Co-op in-store Membership discounts - make sure they give you the discounts at the till!!

KnightsMove

Just a warning to everyone. If you use your Co-op membership card in store, make sure that any discounts you are due are taken off at the till. 
On two separate occasions, my wife and I have bought things at are local Co-op that were supposed to be cheaper if you presented your loyalty card at the till. They didn't take the money off. I went back in on the first occasion and they paid me the difference in cash - the shop assistant didn't know what had happened. My wife bought some pizzas and garlic breads which were supposed to be cheaper if bought together but they didn't. She didn't realise until she got home.

There are many co-ops. this problem was with the Central England Co-op. That's the one with the bees on the membership/loyalty card. Their shop logo is green. (This is not the blue co-op shops which are different)

I have emailed their head office to report this but not had a reply yet.

p00hsticks

KnightsMove said:

My wife bought some pizzas and garlic breads which were supposed to be cheaper if bought together but they didn't. She didn't realise until she got home.

Not sure if it was the case here, but we've found that these Co-op combination offers can be a real pain, in that sometimes not all varieties of the products are included in the offer and/or one of the items is out of stock and they do or don't sanction an official alternative at the till. They also don't always display all the items together. 

 We took them up on a '2 x pizza and pack of cold drinks' member offer a while back - it was supposed to be £5 but rang through as something extortionate. It turned out that one of the varieties of pizza we had selected apparently wasn't included in the offer, despite being the same price, in the same style packaging and displayed on the same shelf as the other three that were. We also had had  to go all the way from the chilled section to the drinks aisle to track down the correct drinks pack to include. 

They can provide a big saving though if you get it right and they are all products that you can use anyway, which is why we persevere with them, and always check our receipts at the till and challenge if it hasn't gone though. 

Stuart_W

The offers can be a pain and need watching very closely - the pizza and drink deal in particular only includes certain pizzas, which is a pain because usual offers on the fresh pizzas (so much off or 2 for whatever) are often removed whilst the pizza and drink offer is on and they are an astronomical price at full price.

Their issues can sometimes work in the customer's favour though - all summer they had 2 for £4 and 3 for 2 on some items in the picnic range meaning you could get 3 for £4 as both offers went through. This was only in Central England. Co-op group stores gave you one offer or the other, not both.

The self-scan checkouts at Central Co-op don't list the offers as they go through and you can only work out if it has worked by looking at how much the basket total changes when the last item in the multibuy offer goes through, or by reading the receipt afterwards - but then you need to get someone to manually do a refund which is a pain.

and just to add to the Co-op confusion, Central Co-op are not THE one with the bees on the memership card - all but the newest Midcounties Co-op cards look the same and new issued cards by Chelmsford Star Co-op also look the same!! It was the co-op group that originally launched this reciprocal loyalty scheme system that they themselves first departed from, Southern have left completely, and even where societies do accept other society cards, it is the divi and not the member prices that is passed on so you really do need to have the membership card of every different co-op society you shop with to be sure of the best deal. Doesn't come across as overly co-operative does it!!