For a little more than 36 hours I have been watching the online coupon world explode with news that Kroger stores in the Houston, TX areas will no longer double or triple coupons beginning April 13th. What a sad day for couponers in the Houston area.
What program is the Houston area Kroger stores offering instead? They will allow you to stack your fuel discounts. If you have three of the 10¢ rewards you can combine them to save 30¢ off per gallon for a single purchase.
There are some seriously upset people hoping to have the coupon policy reverted. If you live in the Houston area or if you want to see first hand how the voices of many upset customers can make a difference be sure to visit the Kroger Couponers Facebook page.
There are blog posts in which the blog owners state they have contacted corporate in their area (other than Houston) and have been assured that the changes to the coupon policy are solely for the Houston area and that this new policy will not spread to other Kroger stores around the country. I can only hope that is the case.
Kroger’s coupon policy recently caught my attention when they stopped allowing digital coupons to be combined with paper manufacturer coupons. While they always said this was the case, the computer system allowed the coupons to be stacked together. This led many people to believe that the e-coupons were more like store coupons that could be used with paper manufacturer coupons. Apparently this is not the case. There were many upset people over the strict enforcement of this rule though.
My take on the e-coupon issue: there is no way to remove e-coupons during checkout. Has anyone at Kroger tried printing out the coupon list? My first gripe with that is that the lists do not fit on one page of paper. My second gripe is that there are so many e-coupon sites for Kroger that I cannot keep track of what e-coupon I have downloaded from where. Not being able to remove your e-coupon at the register is pointless. It makes me NOT want to buy the brands which I think may have an e-coupon when I have a paper coupon. What’s the point if I am not saving as much money as I intended.
What about you? What are you thoughts on the lack of doubling for our friends in Houston? Will your shopping habits change now that you cannot combine e-coupons with paper coupons?
Leandrea is a married mom of two girls, ages 13 and 12, living in Atlanta, GA. She is passionate about helping people save money one coupon at a time. Read more
I was in a Hou area Kroger yesterday for one last swoop with my coupons. Several other consumers were doing the same and they all remarked they will now drive the 1.5 miles to Randalls in Pecan Grove (Richmond) for the bulk of their shopping. Interesting to note in the past Randalls allowed stacking their gas rewards AND doubled/tripled coupons at the same time for a long period.