What do you think of this con

I have been a regular customer at a local supermarket for the last 15 years, and have one of their membership cards. The other day I got a special offer voucher. It was "save £6 when you spend £60". I filled the trolley with £87 pounds worth of stuff which included £46 worth of beer to ensure I was eligible for the discount. The voucher was refused at the till as there was alcohol in the order. When I got home, I looked again at the voucher and was surprised to read "Valid in store only, in a single shop. Not valid on alcohol only baskets". When I returned and queeried this, they were adamant that any alcohol automatically disqualified anybody using the voucher. What do you think of that?

Effectively this voucher has to be paid for by the other customers I don't see why I should pay more so someone can get pissed on the cheap.
Really I don't think anyone should be buying non essentials, like alcohol, cigarettes, gambling products, high value-added products like take away food, low nutrition luxury food like ice cream and similar unless they have at least £1k in the bank. Maybe more and perhaps it should be in the form of a special savings certificate that can be redeemed only in case of pandemic or similar emergency that interrupts their usual income stream. Then there would be fewer people sponging off the taxpayer when things get difficult.

Tell us what you really think!

I don't know which supermarket you visited, but Sainsburys say that alcohol cannot count toward a minimum spend for discounts because of government legislation, but the link they provide to an explanation of the rules is dead. I assume that they are referring to the government's alcohol strategy which prohibits the sale of alcohol for less than the duty and VAT charged on it. If so, they are probably erring on the side of caution, as whilst the regulations only require that the total price of the goods bought on promotion is greater than the duty and VAT on the alcohol, this would be impossible to calculate for every shopping basket.

Taking a litre bottle of whisky, taxed at £28.74 per litre of alcohol, the duty would be £11.50 and the VAT on this would be £2.30, a total of £13.80. This would only be 60p a bottle on the legal side if Tesco for example offered 10% off a basket containing nothing but Famous Grouse at their clubcard price of £16.

I agree that the wording and interpretation of the offer leaves a lot to be desired, but if your supermarket applied the same rules as Sainsburys, your qualifying spend would only have been £41, less than the minimum for the promotion.

Brian G

petrol and fags don't count either, all high value items.

I'm surprised at some of the replies you've received here. If what you've quoted is what the voucher said without further qualification, then the shop has been adamant on the point without any justification.

Your basket wasn't alcohol only. If what the shop meant was "any alcohol in your basket will not count towards the basket's total value" or "any alcohol in your basket will automatically disqualify you from entitlement to the offer whatever your basket's total value", then they should have said as much. It was you who were justified in being adamant, not the shop.

These things are happening more and more. Generally there is no need to look for an explanation that goes beyond ignorance on the part either of the people setting the terms of the offers or of the staff interpreting them, or both.

.

I think they need to comprehend their own words [see my emboldening]

… You just can’t get the staff !

MichaelG.

Hi, I don't know if I'm missing something, but I can't see where the con is. It is not unusual for offers to have T's & C's, just important that you read and understand what they are and if your not sure, best to ask before using the voucher.

Regards Nick.

It's been no booze fags or petrol for years with vouchers

.

I think Bill and I have both explained … It appears to be the person on the till who has missed something : the concept of an “alcohol only basket”

MichaelG.

Poor staff training by the looks of it.
I'd hope an email to head office, with scanned copies of your receipt and voucher should sort the matter.

If that fails, a comment on their Facebook page will likely get a response from the customer service team.

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 21/09/2021 23:36:40

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Last time I used a Waitrose voucher … my ‘basket’ included six bottles of decent Sherry

Not only did they honour the voucher, but they also honoured the bulk-buy offer … so I got one bottle free, and the discount.

Noting Duncan’s recent jibe on another thread: I don’t do much general shopping at Waitrose, but I do like a bargain [it tastes even better].

MichaelG.

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Manzanilla Pastrana … if anyone is interested

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/09/2021 00:20:26

That's an awful lot of sherry you're downing Michael so it must be for baking

The Liberal Fascist Eutopia of Scotland does apparently allow booze with vouchers, subject to certain restrictions

England will have even less regulation so it is apparently permitted

???????!!!!!!!!!

Odd that this wasn't simply sorted by the checkout computers. Don't they just scan the voucher and basket contents? Not that I’ve ever had a voucher for anything - you probably need to buy newspapers or read junk fliers in the mail to get them...

pgk

Hi, good morning MichaelG, maybe I should have read old mart's post this morning instead of just before I retired last evening. However, it could be that the alcohol made up more than half the basket value, could be something in the small print and maybe the scanning system rejected it for that reason. Might pay old mart to contact the complaints department to clarify the situation. It could be a badly worded condition that wasn't flagged up during a review.

Regards Nick.

£5 for £50 in mine with exactly the same T & C ref., Same first letter as a burger giant? T & Cs printed on back of voucher, pale green 1mm high. How many wrinklies have a binocular microscope to be able to read these? Bet the late Sir Ks ashes are rotating like a tornado.

Regards Ian.

Edited By Circlip on 22/09/2021 08:02:21

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Basic stock-control:

Buy cheap — Store in appropriate conditions — Enjoy at leisure

MichaelG.

Hi, +1 for MichaelG's "Basic stock-control" I do the same thing with my shopping of long lasting goods, although I don't like sherry, but currently have several bags of ground coffee at a discount price, which will all get used before the use by date runs out at the end of next year. Take advantage of quantity of the offers that you know you will use, before they become unusable, but not like some who seem to buy stuff just because it's got a bargain price on it and may have to bin it because it's gone bad.

Regards Nick.

I'd have walked away and left them to put the shopping back on the shelf.