer and therefore wanted to make sure I had it right. Thanks for all you do to keep us informed and for being such a strong advocate between couponers and the stores we visit.
cravinsavin says
on not accepting a Q for value over the item price :(
stretchingabuck says
This one is so weird to me in part because it means that some days I can use a particular coupon at Jewel and other days (when the product is on sale for less than the coupon value) I can’t use that exact coupon when I purchase the exact same product.
If Jewel were an umpire, they’d get fired for inconsistency!
patig61784 says
At first its clear about them not altering the price of a coupon (face value) as this is the Manufacturer’s offer and they are required to abide by their redemption policies…etc
But then they specifically talk about only Manufacturer coupons. How about their own store coupons?
Sometimes Jewel will offer the same kinds of coupons with the same face value. Does the policy also apply to their own coupons?