Today (September 29, 2013) is National Coffee Day. Lots of restaurants are giving out free coffee to commemorate the day.
I would say that my National Coffee Day experience was a fail. I went to a national chain restaurant that I won’t name around lunch time. It has a rewards card program and its “free coffee” deal was attached to the rewards card. I didn’t have the card with me because too many stores have rewards cards now. I try to limit the ones I carry around to the stores I frequent a lot. I also use an app on my iPhone to “carry” them around.
Anyway, I go and order my coffee. Coffee with hazelnut flavor. Mmm. So good. When the cashier asks for my rewards card, I offer to provide my phone number instead. She says the system or screen that allows them to enter numbers is down. I ask if they can scan my phone. They don’t have a scanner. They can only swipe cards. I was out of luck. Since I already ordered the coffee, I wasn’t comfortable just backing out of it after ordering, and it was only $2.02. So, I ended up paying for the coffee instead of getting it for free. (In this kind of situation, many stores will just comp such a low-cost item, but that’s another discussion…)
I used to get frustrated when I would miss out on deals like this. It was usually because of something I forgot to do though. However, there is one big lesson to learn from an experience like this that can make your quest to save money a little less stressful. And the lesson is this:
You won’t catch every deal.
You’re going to forget to ask for the discount.
You are going to forget a coupon at home.
Something with the rewards system is not going to work.
The store is going to be sold out of the product.
You’re going to forget about a deal altogether.
It’s okay.
This won’t be the only time a deal like this is available. It will happen again. Either suck up the extra cost or back out of the purchase. Usually, the lost deal will only be a minuscule amount of money which shouldn’t be that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. Remember, this coffee only cost me $2.02. It is most certainly not a big deal.
One cool thing about it all is that this digital rewards card offer doesn’t expire until mid-October, so I still have time to use it!