Rainbow's Coupon Policy

For those who are wanting to start shopping and saving at Rainbow, this post is super important. After a few years of shopping experience at Rainbow, this is what I have come away with.

Trust I have hit some bumps along the way. But I have it on good authority, the Head Manager at my Rainbow that what I am telling you is what Rainbow's policies are regarding coupons.

1. Rainbow will double any coupon that is $1.00 or less.

2. They will only double 5 coupons in a $25.00 transaction. But what is a $25.00 transaction? The $25.00 is added up using the original price of the item, not the sale price.

For example, yogurt is on sale for 2/$4.00. The original price is $3.50. The $3.50 is what gets added to the $25.00, not the sale price.

**This is when it becomes important to remember the original prices of items. That way, as soon as you hit an original price of $25.00 or more, you end that transaction.

Also, let's say that the General Mills deal is going on where if you buy 6 boxes of cereal at regular price, $10.00 gets deducted instantly from your transaction. That $10.00 does not hurt your $25.00 transaction total. 

Let's do a transaction using the yogurt example above with the cereal example.

Example Transaction:

Buy 6 boxes of GM cereal at $3.29 per box

Buy 2 containers of yogurt at $2.00 from $3.25 per container

Original Price Total: $26.24 Actual Transaction Total: $23.74

$10.00 gets instantly deducted from your total.

Use 3 dbl $1.00/2 coupons = $6.00

Use 2 dbl $0.75/1 coupons = $3.00

Total deducted from Actual Total = $19.00

Leaving Out of Pocket Total: $4.74

Making that $0.59 per item purchased

I hope that explains things a little better. Let me know if this is too confusing. Trust me, with practice comes perfection!

**Make sure to watch the transaction. If the coupons don't double you might have been a few cents short so just grab a package of gum and that should bump you over.

3. The Rainbow coupons get deducted from the original $25.00. So make sure that you subtract the store coupon before you are sure that you have met your original transaction total of $25.00 or more.

4. When you do a cereal deal and you get a Catalina (a manufacturer coupon that gets printed out) for $3.75 off your next gallon of milk, the whole $3.75 gets deducted from your transaction not just the price of milk. Let's say that milk is on sale for $2.19 with store coupon. Combine that with the $3.75 manufacturer coupon and you will get the milk free plus an extra $1.56 to be used on your other groceries. So don't just do a transaction with just the milk or you will be losing out on $1.56!

**If the milk coupon comes in the form of at the end of your receipt, it will normally only deduct the milk amount and you will lose the extra, it is just the way the coupon is set up.

5. If Rainbow is doing a group deal where if you purchase a certain number or amount of specific products, you will get a certain amount off coupon to be used on your next transaction, normally you can use coupons on that deal.

For example:

Axe had a deal where if you buy three of the participating products, you will get a $3.00 off coupon to be used on your next transaction.

I bought 3 Axe deodorants for a total of $10.98

I used 3 $1.00/1 coupons which doubled so made it $6.00 off

The Out of Pocket Total was $4.98

But I got the $3.00 off coupon

Making it $1.98 for all three deodorants

Sometimes, and this is very rarely, if you combine cut coupons with the deal, you won't get the coupon printed off. **I only ran into this problem once and I got the coupon but my sister didn't. They ended up giving her the coupon anyways because I was right there and said I had gotten the deal.

***Make sure that you are over the maximum amount if you need to purchase let's say $15.00 worth of the product, BEFORE tax or you will not get the coupon to print off. If you miscalculated, head on up to the Customer Service desk, explain what happened, purchase another item that would bring you up over the total, and they are pretty good at printing off one of the coupons.

6. If Rainbow has a buy one get one (BOGO) deal, you can use a coupon for each item.

For example:

Glade candles are on sale BOGO original price $5.98

Original Price Total: $11.98 Actual Transaction Total: $5.98

Use 2 dbl $1.00/1 coupons = $4.00

Out of Pocket Total: $1.98

Making it $0.99 per candle.

7. If there is a BOGO deal and you have a BOGO coupon, you can use it on the sale to get them free.

For example:

Glade candles are on sale BOGO at $5.98

Original Price Total: $11.98 Actual Transaction Total: $5.98

Use 1 BOGO coupon = $5.98

Out of Pocket Total: $0.00 or FREE!!!

8. It is not Rainbow's policy to only allow one transaction per person per checkout. I repeat IT IS NOT RAINBOW'S POLICY! Don't let any cashier tell you otherwise. Now I can't guarantee you won't get dirty looks from the cashiers but don't ever let them make you feel bad because you are using coupons. You are doing nothing wrong and as long as you are organized and efficient you have every right to do as many transactions at a time as you would like!

I hope this clears up any confusion with Rainbow!