Last night, we posted about a great stacking deal at JCPenney. There were some amazing prices available by stacking promotions that perhaps weren’t intended to stack. Unfortunately, the coupon terms have changed and some exclusions have been added. Some of the items I ordered last night are now excluded from the sale (e.g. dress shoes and most women’s clothes).
However, there are still some excellent bargains and there are a few updates on saving a bit more based on your payment method.
How it works
There are a lot of items that are currently labeled as Buy One, Get One 50% off:
However, the sale is a little better than that: As long as you add different items to your cart (i.e. not two identical items of the same size and color), it is providing the BOGO discount to all of the items. For example,the following shirt costs $30:
With the BOGO 50% off, two shirts should be $45 total ($30 + half of $30). In other words, each shirt should cost $22.50 if you buy in multiples of 2. However, if you add 3 of those shirts to your cart and they aren’t exactly the same size and color, it will drop the price of each one to $22.50.
Last night, you could have added 5 of those shirts to your cart (provided you didn’t repeat an exact duplicate in size and color) and your cart total would have been $112.50. You could then apply coupon code 47GOSHOP and it would knock a further 65% off of $100 or more, dropping your total price to just $39.38. Combine that with 15% cash back from ShopAtHome (since expired) and 5% back from a 5 Back Visa Gift Card and your net cost would be about $31.50 for 5 shirts. Unfortunately, Jockey is now excluded from the sale (“branded activewear” is excluded). So you can’t do this with that exact shirt, but the method lives on with other items…
Men’s ties
There are a number of men’s neck ties on sale for Buy One, Get One for a Penny. You may have noticed this one in the photo above.
There are many different styles at that price, you just have to hunt around through the men’s ties section. If you were to buy 2 different ties that qualify for this price, you would pay $40 ($20 each). JCP doesn’t really add the penny for the second tie. Remembering that they apply the same price to multiplies when you add 2 or more, this means that you can keep adding different “Buy One, Get One for a Penny” ties and each one will show up at $20 in your cart whether or not you have an even number of ties.
Five ties comes to a total of $100. You can now apply coupon 47GOSHOP to save 65%, bringing the total price for all 5 ties to just $35.
I just put 5 random ties in my cart — there are plenty of styles from which to choose for just $7 a tie – before cash back and payment method savings.
Shirts and ties
But maybe you don’t want that many ties. You need at least a couple of shirts to rotate with your new ties. Most of the Stafford and Van Heusen shirts are working with both the BOGO 50% off sale and the 65% off $100 or more coupon. For example, here’s 2 shirts and 3 ties for $39.80 with a combination of BOGO 50% off + code 47GOSHOP for 65% off $100 or more.
Notice that the shirts can be the same size as long as they are in different colors. If you want two of the same color, you’ll have to order two different sizes. If you later return one, I’m not sure what you’ll get back — but since the cart and order confirmation show the price breakdown you see above, I think you’d get $9.45 back if you returned one of the shirts. I can’t confirm that.
To make it easier to search, choose the check box on the left to show items that qualify for “Buy More, Save More”.
With shirts, you can narrow it down by brand. I believe all of the Stafford and Van Heusen shirts work, so if you select those it will help you narrow it down. Here is a link to the sorting shown in the image below. As you can see, that narrows it down to 252 products. There are a lot of shirts from which to choose, varying in price/quality/style.
This could be a particularly good deal for those looking for Big & Tall styles. This shirt has a “regular price” of $70 and comes down to just $18.37 with this sale:
While the $70 regular price is surely a bit inflated, $18.37 for a Big & Tall non-iron dress shirt is a good deal.
Pants work, too
This discount works on many pairs of pants as well. For example, if your cart total gets up to $100 before the 47GOSHOP coupon, each of these pairs of Dockers (originally $50) comes down to $13.12.
You could even throw together two shirts, two pairs of pants, and two ties for less than sixty bucks.
And that’s before stacking for any savings through the methods coming next. After stacking 12% portal cash back, you’re down to $52.04. If you also have a 5 Back Visa Gift Card, the net cost would be $49.08 for two pairs of pants, two shirts, and two ties.
Maximizing savings with cash back and payment method
Cash Back
Unfortunately, ShopAtHome has dropped the cash back rate at JCPenney. However, Swagbucks is offering 12% cash back today.
Five Back Gift Card
Stack a further 5% cash back if you have any Five Back Visa Gift Cards.
JCPenney is one of the merchants that earn 5% back with those gift cards. I had forgotten about this when I first posted the deal last night and only added this a few hours later. I recently bought these at Office Max during one of the instant rebate sales, so I had already paid less than face value and will now get 5% back (automatically credited back to the Visa gift card in a few days). If you have any of these gift cards, this could be a great way to use them and stack a little more savings.
Discover Cash
If you have some Discover Cash in your Discover account, you should be able to buy a $50 JCPenney gift card for $45 as an alternative to the Visa Gift Cards above. Note that this may invalidate your cash back. Results in the Laboratory are mixed for using gift cards and earning cash back. Still, you could give it a shot. At the very least, you’ll get a little extra mileage out of your Discover cash.
Final Word
The discounts are more limited, but certainly still working on men’s shirts, ties and pants. While women’s and children’s clothes were working with these discounts last night, I haven’t found any items in those categories that still work despite a lot of hunting around. If you find items beyond men’s clothes that still work, let us know what you found in the comments. Regardless, the savings on men’s clothes is great. If you thought you missed it last night, take another look — there are some deals waiting to be stacked.
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[…] card at a number of retailers (the list can be seen here on the Five Back Visa website). We posted a deal yesterday (and one the day before) at JCPenney that could utilize one of these gift cards for […]
Is it me or has anyone else noticed that the quality of department store clothing has dropped precipitously since the rise of amazon? Or maybe it was when everyone moved production to China? I guess both happened around the same time. Last time I ordered from a dept store (I believe it was Macys) the entire order had to go back due to mfg. defects (such as a hole in a sweater from a well-known designer brand) or looking nothing like the online picture. It looks like a good deal but I just don’t trust department stores anymore when it comes to clothes. No wonder they’re a dying business.
I saw this on Dan’s Deals earlier. Ended up buying 2 dress shoes, 5 pants, and 11 shirts for only about $210! What a great deal.
are you sure the Swagbucks portal and use of coupon code would stack??? dont portals often invalidate payouts if coupon used?
Coupon codes sometimes invalidate cash back if that coupon code is not listed on the portal website (sometimes, not always — tends to vary by portal and retailer and type of coupon).
In this case, the code 47GOSHOP is listed on Swagbucks if you look at it (you might have to click to reveal the code, but it’s there). So in this case, yes I am sure that the code will not invalidate your cash back.
Nick, YOU ARE A GOD.
I have a tip: $40 for $50 JCP gift cards at Safeway brands (Albertson’s, Shaw’s, etc.) right now.
:-).
Nice idea! I actually thought about something similar — there is a $10 back on $50 Amex Offer at Office Max that I have synced and haven’t used. The main reason I didn’t suggest that was because I didn’t know how long the deal would last — but you are right that the 20% off on that gift card would be a way to stack additional savings!
Hi Nick – Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed post, up to your usual high standards. A few things I can add:
At one point in your post, you surmise that the $9.45 price for a shirt is what you’d get if you return the item. Based on my experience and several conversations with JCP.com phone reps, you are correct about this. They allocate the discount for a BOGO or BOG50 evenly across the items so that you’ll get a proportional amount if you return an item. (That is, you can’t buy one, get the second for a penny, and then return the first item for a refund of the full price.)
Second – One other option for stacking is to use MileagePlus X to buy a JCP gift card for the amount of your purchase. Right now, JCP is at 3x on MPX, which I believe is the standard rate.
Third – In my experience, I have received portal benefits (at various times, AA or United miles; I don’t recall ever using a cashback portal) on JCP purchases where I used a gift card to pay.
But Lord help you in getting credit back, if you return a JCP.com item where you used a gift card to pay. Apparently, their policy is to send you a check for the refund. But don’t be getting any MS ideas here. It took me about 5 months and about a dozen touch points, including emails to senior management, before I got a refund check. That said, every JCP phone rep I’ve talked to has been unfailingly polite and has tried to be helpful, but they are severely challenged by the limitations of their systems.
Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the return. In this case, that might be a benefit for someone who doesn’t actually want 5 shirts but would like three at nine bucks and change each.
MileagePlus X App is a good option. You could also buy gift cards online for a 10%+ discount (or at $10 off of $50 as mentioned below this). Since Lab results were mixed (and I didn’t know if there would be time for the Safeway/Albertson’s/Office Max/Online secondary GC market), I didn’t suggest that beyond the Discover Cash. But maybe I should have. Glad to hear you’ve had positive experiences shopping through portals with JCP gift cards. If you do so this time around, make sure to report your experience to the lab so we can get current DPs.
Finally, not too surprised to hear about the challenges getting a refund. I’ve not needed a refund on anything in recent memory, but all customer service interactions I’ve ever had via phone with JCP have been as you described :-).