Okay, so I’m going to hit a touchy topic in some circles. Recently, SavingStar changed their terms to indicate that their eCoupons are not intended to be stacked with paper coupons. This is a recent change in the past few months but it is a change nonetheless that many of us in the blogging and frugal community have been made aware.

From the FAQ Page: 

Do SavingStar eCoupons stack with in-store discounts or manufacturer’s coupons?

SavingStar eCoupons will work whether or not you combine them with other services’ coupons, but they are not intended to be used this way. Generally, manufacturers state that it is against their policies for shoppers to redeem more than one manufacturer’s coupon for the same purchase. Using in-store coupons in combination with SavingStar eCoupons is not a problem.

In the future, we may implement mechanisms to limit the combination of SavingStar eCoupons with other manufacturer coupons.

SavingStar is sort of giving mixed messages, right? They can’t stop you from stacking the paper the coupons with their eCoupons at this time but they want you to know their eCoupons are not intended to be used in this way.

Does that mean you should do it anyway? Personally, I want to keep things as ethical as possible here at BargainBriana.com so I do not actively promote deals that require stacking the eCoupons with paper coupons unless allowed by a particular store. Since SavingStar specifically states that this is not the way their coupons are intended to be promoted, you will not see these particular deals here.  Am I saying it’s unethical to use these coupons in this manner? It’s really a gray area but my interpretation on the side of caution is to not actively promote the stacking of manufacturer paper coupons and manufacturer eCoupons.

Stacking could happen very easily by accident if you activate all your eCoupons in a month and forget about a particular eCoupon that you have activated. This to me is unintentional and can be hard to track when you use multiple eCoupon services. Something you activated on December 1, may be hard to recall that it was activated when you go to buy the product on December 31.

If any of you have been around for awhile, you know you use to be able to stack Cellfire eCoupons until Cellfire and the manufacturer’s caught on to the practice. Many of the manufacturer’s were not happy to know that the savings were being duplicated over multiple channels.  Cellfire, however, was able to figure out a way to kick out the paper coupons with their system.

What are your thoughts?