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Comment by pbreit | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much every item I buy at Safeway is "discounted".

Promos and discounts are a core component of many (not all!) businesses.

Safeway is sort of extreme. Many grocery chains do have some sort of loyalty card discount. But Safeway has huge discounts all over the place to the point where I make a point of slipping a loyalty card in my travel folder when I go somewhre that Safeways are common.

> slipping a loyalty card in my travel folder

Serious suggestion: try (your area code)-867-5309 and it will probably work.

people are so strangely pliant about these loyalty programs.

Safeway discounts on many items can be 25-50% off. Normally I don't but some stores make it quite expensive not to use them.

That’s why I like to use the meme card number to at least mix my data with as many other people as possible.

If you don't use a card at Safeway you are way overpaying. It isn't a "discount", the list price isn't competitive. But the phone number I give them is one that I had 20 years ago, so it's of limited use to them.

I actually think Safeway is getting exactly what they want from you. They don't care to know who you are, they just want to know the frequency and correlation between the items you buy.

That's not to say it's a bad thing that they are getting what they want. Not all data collection is an evil surveillance problem. Data can be useful for society too.

I refuse to shop at Safeway if I have any other choice. The Safeways I've seen display their discount as $1.00 off their (excessive) price, and then expect me to believe that I'm getting a discount instead of getting the real price that they artificially raised by $1? Feels pretty insulting and manipulative.

(444) 444-4444 also works

10-4

(000) 000-0000 also worked last time I checked. It frequently has gas rewards as well.

You can just use 555-555-5555 at Safeway and it works, I've never owned a card.

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