Best deal/coupon for on-line wine shopping

[Robert_M_yers]

I tend to agree with Mike R. that it’s time to move on from this subject. However, as a new contributor this forum, and a relative novice at buying wine on wine.com, I thought it might be worthwhile to provide a brief account of my experience.

I maintain a fairly large cellar and buy a lot of wine online but had mostly avoided wine.com because, despite their huge selection (12,811 different wines in stock right now; 393,369 if you include out of stock!), their prices seemed exorbitant compared to their online competitors. Their odd business model seems to involve showering the world, by mail and email, with a veritable blizzard of discount codes of every amount and every minimum purchase requirement, in the hopes of enticing wine lovers into the game of finding just the right code to bring their crazy prices down to something reasonable. Then my wife—who has never in her life bought wine online—suddenly received a $100 off $300 code in the mail, passed it to me, and I was off on my own little wine.com odyssey. Suffice it to say that, to become a regular wine.com customer, you have to spend a lot of time searching the web and haunting places like wine berserkers forums, in a desperate search for some new code that will bring a few of those 12,811 overpriced wines within reach. When you find a code that works, it’s often unclear whom it was meant for, and what restrictions if any were supposed to govern its use.

My point is that this is a bizarre business model, one that basically forces their customer base to become feverish discount code addicts. So, if a software glitch occasionally causes very favorable codes to become widely available, and they get used by customers they were not intended for, I for one hold wine.com partly responsible, and I am inclined to look on the users of those codes with some indulgence.

Welcome to the board.

I keep wanting to move on, really…but folks telling us to move on just pulls me back in for some dumb reason. It’s really not that confusing, Coupons aren’t that confusing, referral coupons aren’t that confusing and the glitch was obvious.

The business model isn’t that confusing either. They are a national retailer whom doesn’t care to be the price leader, because they are THE national online retailer. A referral bonus is a payment for doing the retailer a favor ie finding them a possible new customer. It’s a cheap customer acquisition cost for them. Finding a glitch and generating unlimited codes for free money isn’t what they had in mind and to counter otherwise is not genuine.

Discount coupons are used to bring current and new customers into the fold to keep them buying. If this weren’t true they wouldn’t have dozens of them going at one time. They would also have a disclaimer that it’s for new customers only, I do not think they would overlook that limitation after dozens of coupons Have been made available. Notice how fast they turned off the referral link! Somebody did screw something up with the referral code and Some pounced. Trying to compare the two coupons is ridiculous.

If your $100 off $300 dollars coupon happened to take $299 off instead when you punched it in would you go back and use every possible Coupon for $1 Per order?

[A_d_a_m_S]

Welcome to the board.

I keep wanting to move on, really…but folks telling us to move on just pulls me back in for some dumb reason. It’s really not that confusing, Coupons aren’t that confusing, referral coupons aren’t that confusing and the glitch was obvious.

The business model isn’t that confusing either. They are a national retailer whom doesn’t care to be the price leader, because they are THE national online retailer. A referral bonus is a payment for doing the retailer a favor ie finding them a possible new customer. It’s a cheap customer acquisition cost for them. Finding a glitch and generating unlimited codes for free money isn’t what they had in mind and to counter otherwise is not genuine.

Discount coupons are used to bring current and new customers into the fold to keep them buying. If this weren’t true they wouldn’t have dozens of them going at one time. They would also have a disclaimer that it’s for new customers only, I do not think they would overlook that limitation after dozens of coupons Have been made available. Notice how fast they turned off the referral link! Somebody did screw something up with the referral code and Some pounced. Trying to compare the two coupons is ridiculous.

If your $100 off $300 dollars coupon happened to take $299 off instead when you punched it in would you go back and use every possible Coupon for $1 Per order?

Thanks, what you say makes sense. I guess I just prefer wine dealers that a) charge reasonable prices upfront, b) offer discounts for transparent reasons, like when you buy by the case or if you pay a fee to get free shipping all year (and I applaud wine.com for Stewardship), and c) don’t incentivize their most serious customers to start desperately searching the internet, forums, etc., for random codes. And that model seems less open to abuse by code-addicts.

[A_d_a_m_S]

Thanks, what you say makes sense. I guess I just prefer wine dealers that a) charge reasonable prices upfront, b) offer discounts for transparent reasons, like when you buy by the case or if you pay a fee to get free shipping all year (and I applaud wine.com for Stewardship), and c) don’t incentivize their most serious customers to start desperately searching the internet, forums, etc., for random codes. And that model seems less open to abuse by code-addicts.

One last point, and then I promise to stop prolonging this tiresome topic (I’d much rather post about the 95 different bottlings of Brunello in my cellar):

It seems only a relatively short step, morally speaking, from opening a second wine.com account with a different email address to take advantage of the known 100/300 and 50/150 codes twice (as some on this forum have recommended doing, without inciting controversy) to fiddling around with referral codes (including self-referrals) that weren’t meant for you. Those codes are a gateway drug!

[joejolesch]

So much talk about code addiction and comparisons to gateway drugs…I mean, I can quit anytime, y’know? (Checks “Best deal/coupon for on-line wine shopping” for the 7th time”)…

…so…any new codes?

[YLee]

I guess nobody got the $25 referral bonus?
I actually did refer a legit new member but havent seen my bonus.

[Mike_R1]

So much talk about code addiction and comparisons to gateway drugs…I mean, I can quit anytime, y’know? (Checks “Best deal/coupon for on-line wine shopping” for the 7th time”)…

…so…any new codes?

[J3ff_Sagan]

Not sure if this one was mentioned anywhere in this thread, but PS20 - $20 off $50. I believe expires 6/25

Thx for sharing - used late last night

[Dan_Hammer]

This thread is sounding more and more like the error fares / mistake fares threads on Flyertalk.

[Jim_Stewart]

Anybody using the wine.com app? I tried to download a while ago to an adroid device and was having problems. My wife just got an Iphone and I downloaded it to that and it seems pretty good. Any slick not obvious things you can do with it (coming from a windows laptop world so bear with me) Thanks.

[YLee]

I use the Android version. No issues.

[Philip_G]

Not sure if this one was mentioned anywhere in this thread, but PS20 - $20 off $50. I believe expires 6/25

Thx for sharing - used late last night

I don’t know, doesn’t seem ethical…nah!

With the Cali sale there are some nice bottles in the $60 range. Can’t decide:
Beaulieu Vineyard Reserve Tapestry 2015
Frog’s Leap Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
Hall Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2016
Heitz Cellar Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2015
Shafer TD-9 2017

I’ve had Tapestry and it’s pretty decent blend. I think the Hall I’ve had is overly sweet. Never had the Heitz Napa but that should be pretty drinkable now. Always liked Shafer Merlot better than TD-9…

[Robert_M_yers]

This thread is sounding more and more like the error fares / mistake fares threads on Flyertalk.

Do they deflect and make up irrational comparisons and excuses Over there as well? Link please

[Dav3_Dyr0ff]

Latest wine.com oddity: If I search for “Musar,” with “ships to MO” selected, I get a list of wines. Basically one vintage of each wine in their lineup. But the list is different depending on whether I’m logged in to my account. Without being logged in, for example (but - again - with the same “ships to” state selected either way, so that’s not the issue) it offers me only the 2011 vintage for the estate red, at $59.99, but when logged in, it offers me only the 2006 for $61.99. For the Juene red, it’s 2016 @ $19.99 when not logged in and 2018 @ $21.99 when logged in. And so forth, for each wine in their lineup. Each wine - only one vintage offered, but a different vintage and a different price, depending on whether I search “ships to MO” without logging in or search “ships to MO” when I’m logged in. Very odd.

Updated - I looked a little closer and noticed that one wine is the same vintage - the “Hochar Pere et Fils” red is 2016 both times - but it is still a different price - $29.99 when I’m not logged in and $31.99 when I am.

I just did the search again with Leoville Barton. Similar results. 2017 available in MO when not logged in, currently unavailable when logged in. 2011 @$83.99 when out, no 2011 at all when in. 2018 futures available both times, but $2.00 more when I’m logged in. No 2019 futures when out, available when in.

Second update - Most of the price differences have been $2.00 a bottle and have been higher when I’m logged in. But 1996 Leoville Barton is $259.97 when not logged in and $199.97 when I’m logged in. Then I opened a third window, this time in a different browser, also not logged in, and got mostly the same results as when I’m logged in. Odd.

[Chris_Crutchfield]

Latest wine.com oddity: If I search for “Musar,” with “ships to MO” selected, I get a list of wines. Basically one vintage of each wine in their lineup. But the list is different depending on whether I’m logged in to my account. Without being logged in, for example (but - again - with the same “ships to” state selected either way, so that’s not the issue) it offers me only the 2011 vintage for the estate red, at $59.99, but when logged in, it offers me only the 2006 for $61.99. For the Juene red, it’s 2016 @ $19.99 when not logged in and 2018 @ $21.99 when logged in. And so forth, for each wine in their lineup. Each wine - only one vintage offered, but a different vintage and a different price, depending on whether I search “ships to MO” without logging in or search “ships to MO” when I’m logged in. Very odd.

Updated - I looked a little closer and noticed that one wine is the same vintage - the “Hochar Pere et Fils” red is 2016 both times - but it is still a different price - $29.99 when I’m not logged in and $31.99 when I am.

I just did the search again with Leoville Barton. Similar results. 2017 available in MO when not logged in, currently unavailable when logged in. 2011 @$83.99 when out, no 2011 at all when in. 2018 futures available both times, but $2.00 more when I’m logged in. No 2019 futures when out, available when in.

I am not able to reproduce this when I try it while logged into my account vs. in Incognito mode.

[Dav3_Dyr0ff]

I found the issue.

On the one that was giving me odd results, the url had a “q” inserted before the “www”.

I removed that and the results now match.

Anyone know what that is? Could it be some kind of spoof site? (Luckily that was the one I was not logged into).

[Dav3_Dyr0ff]

FWIW, the guy on the other end of the chat window said that the qwww.wine (etc) site is not one of their legit addresses. I don’t think I tried logging in there but in case I did I went ahead and changed my wine.com password anyway.

Let's Be Careful Out There | 'Hill Street Blues' Supercut

[Chris_Crutchfield]

I found the issue.

On the one that was giving me odd results, the url had a “q” inserted before the “www”.

I removed that and the results now match.

Anyone know what that is? Could it be some kind of spoof site? (Luckily that was the one I was not logged into).

No, it is not possible for it to be a spoof site. It’s a different subdomain of wine.com, but for what purpose I do not know. Do you happen to remember how you navigated to it?

I am able to reproduce the price difference you saw by hitting that site. I wonder if you log in and place an order it will go through with the price listed. That would be super interesting to try…

[Philip_G]

I found the issue.

On the one that was giving me odd results, the url had a “q” inserted before the “www”.

I removed that and the results now match.

Anyone know what that is? Could it be some kind of spoof site? (Luckily that was the one I was not logged into).

No, it is not possible for it to be a spoof site. It’s a different subdomain of wine.com, but for what purpose I do not know. Do you happen to remember how you navigated to it?

I am able to reproduce the price difference you saw by hitting that site. I wonder if you log in and place an order it will go through with the price listed. That would be super interesting to try…

I stumbled on this recently but didn’t notice the price differences. I was able to sign in but it didn’t show me having Stewardship and showed my last order as 2018. I didn’t notice the qwww at the time. See the same thing now with qwww and additional wines but my stewardship doesn’t show up.

Agree it is a subdomain and shouldn’t be spoofed.

[Chris_Crutchfield]

If that’s the case, then it’s likely a dev or staging server and the user data is probably an old copy of the production user database (given your order history and lack of stewardship). Most likely if you logged in and placed an order it would not get fulfilled, and hopefully your card wouldn’t even be charged. But who knows, really.

No idea why it’s publicly accessible… most people lock these sorts of things down.

[Philip_G]

Looks like its a snapshot including user info, pw, wine database. I changed my www pw but this didn’t change the qwww pw.