How to shop like a pro at Walgreens

If there is a trick to shopping at Walgreens, it is mastering the art of Register Rewards.

If you have ever looked at a Walgreens ad, a lot of times you will see something called Register Rewards that you earn when you purchase a certain item, and in some cases you’ll even get an item for free after you receive your Register Rewards.

Register Rewards are, in reality, Catalina coupons (coupons that print out at the register when you are checking out). And there are a lot of things that can mess up these coupons from printing.

The biggest mistake people make is that they think that they can use a coupon on a Register Reward item and still get the Register Reward to print off at check out. This is not so. The way the Walgreens computer system works is that it allows one store coupon and one manufacturer coupon per item, and it reads a Register Reward as a coupon as well. If you use a manufacturer coupon on a Register Reward item the system reads that as two manufacturer coupons on one item, so it will not print off your Register Reward. This is a system set in place by the sponsors of the Register Rewards (Proctor and Gamble, Con Agra, etc.) so the employees of Walgreens, managers or otherwise, can’t do anything about the system set in place.

There is a way to trick the system, though. Any "Walgreens pro" (or beginner friendly blog) will tell you to use filler items on your order to help fill up the "coupon slot" for the Register Reward to fill in the Walgreens computer system. So long as your one-on-one ratio is right, it doesn’t matter if you fill in your Register Reward slot with a pack of gum, so long as you have that slot filled. Let me give you an example: Say shampoo is on sale for $2.99 and if you buy it you can get it for free after a $2.99 Register Reward prints when you check out. You find that you have a $2/1 coupon for the shampoo. Thus you could pay 99 cents out of pocket for the shampoo and still get back $2.99 in Register Rewards. You now have two manufacturer coupons on one item (including the Register Reward) so you’d want to use a filler item to make sure you have two coupons and two items, thus making the Walgreens system happy.

I usually use Royal pudding (it’s about 37 cents) for a cheap and practical filler, so that I don’t end up paying too much out of pocket to get my Register Rewards to print.

Erika Buswell runs a blog dedicated to coupons and deals in Alaska (alaskanbargainhunter.blogspot.com) and lives in Palmer with her husband and two children.