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If you do NOT live in a large city, you may want to change your location(or zipcode) on cellfire to a larger city, then you will have more coupon choices pop up.

There is some great confusion, and for good reason, about all the loadable coupons and how they work. I hope this thread will help clear up some of the questions and help answer what we know so far about these coupons.

As of this writing, there are 5 sites that allow you to load coupons onto your Kroger(and Safeway-Randalls-Tom Thumb) cards. Each works a little differently, thus some of the cause for confusion. I am going to provide you the knowledge I have of these coupons and how they work. Most this knowledge has been acquired through using them myself, as well as reading others experiences in using these coupons. Hopefully this will be clear for everyone and will not make you run in circles.

The five sites are Cellfire, Shortcuts, PGesaver, Unilever and Upromise.

The first 4 are loadable coupons that actually come off at the register with your qualifying purchase. The fifth, Upromise, does not appear on your receipt tape, but gets added to your Upromise account at a later date. For more information on Upromise, please visit this forum, http://www.hotcouponworld.com/forums/upromise/

A couple things that are similar in all these programs.

1. These coupons are ONE time use only. Meaning, if the coupon is for $.50 off one yogurt, it will only take off .50 ONCE regardless of how many yogurts you buy. It is possible for the coupon to reset with a different expiration date. In this case, you would be able to load that second coupon and repeat the savings.

2. These coupons do NOT double or triple. They are at face value only.

3. These coupons will not come off on manager special items. If the true barcode of the product is not scanned, the system will not register the item as being participating. (This does not include reduced for quick sale where the original barcode is scanned)

4. Each site only allows 50 active coupons on your Kroger card at a time. IE 50 on cellfire, 50 on shortcuts, etc.

5. Each coupon will stay on your card until it has been redeemed or it expires.

6. As of right now, these coupons can be used in conjuction with paper manufacturer coupons (including printable coupons) for additional savings! 

Now to separate the uniqueness of each program.

Cellfire

Cellfire is a site that you need a phone number to set up your account. It asks for your cell number and sends a one time text code upon set up but people have had success using home phone numbers as well. Once you have an account, you need to add your store loyalty cards and then you can log in and load the coupons directly from your pc onto your shopper card.

Cellfire resets their coupons every other Tuesday. You have two weeks to load the current set of coupons to your card. You have another two weeks before these coupons actually expire. For this reason, you can have two of the same coupon active on your card at the same time.

Now the way cellfire is unique. When the coupons reset, it will show you what is available to load on your grocer cards. It will show each of these in separate lists, so you need to pay close attention to make sure you are loading it to the appropriate card. The interesting thing I found about Cellfire is you can only load a particular coupon on one of your loyalty cards at a time. For example, if you see a coupon for $1 off Yogurt and you load it to your Kroger card, the page will refresh and you will notice the $1 yogurt coupon is no longer available on your Randalls list. Now, if you go to Kroger and buy the above mentioned yogurt, you will notice later that day or the next, you will now have that coupon available to load on your Randalls card (only if it is still within the 2 week loadable period)! Very important piece of knowledge to have, especially if you know of a huge promo going on at one store versus the other, so choose your loads wisely if you shop both these chains.

Another difference between Kroger and Randalls when it comes to cellfire.

If you have 2 identical coupons for the $1 off yogurt loaded to your Kroger card, you need to purchase 2 of these yogurts for both of your $1 off loadables to come off.

At Randalls, it appears you only need to purchase 1 for ALL loadables to come off.

For more FAQ answers, go here, http://www.cellfire.com/help/faq.php.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts staggers their time for loading coupons and I have not quite figured out the pattern (if there is one). There is also the chance to have duplicate coupons due to the staggering expiration dates. Try to check weekly for new coupons. Shortcuts allows you to enter multiple grocer cards as well. The difference is they do not have a separate list for each store. They simply offer the coupon and you load it to your account. For instance, if you have entered both a Kroger and a Randalls’ card, it will take off that coupon at either store with qualifying purchase. The interesting thing here is that you can only use that coupon at ONE of the stores. With our $1 yogurt coupon example, I then go to Kroger and buy the yogurt and get my $1 off (as noted under the item on the receipt). That coupon is now GONE from my account and will not be available for use at Randalls’.

Shortcuts however follows the same rule as Cellfire when it comes to how many come off.

If you have 2 identical coupons for the $1 off yogurt loaded to your Kroger card, you need to purchase 2 of these yogurts for both of your $1 off loadables to come off.

At Randalls, it appears you only need to purchase 1 for ALL loadables to come off.

For more FAQ answers, go here, http://shortcuts.com/help.

PgEsaver

Pg Esaver appeared to be following a quarterly reset schedule up until their most recent reset. The last batch released have a 2 month life span. There has never been the chance for overlapping like coupons as these all expire at the end of a month and new ones are not released until the start of the following month.

Pg esaver allows for a different coupon options for different stores. It appears that these are not in conflict with one another and you can load all coupons on both cards without affecting the other. These also appear to remain on your online account for viewing even after redemption, but do in fact only come off your receipt purchases once.

For more FAQ answers and list of participating stores, go here, http://www.pgesaver.com/info/FAQ.aspx

Unilever

Unilever has just reappeared on the scene so I am not sure of the cycles of rotation or the quirks in the system with these. Currently there seems to be no downloadable coupons for this site, but check back periodically for updates to their site.

For more FAQ answers, go here,

http://www.softcoin.com/Sites/Unilever_MoreValue/Page/FAQPage;jsessionid=5A3B9E44465847B78863EC63617BE203.a06.

Upromise

Unlike the top 4 mentioned loadable sites, Upromise does not come off at time of purchase. You do have to go load your account with the coupons before shopping. When you load your account, you can purchase the participating products at any Upromise participating stores you have loaded to your Upromise account. Currently, I know Randalls, Kroger and CVS are Upromise participants, but I do believe Albertson still has store loyalty cards that you can use for Upromise. Just confirm you have the store loyalty cards tied to your Upromise, load the coupons onto your account, and Upromise will add that money into your account at a later time. I have yet to have a problem getting the items added, but it does seem to take awhile to show up in the account (several weeks minimum)