Wednesday, December 2, 2009

A second chance

Today I gave Walgreens another chance.

I have been boycotting them ever since my horrible flu shot experience*, but this week I had two coupons that would let me get three Nivea chapsticks (what's the generic term for that?) and a bottle of Nivea's extra-dry skin lotion, my all-time favorite, for about $2 total when combined with store sales. I reasoned that they probably would actually prefer not to get that kind of business, so I could give it in good conscience.

But when I got there they were out of the chapstick AND the lotion I wanted, the bottle with the blue cap, which works the best and smells the best. So I had to scrap my plan.

As I headed toward the door, I watched a woman come in from the parking lot, march to the cash register, wave a receipt and demand "Where's my $4 register rewards?"

I immediately thought of Amanda's ongoing battles with Walgreens' register rewards program (and employees who don't know how it works), smiled to myself and walked out glad that, despite a moment of weakness, I'm still boycotting Walgreens and their poor organization and management.

*I never got a response to my letter.

7 comments:

Melody Jones said...

Hahaha.. I did score that deal as well! Going to put it in a gift basket for a friend's Christmas. But yes, Wags is bad about the red tape to get register rewards. You can't use a rr to buy the same thing and roll the rr to get another, and you can't have more coupons and rr than products.... it's all a huge mess. But when you can get a deal, you get a deal... right?!

Ken Loyd said...

Walgreen's is treading dangerous ground when they alienate three women of the Loyd variety. Their sales will PLUMMET! (I bet you don't like that word--neither do I)

Jennifer Kirby said...

Melody -- a deal is a deal unless you find you'd rather have paid full price than have gone through the hassle, which is the effect Walgreens seems to have on me. And no, we don't have a CVS -- sadly! I hear they have awesome bargains.

Dad -- I don't know how much of an actual threat Mom, Amanda and I pose to Walgreens, but it does say something that all three of us dislike them. And actually, the word "plummet" doesn't bother me. :)

Melody Jones said...

Yes, CVS has great deals... and they unlike WAGS, will the roll the CVS Bucks, and there's no restrictions about how many coupons you can use to products ratio.

Ken Loyd said...

There's a good CVS in the Food Lion shopping center at Tramway, so keep that in mind on trips to Cary, etc.
P.S. I think plummet sounds like a baby plum.

Anonymous said...

I thought of this post when I was shopping for lotion recently, so I decided to try Nivea. I'm not in love with it yet, but it's not bad... and of course now I think of you every time I use it! :)

Jennifer Kirby said...

I flipped through the CVS ad while at the beach last weekend (there were, like, 10 within a one-mile radius) but didn't see any deals I couldn't live without. I figured there was no point accumulating their version of register rewards if we don't have one around here.

Rachel -- that's cool! I love its scent but mainly I love how thick and creamy it is. Most lotions claim to be great for dry skin but I think they fall short.