The Importance of Rainchecks

This is a Guest Post from Liz at Considering the Fields.  Liz enjoys helping her family financially by finding great sales. At Considering the Fields you will find plenty of deals to help stretch your dollar.

While it can be disappointing to go to the store to purchase a sale item only to find empty shelves, it’s important to keep in mind you can still get the deal using rainchecks.

If you don’t see your desired item on a shelf, first ask an employee or customer service.  Occasionally, the store has not had time to restock the shelves and will have more in the back.  If they are indeed out of stock do not hesitate to ask for a raincheck to use at a later date.  Policies vary by store but generally customer service will fill out a small form that allows you to purchase the out of stock item at the advertised price later.  It never hurts to ask when the store might restock your item.  You may be able to come back when it’s been restocked, however, this way you won’t have to keep checking the store.  A raincheck guarantees the price later and at your convenience.

If you’ve never asked for, or used, a raincheck you will need to check with the store regarding their expiration and quantity policy.   At my local Kroger grocery stores rainchecks are valid for 30 days at the store location from which you acquired it.  If it was a sale that required you to buy 10 items to receive the sale price, often a raincheck will allow you to buy as many or little as you want.  So, you could buy 4 and still receive sale price.  In my opinion, CVS has the best raincheck policy because not only do they honor the price of the out of stock item, they will also honor any ECB you were to receive had you been able to buy that item during the advertised sale and they NEVER expire!  If you are a Walgreens shopper, be advised that a raincheck will give you the sale price but you will NOT receive any register rewards.  Register rewards are catalinas printed only during the advertised sale.  If you use the Walgreens brand diapers and they are out of stock during the B1G1 sale, this would be an excellent time to get a raincheck.

When you decide to use your raincheck to purchase your sale item, it is always a good idea to tell the cashier you will be using one and on what items before they begin checking out.  The cashier will need to do a price adjustment for each item, so they need to be aware before they ring up your purchases.  I tend to tell them and then will place the raincheck form on top of the item(s) so that there is no mistaking what items need to be adjusted.

While it may seem odd, I actually look forward to getting rainchecks for certain items.  With two small children I appreciate that by getting a raincheck it saves the time of calling or running back to a store to see if they’ve restocked.  Some stores only restock once a week and if you miss the first restocking you would be out of luck.  Once you get a raincheck you have the time to collect more coupons and let the store fully restock if you wanted more than one item, often making for a better deal than you might have originally anticipated.  Some store managers will allow you to request a certain quantity, within reason, if you needed more than they typically order.  Essentially rainchecks give you a personal sale for your desired item, use this to your advantage and enjoy it!