Huge Price Match & Overage Lesson at Walmart – They Paid Us For Toothpaste & Cover Girl

When we saw that Crest toothpaste was on sale this week $10/10 at our local Kroger we were happy because we knew we had a lot of $1 off any Crest coupons.  However we also knew that chances are Kroger would be cleared out of toothpaste fairly quickly.

We do not have a Kroger in our town (or a Walmart, Walgreens, Target, Kmart….).  We live in a rural area so we always have to do our shopping in another town.  Last night we were going to a neighboring town for an appointment and we brought our coupons.  Like a bolt of genius, we remembered Walmart price matches (this town has a Kroger).  So, we took our coupons with us and when we entered we asked customer service about the price matching because we did not have the ad with us (but we had it pulled up on our iPhone).  They were awesome, no real questions they just said to tell the cashier when we checked out.  Easy!

So, off to the toothpaste area we went and they had a generous selection.  We picked up enough tubes to match our $1 off coupons and then went to the Cover Girl area because we had 9 more of the $8/2 coupons to use up (they expire 10/31!!).  We picked 18 things that were $2.94 to $3.14 each which means we were going to have approx. $1.75 overage for each of the 9 coupons.  Overage means that even though the products total less than the coupon’s value, you receive full credit for the coupon (in this case $8).  Walmart is the only store we know of with this awesome policy!

We also noticed they stocked the Crave cat treats and we have had a hard time finding them.  We put 2 into the cart because we had 2 of the FREE coupons.

Off to checkout, which was so quiet – the store was rather dead and we went to a real check out lane vs. the self serve because we knew we had the price match.  Our cashier wasn’t coupon friendly at all, so she called over the customer service manager who was awesome!  We had not noticed but our coupons had the “limit of 4 per transaction” clause on them.  The manager was so nice, she said that was not a problem at all, that the cashier could just ring us up in different transactions if we did not mind.  Didn’t mind?  Not at all!

Hooray!  We checked out 4 times, and on 3 of the occasions were paid money back!  At first this totally threw the cashier for a loop because she owed us money.  We explained to her that Walmart gives overage and it was perfectly permissible for her to give us the difference back in cash but she was leery.  We even pulled up the Walmart corporate coupon policy on the iPhone and showed it to her (love, love, love being able to do that with the phone!) but she was still unsure.

Back over came Miss Nice Customer Service Manager and she confirmed that is was their policy to refund the difference.  She was so nice, we made a point to tell her a few times that we appreciated her help and patience.

So – check out what we left with:

And here is the scoop on the checkouts

#1:  $5.99 back in cash

#2:  $6.07 back in cash

#3:  $1.32 back in cash

#4:  We paid $0.24

All in all, Walmart and our coupons meant we walked out with $13.14 more than when we entered AND all this stuff!  It’s super cool timing too because our local area is doing a community program where they are trying to fill a bus with donations to the troops overseas.  We plan to donate a lot to that effort, and toothpaste is on their needed items list.  All of this will go straight to that donation effort.  That is a really great feeling!