Using coupons at Hy-Vee

Hy-Vee coupon policy

Hy-Vee is happy to redeem your coupons. The following rules apply when accepting vendor coupons clipped from newspapers or magazines, received by mail, or obtained legitimately from the internet:

• The coupon must be legible.
• The coupon should have a scannable bar code (UPC) and a remittable manufacturer’s address.
• Coupons must have an expiration date and must be used within the stated time frame. Expired coupons will not be accepted.
• Only one vendor coupon per item will be accepted. However, a customer may use a vendor coupon in combination with a Hy-Vee coupon on the same item.
• Coupon values that exceed the price of the item will not be accepted.
• Soft drink container caps will be accepted.

Due to increased fraud, the following two additional rules apply to internet coupons:

• Vendor coupons that involve any kind of free product will not be accepted, including “buy one, get one free” offers.
• A Store Director has authority to set monetary limitations (for example, $2.50 per coupon) for the acceptance of internet coupons at the Store Director’s store.

Using coupons at Hy-Vee is quite straight forward. The ad comes in Tuesday's paper, Wednesday's penny saver, at the store, or the best place to look is online on Tuesday morning because they have a special ad that is online only. I just look thru all their ads online at the same time. You can stack a Hy-Vee coupon and a MQ. Usually they only have coupons inside their ad or you can print them from their online ads, or if you're lucky enough to find a Hy-Vee fundraising booklet being sold, get one. I always buy 4 or so of them when someone comes around selling them. The ads that are only one day or one weekend are usually pretty good deals, probably loss leaders that they are using to try to get you into the store to buy all your needs there. You know better! Just go for the items on your list that are cheap, you can get the other stuff elsewhere cheaper or as your stockpile grows, you probably will find you don't need much else than those loss leaders each week. I have found certain Hy-Vee's are VERY coupon friendly, and certain Hy-Vee's are definately not. Their registers also print out catalina coupons based on your purchases. Sometimes it'll be something like "Save $5.00 on your next order" (OYNO) and it doesn't even attach to any specific item so it's just "free grocery money," similar to a Register Reward at Walgreen's. A couple times a year, they seem to mail out a sheet with 6 weeks of coupons with great prices, but they have a requirement like $25.00 to get this item free. This is usually the pre-coupon prices, so if they are giving you a pound of ground beef free with a $25.00 purchase, and the ground beef is $2.50 per pound, you only need $22.50 more. Be sure to take all your coupons into the store with you when shopping because they have a lot of unadvertised deals and clearance items that you may just have a coupon for.

OK, a few things to note about their coupon policy:

1-Hy-Vee will not accept an internet printed coupon (IP) for a free item, even if it is buy one, get one free.  If it is clipped from the paper, then you are OK.  However, that being said, they do not mean if you have an IP for $1.00 of an item, and they have the item priced at $1.00, making it free.  They actually do not want to see the word "FREE" on your IP's.  I hope this makes sense.

2-I am actually a little surprised to see the wording on their policy this morning that they DO NOT ACCEPT coupons that exceed the price of the item.  I guess I had made the assumption that they just adjusted the coupon (because I did kind of know about this rule), but to say they don't accept them seems a little extreme.  I was at Hy-Vee just recently buying Bestlife buttery spread which they had for 99c and I had $1.00/1 coupons.  The register didn't like them (obviously), and the cashier called over a manager that I am very familiar with.  I told him about the price discrepency and that he would probably just have to adjust them down to 99c, but he counted up my coupons and put in the whole amount as a vendor coupon, so this particular policy is obviously YMMV (your mileage or your manager may vary).