Safeway

Get the Most Out of Safeway's Just for U Deals

Carrie Kirby — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:24:41 +0000

Safeway is on the forefront of personalized grocery deals with its Just for U online savings program. If you shop at a Safeway or its affiliates (Dominick's, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Vons) you have probably seen signs urging you to sign up for Just for U. Signing up is a no-brainer — once you're using Just for U, you'll have access to discounts above and beyond the weekly advertised sales. But signing up is only the first step toward maximizing your savings at Safeway.

First, a quick explanation of how Just for U works. Once you register your loyalty card on the Just for U site, you'll be offered two kinds of deals that you can add to your card simply by clicking the deals on the site. The deals come in two varieties: e-coupons, which are available to all Just for U users, and Personalized Deals. Personalized Deals are offered to you based on what you typically buy. (See also: How to Grocery Shop for 5 on $100 a Week)

Here are some tips for making Just for U work for you.

You Must Actually Click the Deals to Get the Savings

When I attended a Just for U training session with Safeway representatives, they told me that many customers mistakenly think that all the deals shown on the Web site are automatically loaded to your card. In reality, you have to click each offer individually to get that price. Why don't they have an "add all" button? Because they're using this system to find out what we're willing to pay for things. Before I make a trip to Safeway now, I take a few minutes to check the site or the app on my smartphone to see if there are any new Personalized Deals or coupons available.

Make Sure That You Are the Only One Using Your Account

You might have a couple of Safeway cards in your household, or you might just punch in your phone number at the register without having any idea whose account that number is linked to. When I first started shopping at Safeway, I noticed that the cashiers would call me "Ms. Mrouks" when they handed me my receipt — because my phone number was linked to an account belonging to someone with that name. In that past, this kind of sloppy card use would frustrate Safeway's marketing executives, who are of course using these loyalty card accounts to study our shopping behavior, but it didn't matter much to you and me. However, if you want Just for U to offer you deals on things you're actually likely to buy, you should make sure you always use the same account. If you see weird items pop up on your Personalized Deals — like cat food if you don't have a cat — call customer service and they'll figure out if someone else is using your number. They have ways of fixing that.

Download the Just for U App Onto Your Smartphone

Safeway has improved the speed with which deals you add to your card get saved on their system, so you should be able to add deals with your phone while you're in the store and have them active by the time you get up to the register. Give it 10 minutes or so — and make sure you're getting a good cell connection when you add the deals.

Combine Coupons With Deals

This is tricky, because as coupon shoppers know, you can't redeem two manufacturer's coupons on one item, but you can combine a manufacturer's coupon with a store coupon or discount. Some deals on Just for U are manufacturer's coupons, while others are store discounts. How can you tell the difference? According to Safeway representatives at a recent Just for U training session, you should be able to pair a paper coupon with any Just for U deal where the item price is named. You won't be able to pair a paper coupon with e-coupons that promise a certain amount of money off. For instance, if your Just for U coupon says "50 cents off Friskies cat food," that's a manufacturer's coupon, and you can't use a additional paper manufacturer's coupon with that. But if the Just for U deal says "Friskies 45 cents per can," that's a store discount, and you can sweeten the deal by adding a paper manufacturer's coupon. If you try handing over paper coupons that can't be used with the deal on your card, the register will give you whichever coupon has the best value and give you back the other one.

Combine a Personalized Price With a Buy One, Get One Free Sale

Every week, Safeway offers a number of items that are buy one, get one free. If you are lucky enough to have a low personalized price on one of those items, you will get two for the personalized price, often resulting in a really good deal. For example, say that Oscar Mayer bacon is offered BOGO, with a $5.97 price. On Just for U, you load a personalized price of $2.97. Other shoppers will get two packs of bacon for $5.97, or about $3 each. But you can get two packs for $2.97 — less than $1.50 each!

Check Your Receipt

Just for U has improved a lot since its trial launches last year, but it may still sometimes happen that you don't get the discount that was promised to you. Just like with other coupons and discounts, you should check your receipt and take any problems to the customer service desk.

If You Move to Another Region, Call Customer Service

When I moved from Chicago (Dominick's territory) to California (Safeway territory), I went online and changed my zip code on the Just for U site. But even after I made the change, none of my personalized deals were working. This is because personalized deals only work in the region of the store where you shop most often. It can take several months for Safeway's computers to stop offering you your former region's deals and start offering you the new region's deals. You can speed this up by calling customer service, but even then, the change won't be immediate. Personally, if I had it to do again, I might have simply applied for a new account at my new store — but that's my suggestion, not Safeway's.

Can You Game the System?

This New York Times article quotes one shopper saying she gets better personalized prices when she alternates brands of coffee. I haven't experienced anything like this so far, but it's worth experimenting with. One tactic I plan to use after reading the article is to avoid clicking on personalized prices that I find too high — I want to teach the system that I am a customer who should be offered the absolute lowest prices.

Disclosure: Safeway provided me with several Safeway gift cards at their Just for U information session, as well as assorted goodies and a ride in a fancy limo bus.

This article is from Carrie Kirby of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Safeway Savings Rally - How I got 9 bags of groceries for $13

Xin Lu — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:01:47 +0000

Right now Safeway is having an event called Savings Rally which lasts until February 26th. The deal is that you get a dollar off coupon for buying a number of items off a list of 2000 participating items. If you buy 25 or more items you will get a coupon for $20 off the next purchase. If you buy 20 to 24 items you get a coupon for $10 off the next purchase, and if you buy 10 to 19 items you get a coupon for $5 off on the next purchase. This is a very good deal since Safeway has many 10 for $10 items and it is possible to chain the coupons. For example, purchase 25 items and get a $20 off coupon and then visit Safeway again and use the $20 for 20 free items and get a $10 coupon, then do it again for 10 free items and get a $5 coupon for more free stuff.

I checked it out today after preparing a batch of coupons. An especially useful coupon right now is on Smartsource.com for Rice-A-Roni or Pasta-Roni Nature's Way products. It gives you 50 cents off per box. I was able to print out four since it allows 2 prints per computer. I do not recommend copying the coupons since it is coupon fraud and each coupon has a distinct bar code. However if you do have multiple computers it is okay to print out more than one. The 10 for $10 items I targetted were: selected varieties of Colgate toothpaste, Pasta-Roni and Rice-A-Roni, and Del Monte canned tomatoes. Additionally I also printed out the Flat Earth chips coupons at Smart Source since they are a promotional freebie.

With my coupons in hand I set out to the first Safeway and bought 21 boxes of Rice-A-Roni and Pasta Roni, 4 tubes of Colgate toothpaste, and 3 bags of Flat Earth chips. The total was $23, and I was supposed to get a $20 coupon, but the stupid machine only spat out a $10 coupon. So I went to customer service and asked for help. At first the lady at the register said it is because I used coupons on the Rice-A-Roni and maybe the machine did not think it counted. I then calmly pointed out that their promotion did not state that customers cannot use manufacturer's coupons, and the manager gave me $10 in cash back. This brought my purchasing total down to $13.

I drove to the second Safeway with my $10 coupon in hand and scooped up 10 cans of Del Monte tomatoes. These are useful because my husband loves to cook Italian food and some of his Filipino soups also have a tomato base. I paid with my $10 coupon and the machine correctly printed out a $5 coupon. The man at the register said, "Wow that was nice wasn't it?" I smiled, nodded, and went on my way.

Finally, I went to a third Safeway store and I had $5 to spend on anything I want. I really wanted some juice so I bought two half gallons of Dole juice for $5 and paid with my last coupon. The man at the cash register read the coupon very carefully as if no other customers have ever used it before, and said, "that is a nice deal!" I replied, "yup it is."

The final tally: I got 21 boxes of Rice-A-Roni and Pasta Roni, 10 cans of Del Monte canned tomatoes, 4 tubes of Colgate toothpaste, 3 bags of Flat Earth chips, and 2 half gallons of Dole juice for $13. I am sure some of you could do better, but I was quite proud of my nine bags of groceries. I hope noone goes overboard with this promotion and buys 200 items, but we are totally stocked up with Rice-A-Roni now for the nights when we have no time to cook!

This article is from Xin Lu of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Paul Michael — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:29:25 +0000

That quote from Howard Beale (character in Network, 1976 movie) sums me up right about now. And it's probably just the straw that broke the camel's back, because it's not really a big deal on it's own. But over the past few months, several of the grocery stores I visit have started seriously inflating the prices of various foods before putting them on sale. And I'm sick of it.

Most recently the culprit was my local Safeway. I like a can of soda now and then and I usually stock up when I see a deal, like 30% off or BOGO. Well, I popped into Safeway and was greeted with a huge display of 12-pack sodas from both Coke and Pepsi, with the massive sign above them reading "Buy 2, get 1 free." I know a deal when I see one, so I loaded 3 of the 12-packs into my cart and went to check out.

The check out guy rang them up and then I saw the total...it was a few pennies shy of $12. "Hang on," I said in my most stern British accent (sometimes it helps) "these sodas are buy 2, get 1 free. That should be about $8."

"Nope, the before sale price for each 12-pack is $5.69" he said with an "I couldn't care less" smile. "Oh, really?" I said and paid the bill. Then, when I got home, I looked at my receipt from the last time I went shopping at Safeway some 5 days earlier. The price for a 12-pack was $3.99. So, in less than a week they had shot up by around $1.70. That didn't see right, but maybe there was a huge soda shortage or something. I called Alberstons and King Soopers, their 12 packs were still $3.99. I felt annoyed. Really annoyed. Livid, in fact.

Safeway was basically doing something that I personally believe to be completely underhanded. They are massively inflating the before sale price in the hopes of making you think you're getting a stellar deal. "Wow, I just saved a bunch of cash" you're thinking. But in actuality you've saved almost nothing and bought more product than you would have done if the sale wasn't there.

A day later, I looked around several grocery stores at the BOGO deals and sale goods. It was happening everywhere. Cans of tuna where up in price but on sale. The same went for detergent, bread, even contact lens solution. And it just made me boil over. Most consumers don't really pay attention to the prices, they just look for the deals. In this case, the deals (including those nasty 10 for $10 bulk-buy rip-offs) are not deals at all. The stores have simply done a little dollar-cost averaging and played with the numbers so that deals equate to the same price before the sale.

Well, I don't know about you but I'm sick of it. And I'm sure many of you are, too. So I propose we all do something about it, starting with me. I have a camera-phone and I'll be carrying it with me everywhere. When I see a deal, I'll take snapshot. If the "before price" looks suspicious, I'll compare it to the price of the product when it comes off sale. And over the next few months, I'll keep a detailed log. I'm out to prove once and for all that we're being manipulated like pawns in chess by the billion-dollar grocery chains.

Now, who's with me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: