When taking up a supermarket offer that says next purchase,

[infobleep]

The other day I was buying some coconut milk at Waitrose. The milk is by Vita Coco and has a lot more calcium in it than other brands of coconut mill such as Apro and Rice Dream, which I'd been drinking up until now.

Waitrose had reduced the price of the milk from £2.99 for 1L to £2.39. So I picked up five bottles. I usually bulk buy when there is an offer on as non dairy milk is more expensive.

There was also an offer from Vita where you get £1 off your next purchase. It didn't say when your next purchase had to be though.

So I went to the checkout and enquired about how I'd put the five through and get my discount. The manager came over and said it should be the next time you visit the store. They may even have said another day when I said I could go out and back in. I said the T&Cs didn't say that as it was. Anyway they agreed to put it though this time but really shouldn't. So they scanned two of the bar codes for the offer. Technically I think they should have scanned four and done for transactions separately for all five but I wasn't going to argue the point.

My question is, whose right?

What I hadn't considered of course, until typing this now, is the fact I probably could have use multiple coupons next time for multiple purchases. As I like the milk and it has more calcium than the alternatives I'll certainly be buying more of it.

It was close to closing time and only one person behind me who was directed to a nearby til, so I didn't cause a big queue at least.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Entirely depends on the offer T&C, which I imagine is available from the manufacturer. Typically it is a different transaction, though.

 

[Tetchytyke]

My question is, whose right?

Depends on what the T&Cs specifically say. Similar offers at places like McDonald's say one offer per day.

But "next purchase" really means what a normal person would take it to mean: the next transaction. You could have bought them, gone out the shop and walked around again.

 

[me123]

As said, it depends entirely on the T&Cs, but when I was a cashier I'd have taken it to mean that the voucher(s) were to be used on a separate purchase - i.e. the next time you visit the store. I would not have processed the voucher in the same transaction, as until the transaction was complete the goods (and ergo the vouchers) are not yours.

Of course, that doesn't stop you going out to your car, taking the vouchers, and using them to buy more milk a few minutes later.

It would actually amaze you just how many people took these types of voucher from the product and tried to use them to buy that same product (in your case - the person picking up one carton of milk and trying to use the voucher on that carton to pay for the very same carton of milk).

 

[GusB]

It has been a good while since my Safeway days, but their policy was that manufacturers' coupons could be accepted, even if the customer wasn't purchasing the product shown on the coupon. I don't think we even had to stock the product concerned, but there was obviously some system for claiming the money back from the manufacturer so it didn't really matter. Store branded coupons could only be used against the product illustrated.

Other companies will no doubt have their own policies in place.