Don't get conned with buy 3 get cheapest free!

fishpie_1234

Just made a supermarket purchase with this offer. Bought 3 expensive multi vitamin products and 3 cheapo calcium tablets. Got the 2 discounts on the cheap calcium tablets. Would of saved a bundle on the multi vitamins.

Lesson is only purchase the expensive stuff and forget bundling it with other cheaper products from same line.

Not much of an incentive to buy lots of different products as the same time!
:mad:

Coopdivi

It sounds to me like you got what you paid for.

After all a supermarket is hardly likely to have an offer whereby you buy two cheapo items and then get a third, more expensive product free are they?

Edited to say that my argument is completely wrong and I apologise to the OP. I'll leave the original text though.

JimmyTheWig

Coopdivi wrote: »

It sounds to me like you got what you paid for.

After all a supermarket is hardly likely to have an offer whereby you buy two cheapo items and then get a third, more expensive product free are they?

That's not what the OP wanted to do.
Lets say he bought three bottles of X at £10 each and three bottles of Y at £1 each.
If he'd bought the X (£20 for three bottles as he gets the cheapest free) and his wife had been behind him in the queue and bought the Y (£2 for three bottles as she gets the cheapest free) they'd have paid £22 for the six bottles.
But as he bought them all together he got the _two cheapest_ (both Y) free and paid £31 for the six bottles.

How is this fair?

pink.1970

Surely OP should of put them through in 2 seperate transactions to get the deal.

JimmyTheWig

pink.1970 wrote: »

Surely OP should of put them through in 2 seperate transactions to get the deal.

That would have worked, yes.
But (a) why should he have to and (b) what if he didn't realise that they were part of the same deal?

It's not beyond the wit of a computerised till to give every third item (in decreasing price order) free.

Why should "stupid people" (see link) suffer?
http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2011/10/21/a-blog-in-support-of-stupid-peoples-rights-probably-the-most-important-blog-ive-ever-written/

Cycrow

i had something simlar happen at uni.

we had a load of coupons fr buy one get one free meals at TGI Friday.
So a whole group of us went t here. We split up into pairs with someone with an equivalent meal. Ie those getting an expensive meal would pair up, and those getting cheap meals would pair up.

but when they charged, they joined all the bills together and took of the cheapest ones

after much complaining we eventually got them to bill us each separately

KxMx

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

That would have worked, yes.
But (a) why should he have to and (b) what if he didn't realise that they were part of the same deal?

It's not beyond the wit of a computerised till to give every third item (in decreasing price order) free.

Why should "stupid people" (see link) suffer?
http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2011/10/21/a-blog-in-support-of-stupid-peoples-rights-probably-the-most-important-blog-ive-ever-written/

That's not how the deals usually work though, as far as I know Boots only do that with their Christmas gifts for example.

Other places it is get the cheapest free and that is usually stated on the price ticket/shelf edge if one reads carefully.

I've looked at Tesco online and there at least it clearly states "cheapest free".

To take advantage of this offer, add Any 3 for 2 Cheapest Product FREE

Coopdivi

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

That's not what the OP wanted to do.
Lets say he bought three bottles of X at £10 each and three bottles of Y at £1 each.
If he'd bought the X (£20 for three bottles as he gets the cheapest free) and his wife had been behind him in the queue and bought the Y (£2 for three bottles as she gets the cheapest free) they'd have paid £22 for the six bottles.
But as he bought them all together he got the _two cheapest_ (both Y) free and paid £31 for the six bottles.

How is this fair?

I've re-read fishpie_123's post and you're right and I'm wrong. I apologise.

fluffnutter

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

That's not what the OP wanted to do.
Lets say he bought three bottles of X at £10 each and three bottles of Y at £1 each.
If he'd bought the X (£20 for three bottles as he gets the cheapest free) and his wife had been behind him in the queue and bought the Y (£2 for three bottles as she gets the cheapest free) they'd have paid £22 for the six bottles.
But as he bought them all together he got the _two cheapest_ (both Y) free and paid £31 for the six bottles.

How is this fair?

It's not fair (if such a thing exists when shopping in supermarkets).

But I don't understand why the OP didn't cancel the transaction and ask for it to be done as two separate ones.

RosiPossum

In some shops they do automatically charge how we would like it (ie £12 £10 £8 £6 £4 £2) you would get the £8 and £2 ones free but in others you would just get the £4 and £2 ones free.

They're quite within their rights to do so, unless it said three for two on identical products.

MamaMoo_2

Makes perfect sense to me. Assuming the items are both in the same deal then if you buy 3, you get the cheapest one free. So it follows that if you buy 6, you get the 2 cheapest free. The computer system isn't set to group them the way you want, it does it simply by making the cheapest item(s) free altogether.