I can see you at it now. You saunter along to your nearest Waitrose. Half your face covered. Times subscription token, My Waitrose card, Partnership credit card and shopping list in long life carrier. Not a care in the world. You carefully select your purchases and pick up a copy of the Daily Telegraph taking great care to ensure that the value of everything is at least £10 so that you will qualify for the Daily Telegraph free of charge under that wonderful scheme Waitrose has been running for some time now.
And you cockily reach your favourite checkout partner who tells you that 'I am so sorry but the rules have changed. We can no longer accept your voucher and give you a free newspaper in the same transaction.' You cannot believe it. You think you must be participating in a nightmare. Alas no. It is stark reality. It is Wednesday 16 June 2021 or any day thereafter and that, my friends, is the day on which Waitrose is changing its free newspaper scheme: you will no longer be able to procure a free newspaper and redeem your newspaper voucher in the same transaction. Why? Waitrose looks upon your practice as ' double dipping' and tells me that this means additional costs for the publishers which is why the commercial decision had been taken to mess up your day.
If you have time on your hands (and, presumably Waitrose hopes you won't), you can keep your Times voucher secreted under your armpit, spend at least £10 and collect the Daily Telegraph free, walk round the block, return to Waitrose and redeem your Times voucher as a second transaction and without making any other purchase. That, Waitrose assures me will be okay. Two separate transactions in one day.
But it won't feel quite the same.
