How to Shop: Walgreens

Walgreens can be an overwhelming place to shop with coupons, but once you understand how to do so correctly, you’ll have a hard time staying away from this store!

Store Coupons

Walgreens store coupons are found in the weekly Walgreens sales circular released every Sunday.  You can find this circular in your Sunday paper or in the grab-a-free-copy near the entrance of your local Walgreens store.  Any coupon found in the Walgreens weekly ad may be used in addition to a manufacturer coupon on the purchase of one item.  This is called “stacking” and is specifically allowed by the Walgreens Coupon Policy.

Walgreens in-ad coupons nearly always state a limit on the number of products you may purchase using the coupon.  If a Walgreens in-ad coupon entitles you to purchase iced tea at the discounted price of 2/$1.00 and states “limit 4″, this means you may only purchase 4 iced teas at the price of $0.50 each.  If you purchase a 5th tea and use the coupon, you will pay $2.00 total (for the first four teas) plus the shelf price for the 5th tea.  If you wish to purchase more than the limit the coupon stipulates, you must break your items into two separate transactions.  To do so, you’ll need to make sure you have two copies of the in-ad coupon: one for each shopping order.   Your store has the right to limit the number of items you purchase, so remember to speak with a member of management before making large purchases.

Another great way to save at Walgreens is with their monthly coupon booklet found near the entrances by the weekly ads.  You will not need to clip these. If you are buying 2 of the same item and there is a coupon for it, simply show it to the cashier and she will scan it once. If you bought 2 items, it will apply the coupon 2 times. These are store coupons and can be used in conjunction with manufacturer coupons to maximize savings.

Register Rewards

Walgreens has a promotional checkout-coupon program much like the Catalina “Your Bucks” programs you may be familiar with from your local grocery store. Walgreens’ program is run by the same company, but their checkout-coupons go by another name: Register Rewards.  A Register Reward (sometimes abbreviated as RR) is a long, receipt-like coupon that prints after you make a qualifying purchase.  Flip through your Walgreens sales circular and look for products which state that you will “receive register reward” with purchase.   After you complete your purchase of the advertised item, you will receive a Register Reward to use on your next purchase.  It’s important to reiterate that the savings you receive will not be on the product you’re buying but on a future purchase, example below:

Purchase (1) Colgate Total Advanced

Pay: $3

Receive: $3 Register Reward

Like free after rewards!

You can also use a manufacturer's coupon to turn this deal into a "money-maker":

Purchase (1) Colgate Total Advanced

Use $1 off any Colgate toothpaste

Pay: $2

Receive: $3 Register Reward

$1 "money-maker" after coupon and rewards!

Register Rewards are typically good for “$X off your next in store purchase”. They usually expire 2 weeks from the date they printed.

Rolling Register Rewards

• Register Rewards nearly always have limits; most often the limit is one.  This means that if toothpaste is producing a $3.00 Register Reward, limit 1, and you want to buy two of them, you’ll want to separate your order into two transactions.  If you purchase both toothpastes in one shopping order, you will only receive one $3.00 Register Reward.  But if you purchase one toothpaste, receive a $3.00 Register Reward, then purchase your second toothpaste in a new transaction, you will receive another $3.00 Register Reward.  Please remember that stores have the right to limit the quantity of promotional items which you purchase. 
• Register Rewards will not “roll”.  This means that if you follow our instruction and separate your two toothpastes from the above example into two transactions, you should not use the $3.00 Register Reward produced from the purchase of toothpaste #1 to offset your payment of toothpaste #2.   If you do, you will not receive a new $3.00 Register Reward for the purchase of toothpaste #2.
• To maximize Register Reward savings, you have two options:

1. Alternate between different products.  Continuing with the toothpaste example, if, in addition to purchasing toothpaste, you also want to purchase the body lotion, which is producing a $2.00 Register Reward, you could do the following:

Transaction #1:

Buy 1 Colgate Toothpaste $3

Use $1.00 off 1 Colgate toothpaste manufacturer coupon

Pay: $2

Receive $3.00 Register Reward

$1 money-maker after coupon and rewards

Transaction #2:

Buy 1 Nivea Lotion $7

Use $3.00 off 1 Nivea lotion manufacturer coupon

Use $3.00 Register Reward from Colgate

Pay: $1

Receive $2.00 Register Reward

$1 money-maker after coupon and rewards

Transaction #3:

Buy 1 Colgate Toothpaste $3
Use $1.00 off 1 Colgate toothpaste manufacturer coupon
Use $2 Register Reward from Nivea
Pay $0
Receive $3 Register Reward
$3 money-maker after coupon and rewards

You can repeat this deal as many times as you would like, rolling rewards the whole time!

If you receive a Register Reward generated by the purchase of product X,  you cannot use it to buy a second product  X if you want another Register Reward to print.  The best way to get around this is to find 2 different products that trigger a similar value Register Reward and alternate buying those items in separate transactions.  Pay for product Y using the Register Reward from product X, then use the Register Reward from product Y to pay for your second product X and so on.

2. Roll week-to-week. If you don't want to do multiple transactions,  you can also roll your rewards from week-to-week. This means that if you were to complete the Colgate deal from above, you could save your Register Rewards until next weeks sale and use it to redeem another Register Reward during the following week. 

Number of Coupons to Use

The cash register at Walgreens will not allow the cashier to accept more manufacturer coupons than total products purchased.  If you are purchasing five items, using five manufacturer coupons and a Register Reward, the cash register will make an angry beep and reject the sixth coupon. The cashier will not be able to override this action, so you, as the consumer need to know how to troubleshoot the problem!  A Register Reward is recognized by the computer system as a manufacturer coupon.  Each manufacturer coupon contains a barcode, and the register matches each manufacturer coupon with one of the products in the shopping order.  When the cashier attempts to scan the sixth coupon in the above example, the register cannot find a correlating product and rejects the coupon.

To solve this dilemma, you may purchase what is called a “filler” item.  This refers to any inexpensive product in the store that you add to your purchase so the register will accept that extra sixth coupon.  This might be a small candy caramel ($0.39) or pencil ($0.05) near the register.  It doesn’t matter what the product is or even what it costs.  You just need to ensure that you have at least as many items as manufacturer coupons.  Here’s the equation: total number of Register Rewards+ total number of manufacturer coupons cannot exceed total number of products purchased.