Shoppers cash in on Asda Price Guarantee fiasco

Asda claims the Asda Price Guarantee (APG) is “unbeatable”, but savvy shoppers have found its Achilles heel - and are taking full advantage.

A flaw on the APG website means it is issuing bumper-size vouchers when certain ‘trigger’ products are bought alongside brands that other supermarkets have on multibuy promotions.

In a trial by The Grocer this week, the APG mistakenly calculated Asda’s rivals to be over 2000% cheaper on certain multi-buy products, and erroneously issued vouchers, based on its miscalculations, of up to 70% of the total Asda shop.

To test the flaw, The Grocer bought two baskets of items at Asda. The first basket included eight items that were on 3 for 2 offers at Waitrose, as well as a ‘trigger’ item - in this case a 38p pot of Ambrosia rice pudding.

After the receipt details were entered, the APG website correctly identified Asda’s basket cost £25.30. But it wrongly computed that Waitrose’s identical basket cost a staggeringly low £8.57. According to the Waitrose website, it should have cost £30.87.

As Asda’s basket was £5.57 cheaper, The Grocer should not have received an APG voucher. Instead, it was issued with one for £17.59 - effectively a discount of 70%. A second basket, which totalled £16.88, resulted in an £11.10 voucher being erroneously issued - a discount of over 65%.

To add insult to injury, shoppers admitted on MoneySavingExpert.com - where they had learned of the glitch - that they were returning their shopping for cash refunds, while keeping their vouchers to spend in store.

Some shoppers have even claimed that using a different computer or email address when entering their receipt details allows them to sidestep the £100 per month sum Asda has set as a redemption safeguard.

The problems are reminiscent of Tesco’s disastrous Double the Difference promotion. Tesco was forced to pull DTD in April last year after claiming a “cottage industry of savvy and determined people” had exploited the deal.

An Asda spokeswoman said it was working with mySupermarket, which built and powers the Asda Price Guarantee, to fix the problem.

“We are aware of a small glitch in the APG, and are in the process of addressing it,” she said. “A small number of savvy customers have taken advantage and claimed larger than normal vouchers. The tweaks we are making will have little or no impact on the vast majority of customers who are using the APG to compare the cost of their weekly shop.”