Getting Started: Jewel Stores
***There have been big changes at Jewel and the way their sales run, this page will be updated once all the details are sorted out. DO NOT use this info regarding Catalina promos at Jewel, it no longer works this way!***
Shopping at Jewel stores is a truly amazing saving experience. I always thought that Jewel was way too expensive for me to shop at...boy was I wrong! Now, I regularly drive a little out of the way to shop at Jewel when the sales are great. To find your closest Jewel store go here and click on "Find a Store". Below you will find some of the basics for Jewel store shopping.
Preferred cards: Apply for the "preferred" card at Jewel. You can do so online here or in person at any store. If you sign up online you will get to print a temporary card. I recommend applying for two cards - one in your name and one in your spouse's name (or child's name, pet's name, etc) - carry both cards with you when you shop. Multiple cards are alternated when doing back to back Catalina deals.
Preferred card updates: Jewel stores have preferred card updates on a set schedule throughout the year. This is where a team of individuals travel from store to store, set up a tent inside the store and have you fill out a form to update your information on your preferred card. Make sure you update all of your cards when they do this. When you fill out the form and update your information they give you a coupon booklet with MANY coupons inside. A lot of these coupons are for FREE items (example: 1 free bag of apples, 1 free pkg of Jewel brand toilet paper, 1 free Jewel brand frozen pizza). You can go to as many of these card update events that you want to, they do not keep record of who has updated their cards or how long it has been since the card has been updated. These coupons come in handy throughout the year as these items go on sale for B1G1F - then you actually get TWO FREE - hold onto these booklets, don't think that you have to rush and get all the FREE items at once, be patient and wait for a great sale to pair them with.
Electronic Jewel Coupons: At the Jewel website here, you can load electronic coupons to your Jewel preferred cards. These are coupons that automatically come off your total at the register when you use your cards. They change every week so you have to do this every week before you shop. Make sure you do this for all you cards. There will be a section of coupons chosen just for you based on your past shopping habits.
Ads: If you do not get the Jewel advertisement in your local newspaper, you can go online here and view the most current ad. I like to have the print ad in front of me because they are very busy ads and I tend to miss things when I look online.
Competitor Coupons: Jewel stores take manufacturer coupons with competitor's names on them. You can redeem Register Rewards from Walgreen's at Jewel. There is no limit of how many you can use.
Self Check-out: Jewel has the self check-out lanes, also called Uscan. These work out great for couponers and the catalina deals - I always go through the Uscan lanes when I shop. You have control over being able to watch your totals and prices.
In Store Scanners/Price Checkers: Located somewhere around the store is a stand alone price scanner and you are going to want to get familiar with where it's located. These are very helpful with the Catalina promotions that Jewel runs. If you find that your store doesn't have a price scanner on the sale floor, you can use the Uscan registers to price check if you need to.
Scan Price: If an item rings up at the wrong price at Jewel, you get that item for FREE - it's their policy. If you have more than one of that item in your cart, you will only get the first one free, all others will be price adjusted to the correct price.
Redeeming Coupons: You can redeem coupons up to 60 days after your sale. Bring your receipt back to the store along with your coupons and they will refund you the amount of the coupon face value. This is great for if you forget your coupons at home and see a great deal, purchase coupons online and when new coupons come out in the inserts. Always save your receipts for this reason. If you know you are going to go back with coupons at a later date, don't use any coupons on that shopping trip, save them to redeem them all at once. Sometimes stores won't let you bring coupons in later if you have already redeemed some because they don't know which items the original coupons were for and they can't accept two coupons for the same item.
Pricing: If an item is priced at 10 for $10.00, at Jewel you don't have to buy 10 of those to get the $1.00 per item price. That's just a clever pricing ploy to get you to buy more. Only buy as many as you need or have coupons for at that great price. They will all ring up $1.00 whether you buy 1 or 10.
Rainchecks: Jewel issues rainchecks so if they are ever out of anything that you want or have good coupons for, get one. They honor them for 30 days after the issue date. This gives you plenty of time to find more coupons also.
Jewel Store Coupons: Jewel issues some really good store coupons. Watch the sale flyers for these as well as the pages of the newspapers. A lot of times they are for a certain $ amount off any purchase, like a recent one which is $5.00 off a $50.00 purchase. ALWAYS hand these over before all your other coupons. The other coupons will reduce the total if they are scanned first and you may not be at the required $ to use the coupon.
Jewel Receipt Survey: Watch the bottom of your receipts. The register sometimes generates a survey at the bottom of the receipt. If you call and take the short survey they will give you a code at the end to validate the coupon. The coupon is usually good for $2.00 off your next shopping trip.
Listed below are a couple of Jewel's most popular sales, these all run on a regular basis at Jewel stores.
Fav-4 Meat Sale: Jewel regularly runs a sale called the Fav-4. It's a meat sale and it ends up being great for stocking up on almost all meats. The advertisement for this sale indicates that you will get 4 packages of certain meats for $19.99.
How this works at the register is a little different than what you would expect and it works in the consumers favor if you know how to take advantage of the deal. Instead of reducing the prices of the meats down to $19.99, the register takes off $4.10 after each set of 4 packages of meat that are scanned, irregardless of the size of the package of meat.
What you want to do to get the best deal here is choose the smallest packages of meats that are included in the sale. Jewel will have the sale tags on the largest packages of meats that are included in the sale. Look around in the cases nearby for small packages of those same (exact) meats and those are the ones you want to purchase. They won't have the Fav-4 stickers on them but they do almost always work for the sale.
Another idea here is to have these same meats individually packaged at the butcher counter. One Pub-burger per package, individually wrapped at the meat counter usually counts toward the Fav-4 sale and gets you some very cheap, or FREE burgers, which are VERY tasty - they are a favorite in our house.
Checking out at the Uscan registers lets you have some control over this too because if you do not see the $4.10 come off your total after the 4 packages are scanned you can have the head cashier come over and void them off your order before you pay.
Instant Savings Promotions: Jewel runs sales sometimes with an instant savings of a certain $ amount if you purchase a certain $ amount of product. For example, the sale could be buy $10.00 of items in a certain category and get an instant $2.00 off. This $2.00 comes off at the register for every set of $10.00 that you spend on those items. This does "stack" meaning you can do it more than once per transaction. When using coupons on these items with these instant savings promotions, the deals are great!
Catalina Promotions: The Catalina sales at Jewel are what keep me coming back for more. (Before diving into the Catalina deals at Jewel, I highly recommend that you read my post here on the basics of Catalina coupons.)
Catalina sales at Jewel are usually advertised as spend a certain $ amount on participating products and get a Catalina coupon for a certain $ amount back for use on your next transaction. There are ALWAYS more products that are part of the promotion than what is listed in the sale flyer. I read the blog Couponers Wanted to get the complete list of participating products and their matching UPC codes so there is never any question if I am purchasing the right items. I print out the list, make all sorts of notes on it and take it with me shopping so I can check UPC codes. Having the list also gives me plenty of time to gather up the coupons that I am going to use for the Catalina sale.
Catalina promotions at Jewel work differently than one would assume after seeing the flyer. The pricing structure at Jewel is a "sale" price, a "preferred card" price and then sometimes a "shelf" price on each item. By looking at the flyer one would assume that you have to buy the required amount of product at "preferred" card price in order to get the Catalina to print out, but the sale actually works off the "sale" price, which is always higher than the preferred card price. So, for example, if there is currently a Catalina promotion running where you spend $35 and get a Catalina for $15 ONYO, then you would identify the participating items you would like to purchase and take them over to the price scanner (I scan as a precautionary measure because the shelf signs are sometimes not updated with the most current sale price). Scan each item and start adding up the "sale" price until you get to $35. I also keep track of the "preferred" card price so that I know what my total is going to be when I get up to the register (because sometimes with your coupons you will have to throw in "fillers" to use up some overage). Keep in mind that the products with the largest price difference or spread between the "sale" price and the "preferred" price are going to be your best deals because you will be able to hit that $35 mark with less product to purchase. There is always an exception to the rules, so here's the exception with the Catalina pricing at Jewel - some of the products on the Osco side of the store only work off the preferred price, so there's no price spread to identify. Sure, these are still good deals, just not what we see on the Jewel side of the store.
Catalina promotions usually do not stack, so you want to break out your transactions in this example into increments of $35 because we are going to be "rolling" those Catalinas to get the best bang for our buck. When we roll Catalinas is also when we alternate our preferred cards because when we do back to back transactions, sometimes our preferred card accounts need time to reset and if we do a transaction too soon after the first one sometimes the Catalinas won't print. So, you have $35 worth of participating product in your cart (or several $35 transactions) and you go up to the Uscan to start your check-out. If you are doing multiple transactions, you always want to start with the transaction that is going to be the lowest out of pocket to get your Catalina coupon. Start by ringing up those items and make sure you are at $35 (pre-tax) before you scan your preferred card. This is a way to double check your figures and make sure your Catalina will print. Once you are sure you are at $35, scan your preferred card to reduce your out of pocket (don't forget this important step), next is any manufacturer coupons you have for the items in the sale and lastly pay for your transaction. Once you pay for your purchases, your Catalina coupon will print (sometimes it doesn't print out immediately - just give it a couple seconds and it will).
Your next transaction is going to be similar to the one above with two significant differences, you are going to use your alternate preferred card when you scan and you are going to use the Catalina coupon that you received in your prior transaction to pay for this next transaction - this is called "rolling". With rolling this Catalina into the next deal, you are cutting your out of pocket by $15.00. The idea behind this is to just keep rolling these Catalina coupons until the sale is over - you DO NOT need to spend the Catalinas before you leave the store. Save them and come back for more rolling, they usually don't expire for TWO weeks.
It doesn't happen that often if you follow the instructions outlinted above, but if your Catalina coupons do not print, go directly to the Customer Service desk and return everything explaining to them that you were expecting a Catalina coupon and it didn't print out. If they are a friendly store, they will work with you and make it right so that you do not have to return the items. If they are not a friendly store, return the items and try to figure out where you went wrong (wrong product, didn't meet the required $ amount, maybe the machine was not functioning properly, etc.). The store will tell you that you didn't meet the $35 requirement almost every time this happens because their policy is that the Catalina deals work on the preferred price and not the sale price. Working the Catalina deals in this manner is not something that is advertised or promoted, it's just one of those things that happens and we know enough to take advantage of it.
As a side note, there is one thing you will want to watch for to insure your Catalina coupon will print. When the cashier is scanning all your coupons, make sure that they all scan. If a coupon doesn't scan and the cashier enters it as a generic "GROCERY" coupon, your catalina will not print out. If the cashier is having a problem with one of your coupons scanning, politely ask them to key in the whole bar code of the coupon rather than entering it generically. This sometimes happens with IP's because the ink can sometimes cause problems.
As you can see, when the good Catalina promotions come around, shopping the sale this way is a huge money saver. Once you get the hang of shopping the Catalina promotions at Jewel and you get really good at it, you will have transactions where you pay only the sales tax on the items in your cart, simply by rolling your Catalina coupons from one transaction to the next. It doesn't get much better than that!
