Randalls Just For U - giveaway expired

Ok, so I asked you for questions you had about the Just for U program before I went to the Blogger event here in Houston on July 24th(yes I know I am LATE to post! What is new, lol) That pre-event post was HERE.  Feel free to hop over to that post and get caught up, but I will give a refresher and a few more details HERE:

So what exactly is the just for u program?

Well as the name implies, it is Just for U.  This program is catered to YOUR shopping habits (to an extent).
You know that loyalty card you have been carrying around in your purse/wallet/keychain for awhile now?
Well, that loyalty card has been telling Safeway(Randalls, Tom Thumb, etc) just what you like to buy and how often you buy it.  The benefit to this is catered coupons to YOUR personal buying habits!

Randalls is taking a NEW approach on savings and trying to offer more value to your shopping by offering MORE value to your shopping!  There are 3 sections to the Just for U program, each a bit different, but easy to tackle quickly.

So lets get started, for Randalls shoppers, click here, for Tom Thumb, click here, or for my RARE Safeway reader, click here (and if you are actually under the Safeway banner, please post here as I would love to hear I have a shopper there too :D)

Ok, so the Coupon Center is the first section when you log in

The Coupon Center is VERY active!  In this section you will find all the coupons from Cellfire, Shortcuts, P&G Esaver and several others.  Randalls has partnered with these 3rd parties to bring all the coupons in one spot so you don't have to log into 4-5 different sites to load coupons.
There are 2 advantages to this strategy
1. You only have to go to one site to get ALL the coupons loaded up to your card
2. We were told even when the load limit has been readed at these 3rd party sites, Randalls gets different load limits so you might still be able to score the coupons here, even if they have exceeded the print/load limits at other sites!

If you are in a hurry, we were advised these coupons are organized based on your shopping habits that are tied to your store card, so the first 2 pages should have the most relevant coupons for you(sort of purchase history).  If you don't trust programmers(yes I am anal) you can also do your own sort by new offers or offers about to expire.
Most of the offers in this section are considered manufacturer discounts and thus cannot be combined with manufacturer paper coupons.  If you forget these are there and use paper coupons the registers are programmed to offer the best deal so will beep if paper coupon does not offer better discount or will KICK out the electronic coupon if the paper coupon offers better value :D (SCORE for Randalls on benefiting the customer in THAT programming!)
So what does this mean for you?  Well, in this section, if you see a "save $X on X product", that is a coupon and cannot be combined with a paper coupon.  If you see a price point offer, like recently I have a $2.88 each price on Minute Maid orange juice limit 2 in this section.  I can combine that with a paper coupon to save extra money but these are typically ONE time savings.
Some have limits and some don't, but MOST if not all these offers are one time only which means ONCE you have purchased at least ONE of these, those savings will be removed from your card in subsuquent visits.  Pay attention to the limits in this section but keep in mind THOSE offers are only in a SINGLE transaction!

The second section is the personalized deals

These are where you should really see your personalized shopping habits.  And for this reason, this is going to be a nightmare section for a blogger like me(lol).  This section is going to take the last 6 months of your shopping habits (100% based on your shopper card) and so what I have on my personalized deals might not always be what you have on your personalized deals.  The good news is, IF you have the same personalized offers locally, they will be at the same exact price point as mine.  For example, right now one of my personalized offers is for Pillsbury Brownie Mix for .99 a box. Everyone that has that offer in my region will have it at the same price as me, but NOT everyone in my region will have that as a personalized price.
This is gonna be interesting to blog about, so please keep in mind to view your personalized offers for additional matchups I might miss on items I don't purchase!!!!!!
The GREAT news about this, is these are price point offers so can totally be combined with paper coupons!!!
Another bonus, these deals are UNLIMITED for the time line of the offers!  These can last UP to 4 weeks!
Right now I have an awesome offer for $5 off a Ranchers Reserve beef purchase of $20 or more, once per day.  So basically, I can get $20 worth of beef for $15 daily from now until 8/7!
Again, these are default sorted by your spending habits, so the first page or 2 are the important ones if you are in a time crunch!
And finally, the third section is the club savings section:

If you are in a HUGE rush, don't even bother in this section.  This section is actually a breakdown of everything that is currently on sale at your most shopped store* and your offers.
While your printed ad only has about 400 items in it, there can be over 5,000 items on sale.  So while you will note many of these items are already in the weekly ad, some are not and this will give you the breakdown of the deals at your local store.*
*As you know from my post HERE, prices can vary on the same product in the same region, your club savings will only show you the sale price in your highest spend store in the last quarter.

Ok, so the additonal features, for those of you with smartphones, you can download the app and have it open on your phone, OR if you are like me and HAVE to have a printed listed(that you can scribble all over,lol) you can go that route too.
Please note there is no app for those with Windows phones or Blackberrys. If you are a Windows phone user, you have hopes of having a workable app in 2013,for Blackberry users, give up now and get a phone that doesn't strain your eyes (just kidding, but Randalls does not see a workable app in your future!)

Ok, are you still with me?  Are you upset because you don't have a smart phone?  The good news is EVERY Safeway should be equipped with a tablet or device of some kind that you can load coupons onto your card directly while in store.  They also should all have printers in case you have short memory like me AND they only ask you to wait 5 minutes before check out for the coupons to work (and that 5 mins is only in case of weak internet/cell signal!)

So, feel free to ask any other questions of this program, If I cannot answer, I will inquire with Safeway on your behalf to find the answer.

So now, the sweet stuff!!

How does sweet stuff sound?? How does $50 in free spending money sound???
Still interested????? Read ON!

I spent the day with the wonderfully nice folks at Randalls learning all about their new program Just for U.

Part of ther event involved Randalls bussing us bloggers over to the beautiful Randalls store located at Westheimer and Gessner to shop and test out the Just for U.
The awesome folks at Randalls let 10 of us bloggers (at least 6 of us coupon bloggers!) loose in their store!  I have to admit I was 2% from having the highest savings but that was partially because my main goal was to find the flaw in the system!  I have to adimt I am the blogger/couponer stores LOVE to hate!  I looked over all my offers and KNEW I found a potential glitch in the system (and I was correct!)

I had a personalized price on Safeway Pasta for .84 unlimited for 12-16 oz.  As most my readers know I majored in math so numbers stick in my head as well as a few other deets.  Well, in my past shopping experience, Lasagna noodles have NEVER been part of sale price HOWEVER, the only restrictions listed were 12-16 oz( lasagna noodles were 16 oz).*
*As I was informed in this meeting with the folks at Safeway, the details should clearly state the requirements and if the discounts do not come off, it is because 1. you did not purchase the correct item based on restrictions, or 2. a rare "bug" in the system - these are bound to happen in all programming**

**As a couponer I strive to find the rare exceptions to programming and improve upon them as I have taken programming and know not even the best programmers can prepare for every "WHAT IF"  I intentionally LOOK for those "what ifs" SERIOUSLY!  I am a 9+ yrs couponer and don't post many FAILS I test cause that is totally boring for most readers.  But trust me, I am out there testing and IMPROVING these deals daily for ALL of us!

I have to say, the Randalls folks were AWESOME!  Upon walking in the doors I was greeted by Connie Yates!  OMG AWESOME (if you are asking who she is, you seriously need to spend more time shopping Safeway, Randalls, Tom Thumb! Connie Yates does the Good Neighbor Minute you hear over the PA in Safeway stores.

Ten bloggers showed up for this event and got schooled on the ins and outs of the program. I have to admit I was embarrassedly called out(as is typically for me) in these events for having a laundry list of questions
(yes I was called out and they even used my  page of questions as a visual aid* to the class)
I feel I have learned quite a bit about this program and feel confident that all stores should have been well educated on this program(my main stores contact has told me he has been to at least 8 meetings on this program!) that you should have limited issues*.
Worse case, if you have issues and don't have time in store to resolve, you can call the following number to get a credit on your account for the discount you were due (1-877-Safeway).

*I took 2 years of programming and thus know NO programming is flawless as humans are involved. Not only that every time you see Bonus packaging(ie a free trial size sample with purchase) that is a separate barcode.  If that has not be relayed to a third party reward program, it causes hiccups(ie a pain for the consumer- I have worked both sides of this equation so can see both sides of the fence)

Ok so Congrats to those of you that are still here and listening to me, I HOPE it is ALL of you cause seriously, winning small victories feel good but LEARNING TO FISH(IE learning to save) IS THE GOAL HERE!  While I  cannot and will not control those who win, learning HOW to shop will make this $50 gift card be easily worth $100 bucks.

So, to enter, here you go
The rules:
One entry per person/email
Anon entries only accepted with a way to contact you( ie an active email account)
You must have a contactable link or leave contact info to be eligible for entry
If you are reading via email, twitter or gplus you must post on the official blog post here to be eligible for the $50 gift card.
You will have 24 hrs to respond to the winning announcement I post on August 7th!
I will at my discretion delete ANY comments that are not directly posted to THIS blogspot blog with a active contact.

Disclaimer: All information was supplied by Safeway and I was given a gift card to shop with their Just for U program and offer my opinion as well as a bag of safeway brand products  I was offered additional gift cards to keep or giveaway.  As always all comments are my own and are not swayed in any way.

Don't understand my lingo? Go here.  

Some links provided in this post may help fund my blog - see my disclosure statement here.