The Tesco & other non-Morrisons supermarket thread

[WillPS]

I got a sodastream on ABC points.

I remember they changed it near the end that you had to scan a barcode to say if you'd missed anything, replacing the former honestly scheme where the checkout operator asked you.

However if you forgot to do this, it forced a full rescan.

And this wasn't the current Tesco five items check, it was a FULL rescan.

Which meant you'd just wasted your time

I'm intrigued - what did the barcode do? Prompt you to scan the item?

And how would they know that you had missed an item to trigger the rescan?

[WillPS]

If you had a bill for £50 you could just pay £45 and 'pay' the other £5 with ABC points.

But that was always the case with Nectar; although VERY irritatingly in 2018 you can still only spend your Nectar points at your "home store". It is utterly beyond me to understand this stipulation.

That hasn't been true for years, you can use your Nectar points at any store you've used in the last year, or any store at all with the new till software. If in doubt, ask for a Nectar balance or buy a banana. If your receipt includes a balance you're good to go.

With the old software stores would poll nectar balances overnight, and to avoid having to download the entire Nectar database they only polled Nectar cards used in the last year (or before that only your "home store"). This also meant it was possible to spend your entire Nectar balance several times over if you went to lots of different shops and spent the whole lot. I'm not sure if they ever tried to collect massive negative balances somehow?

[Pete]

I got a sodastream on ABC points.

I remember they changed it near the end that you had to scan a barcode to say if you'd missed anything, replacing the former honestly scheme where the checkout operator asked you.

However if you forgot to do this, it forced a full rescan.

And this wasn't the current Tesco five items check, it was a FULL rescan.

Which meant you'd just wasted your time

I'm intrigued - what did the barcode do? Prompt you to scan the item?

And how would they know that you had missed an item to trigger the rescan?

You had to do the barcode before you plugged the machine back into the cradle (it downloaded via the jack rather than wifi in those days).

There were two barcodes

Everything scanned fine

I had an issue (which let you raise an issue).

But yes if you forgot, which was easy because you didn't used to have to do it, it would force a complete rescan which was infuriating. Actually spoiled the fun of it because I wasn't allowed to play with them anymore because we always forgot to scan it.

[all new Phil]

Stick you plums on the scales and ask loudly “how many nectar points for THESE?”

[WillPS]

If in doubt, ask for a Nectar balance or buy a banana.

I've never really liked bananas; will this work if I instead buy plums?

Actually, I think JS self checkouts let you just scan your nectar card and press "Finish & Pay". This also spits out any Catalina vouchers that might be waiting for you.

[scottishtv]

I got a sodastream on ABC points.

Tell me more. What beverages did you make? How often? Do you still own it? Can you even still get the cordial?!

In the States, Sodastream is now marketing itself as a solution to stop drinking soda... "It's simply water, made better!"



I see they also auctioned off special Royal Wedding bottles.

[Alexia]

[Philip]

They've just been bought by Pepsi for $3.2 billion.

[WillPS]

Does that mean they'll sell a cola drink range which is palatable now?

[james2001]

When I bought a Soda Stream in the mid-00s, after a couple of years they changed the cylinders so you had to buy a new machine, it's soured me from buying another one because I don't want to have to have another machine I can't get cylinders for a couple of years down the line.

[Pete]

Are other Tescos merging the customer service desks and fag / lottery kiosks? I thought it was just to reduce staff / gain space but actually its resulted in a much better service as instead of having one person on a two till kiosk, and one on a tiny customer service desk, you now have three people on a massive customer service desk that can flex up to five if needed.

They've added a little forex hut too, although its not open yet. Tesco's rates tend to be very good and they have better opening hours than Thomas Cook who once shut the door in my face because it was 4:59.