Rite Aid 101: How to Shop at Rite Aid
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In many ways Rite Aid’s rewards program and coupon policy outdoes its competitors. If you’re on the fence, wondering whether it’s time you mastered the art of shopping at Rite Aid, take my advice and don’t delay another day. With every week that goes by, you’re missing out on more and more bargains!Wellness+ Card
Sign up for the free Rite Aid Wellness+ card at RiteAid.com. Each time you shop, use your phone number or hand your Wellness+ card to the cashier. In addition to special savings, using the Wellness+ card will qualify you to receive +Up Rewards (more info below) and save you an additional 10% on Rite Aid brand products everyday.
In-Ad Coupons
Rite Aid in-ad coupons can be found in the weekly sales circular in the Sunday paper and near the entrance of your local Rite Aid store. These are store coupons with the sequence RC49 preceding the numerals under the barcode. Rite Aid coupon policy calls these “Rite Aid Manufacturer Coupons”. (It’s like a coupon contradiction: Is it a Rite Aid store coupon or a manufacturer coupon?) Rest assured these are store coupons.
Video Values
Rite Aid Video Values, otherwise known as Adperk coupons, are short commercial videos (aprox 0:30-3:00 min) that you may watch at RiteAid.Adperk.com. After watching each video, enter the security code and sign into your account, and a corresponding coupon will be added to your rewards account. To print, click on the “Rewards” tab and select the coupons you’d like. You can print immediately after watching or save until the middle of the following month.
Video Values coupons are store coupons, but, confusingly enough, they have “Manufacturer Coupon” printed across the top. But don’t worry; Rite Aid specifically separates these coupons in their coupon policy. The important piece of information to look for on these coupons is the numeral sequence RC49 beneath the coupon’s barcode.
Video Values coupons are meant to be printed and redeemed once. Multiple copies or sharing of Video Values coupons is against the Rite Aid policy.
+Up Rewards
+UP Rewards are like coupons that are valid on a future shopping order. Look for +Up Reward deals when browsing through the Rite Aid sales circular or viewing the weekly deals on SavingWithCandy.com. Purchase the participating product with your Wellness+ card, hand over all your coupons, pay for the shopping order and receive the +Up Reward! +Up Rewards are automatically loaded to your Wellness+ card unless you opt to have them print at the bottom of your Rite Aid receipts. I would recommend opting to print the +Up Rewards. Your cashier can do this for you at checkout. Just tell your cashier that you’d like to opt out of the Load2Card +Up Rewards and you’d like to receive printed +Up Rewards, and they can change it in the system.
Rite Aid’s +Up Rewards typically have limits. These limits are stated in the weekly ads and on sale tags of a qualifying product. Please remember that Rite Aid reserves the right to limit quantities, but even if they don’t, it’s important to be courteous to your fellow shoppers by leaving some product for everyone else. Sometimes +Up Reward will carry a limit; often the limit will be two. Here’s an example:
The product: Colgate Sensitive Toothpaste $3.50
The promo: Buy 1, Receive $3.50 +Up Reward, Limit 2
Buy 2 Colgate Sensitive Toothpaste $3.50
Use two $1.00/1 Colgate manufacturer coupons
Pay: $5.00, Receive two $3.50 +Up Rewards
Final Price: $2.00 Moneymaker!
Even though the cashier didn’t open his til and hand you two crisp $1.00 bills, you’re receiving +Up Rewards, which hold a value greater than the $5.00 you paid for the entire shopping order. We call this a moneymaker! In the above example, you can also see that we redeemed a manufacturer coupon against the toothpastes, and we still received the full value +Up Reward. You may redeem both manufacturer and store coupons against these products without affecting the value of the +Up Reward. Sometimes you can even get your out-of-pocket total down to nearly zero, and the +Up Rewards still print right out!
+Up Rewards may be redeemed on any item in the store, even a gallon of milk (exclusions include prescriptions, tobacco, alcohol, and lottery tickets). Multiple +Up Rewards can be redeemed in one shopping order as long as the total value of +Up Rewards does not make the subtotal drop below zero. +Up Rewards generally will “roll”, meaning that if you use a +Up Reward which printed after the purchase of Colgate Toothpaste to buy another toothpaste, you’ll still get another +Up Reward. BUT, there is no need to “roll” these +Up Rewards since Rite Aid’s computer system will print multiple rewards on one receipt. You can purchase both toothpastes in one transaction and receive two +Up Rewards.
A +Up Reward can be redeemed starting at 6:00 a.m. on the day after it was earned. It will expire 14 days after it was issued.
Stacking Coupons
The Rite Aid coupon policy allows the customer to use more than one coupon per item as long as the total of the coupons is equal to or less than the price of the product, before sales tax. The best part about stacking coupons at Rite Aid is that you are allowed to use three (yes, three!) coupons per item! Here’s a quote straight from the policy:
No more than:
- one “48” Rite Aid Valuable coupon,
- one “49” Rite Aid Manufacturer coupon, and
- one “5” Manufacturer coupon can be used on a single item.
Now you see why it’s important to look at the first numerals along the barcode on your coupon! You can use these numerals to determine how many coupons can be redeemed against one item! And, if you can believe it, this gets even better! You can also redeem +Up Rewards and use a coupon such as $5 off $20 purchase!
LIMITS: Rite Aid isn’t throwing money at us like the lottery. They do impose some limits for shoppers to work around. Rite Aid limits shoppers to no more than four identical coupons in one shopping order. Quantities allowed are up to the store manager’s sole discretion.
Buy One, Get One Free Coupons
Shoppers used to be able to stack a BOGO coupon with a BOGO sale at Rite Aid in order to get two products for free. Rite Aid’s updated policy no longer allows this practice. In regards to BOGO coupons specifically, the policy states,
. . . only one coupon can be used for each pair of items purchased. A customer can use one “cents off” coupon in conjunction with the item they are purchasing on a Buy One Get One Free promotion (or with a Buy One Get One Free coupon), although the value of the cents off coupon cannot exceed the selling price of the item.
Buy 2 Special K Cereal $5.00
Buy 1, Get 1 Free store promotion
Use 1 $1.00/1 manufacturer coupon
Final Price: $2.00 each, when you buy 2
It would have been great to have been able to use two manufacturer coupons, or to have used a BOGO manufacturer coupon, but since the policy specifically prohibits this, we will be happy to use one manufacturer coupon for every two items when they are part of a BOGO sale.
