Updated Kroger Coupon Policy

I heard rumors that Kroger has started enforcing their coupon policy this week, so I went tonight to check it out for myself.  I spoke with the manager at the Kroger on University and Jeff and while it was not enforced tonight, she said it would be ASAP (she was surprised the computers were allowing it tonight).

Here are the changes:

• you CANNOT use an ecoupon and a manufacturer coupon on the same item (which has been their policy for a while now)
• if you have an ecoupon on your card it will be applied FIRST.  Once it comes off your purchase it cannot be removed so you can use your manufacturer coupon instead.  If you try to use both, an error message will appear to the cashier and they are not supposed to accept it.

The biggest problem with this, for now anyways, is some ecoupons cannot be removed from your Kroger card.  If you loaded a coupon onto your card from a site other than Kroger's, it has to expire to be removed.  Remember, ecoupons do not double, so most of the time a paper manufacturer's coupon is the better value.

The other problem, especially with Cellfire ecoupons, is they are available to load onto your card for 2 weeks, but don't expire for 6.  So if you don't load it and later need it, you can't, but if you do chose to load it and it is the lesser value coupon you still have to use it because it's on your card.  Grr....

I have to admit, I will not be shopping as much at Kroger because of this.  Their prices are no longer as competitive with Publix.

The other new thing to the updated coupon policy is the manager has the right to refuse to accept a coupon for any reason.  She enforced this with me tonight as she checked me out--I put 11 of my 19 items back because she decided to not let me use a $1/2 and a B2G1 coupon together and a free product manufacturer coupon with a store coupon.  Because of the new policy (while I did nothing wrong) I couldn't argue with her--she was the manager and that's her right.  Again, I doubt I will be shopping at Kroger much from now on.

I will update my Kroger tips & tricks page with this new information tomorrow!