Meal Deal rip-offs...

[dowie]

Sadly Tesco inflated their meal deal price from £3 to some club card only £3.40 price, now various chains have a "premium" meal deal option too. But one thing I've noticed, which I didn't see happening previously, is that they're sneaky with the tills too if you have more than one item which could be included.

It's happened now in both Tesco and another chain. I get a meal deal; main + snack + drink, but there's a bargain shelf too with some other item, like a discounted main or snack. You scan those in and what does the till do? It groups together the discounted item in the meal deal and charges you full price for the more expensive main or snack as a separate item!

That's just BS, why would anyone want that? It just relies on them being sneaky if you then notice it you either waste the time of a staff member and have them refund the 4 items and then scan them through again as two separate purchases or the next time you shop you have to faff around and divide up your purchases so you put the discounted item through separately to the meal deal.

I could swear it didn't used to work like that?

Is anyone else a meal deal fan and have you noticed this recently?

 

[dowie]

Of course it does. That’s how it works, that’s how it’s always worked.

It’s like a ‘four for the price of three’ deal where it’s always the cheapest item that’s free.

Why of course? I'm not sure it has always worked like that, in fact, the guy in Tesco blamed it on the new manned till they'd got, I only got to see once the receipt was printed then asked for a refund, but I usually use self-service tills and then it's immediately apparent where the discount applies as you see a whole list of items and it highlights "reduced item" and "meal deal" in yellow on the list of items.

If something is advertised as the cheapest being free then of course you'd expect the cheapest to be free, what I don't necessarily expect is to pick up three meal deal items inc a £2.75 main and then spot another main already discounted from £2.75 to say £1.25p on the bargain shelf and for it to be sensible for that already discounted item to be included in the promotion. It's pretty clear that any customer doing that has picked up their three non-discounted items for a meal deal so it is sneaky if the till then screws them.

I think I might test this again on the self-service tills in the next few days and report back!

 

[dowie]

It's been a long time since I was in your specific situation, but I do remember previously it was all about the order you scan the items.

Oh that might be part of it, in my recent case the guy at the till scanned and kept the original receipt after processing the refunds so I don't know what order he did it in.

Have checked and just found an old receipt with a meal deal + a discounted meal deal item on it and the till handled it correctly but what you've said there tallies with this receipt, the meal deal items were scanned first and the discounted meal deal item was scanned last:

So perhaps it's the scanning order or perhaps it's the self-service tills vs newer staffed tills but either way I'm going to stand by my earlier claim that it's sneaky behavour, contrary to others claiming that it's like some cheapest free offer that isn't how it's worked in Tesco in the past as evidenced by the receipt above.

 

[dowie]

I had this in Wickes when they had some kind of 3 for 2 on.
I bought a load of stuff and it moved all the cheapest items to free ones, and charged for the most expensive.
Till person said thats correct. So I said ok refund the lot and then purchased in I think from memory three (maybe 4) transactions!
Grouping the items by the most expensive I hadn't paid for in each transaction.
I was buying a load of quite expensive stuff so made a lot of difference in total.

Yeah, that is more understandable and more predictable, they could very easily handle it but I doubt the Wickes till developers are the sort to bash out leet code type problems in interviews.

It's an easier assumption there that given the algo is looking to give away the cheapest items for free then you need to split if buying multiple sets of 3. I did this at Christmas in Tesco, some of their 3 for 2 Christmas stuff was Tesco finest at circa £7 and some was regular stuff circa £3 so I grouped as separate transactions.

LOL at anyone buying a meal deal who would be bothered by this however.

Wat! Noooo, this is very important stuff for meal deal fans! If you're buying a meal deal and a reduced item then you're doing so for the discount so of course you'd be bothered if it didn't then apply!

 

[dowie]

I could swear it didn't used to work like that?

i buy meals deal almost every working day and have for far too many years. it's always worked like that.

seems sensible to me that way they've put it and not some sort of scam. i understand the confusion here, but it's simple now you know. main item + snack + drink = meal deal, any other reduced items will not count, and the cheapest item will be ones in the meal deal

I think you're misunderstanding this as the issue I described was with a reduced item counting and AFAIK it didn't used to work like that. But you've said it always worked like that but then contradicted yourself by saying other reduced items won't count (that's the behaviour I expected but in my case, at the staffed tills, the reduced item did count).

If you see the receipt posted later in the thread the behaviour is different there and the reduced item didn't count, a couple of posters have then suggested that it's the order in which you scan the items that would count, that seems plausible and it would tally with the reciept as the reduced item was scanned last there.

 

[dowie]

There's a Tesco next door to one of the locations I work so another meal deal fan here .

It's been a long time since I was in your specific situation, but I do remember previously it was all about the order you scan the items.

Update, it turns out it's not the order... I just tested it.

My recept uploaded previously had the meal deal items first and the reduced one at the end, this time I tried scanning the reduced one at the start and the meal deal items afterward and the self-service till behaved as expected, grouped the non-discounted items into the meal deal and applied the deal + kept the reduced meal deal main seperate.

So I was right to be suspicious re: the in-person till, it is sneaky if the behaviour is different there as you don't see the list on items in front of you on a big display with the meal deal and reduced stuff highlighted, you only see at the end on the receipt. Ppl comparing it to buy 3 get the cheapest free offers are mistaken.

So if you're not using the self-service tills then check your receipts as Tesco has some inconsistent ways of handling this stuff.

 

[dowie]

Sorry my typo.

Meant to say "any reduced items will still count"

But that's incorrect tho, like that's what happened at the till in my case but that's not what has happened at the self-service till today or on my old receipt so it's not how it's always worked. A reduced item should not count towards the meal deal.

 

[dowie]

Lol Dowie

This is an important discussion, I take my meal deals very seriously!

 

[dowie]

If you get in the same situation again, try putting the 3 meal deal items through, sub totalling the basket, and then scan the other item. Perhaps that will get around the issue?

Have done that, I've tried both now, found an old receipt and then today I tried experimenting with putting the reduced item first then the meal deal after... so it's worked both ways. See here:

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/meal-deal-rip-offs.18976982/post-36627137

That was with self-service tills though.

When I got scammed (nearly) in the situation in the OP and needed a refund it was the staffed tills where the Tesco guy scanned everything. He apologized and said it was a new till then refunded/put them through separately.

 

[dowie]

Till systems can be a proper pain in the backside to sort out.. Its probably a tick box in the back office that someones not ticked/unticked.... Have you let them know yet. I put a deal on ours last week and totally broke all our promotions.. Because I missed a tick box.....

Well I told the guy on the till who processed a refund and sorted it out at the time, he kept the receipt - is that what you mean? Like someone setting some config in the store? Or do you mean telling corporate?

Maybe I should, if I get a voucher mods can change my name to Karen for a week.