Ocado tips, hacks, Toblerone and Christmas

[GaryUnicorn]

Carrying on from the old thread....

Still no email about the Christmas slots.

[AToBiba]

I got a delivery slot on the 22nd. In a normal year I'd just go to the supermarket myself to have control over everything, but this year is an unknown and I don't want to get caught in a scrum if another lockdown gets announced.

I'm not happy with how my weekly shop has got more expensive and some of my staple items are now unavailable to me. I'll sit tight for now, at least I benefited from being an existing customer this year, but I might try another supermarket in the new year.

M&S could potentially have a problem on their hands with the pre-prepared Christmas food this year too. If I can't invite people round, I don't see any point buying platters of salmon, etc. We might not even buy a turkey

[NotGenerationAlpha]

@Chaotic45 you can see if you have a Christmas slot on the website too. If you can, you have a gold star next to book a delivery on the top right of the page. The star takes you to the Christmas week calendar.

[Chaotic45]

@AToBiba I agree with you. I've even thought about doing Christmas food really differently this year- as it will be 3 of us rather than 20. So embrace the change and do things differently- Rather than do everything the same as usual and thus highlight what is missing if that makes sense?

[Chaotic45]

@NotGenerationAlpha ah thank you. I don't have the star so I'm guessing I'm not eligible.

I have booked a Waitrose slot, but I've read on mumsnet that they have a really poor track record for enormous amount of missing items in Christmas deliveries as they pick from a local store rather than a warehouse like Ocado.

TBH I think I need to get organised and try to order Christmas things in advance where I can rather than relying on a late Christmas slot as I am not going to do a supermarket dash to fill in any missing items- I'm avoiding all shops except my local coop.

[StanfordPines]

[quote Chaotic45]@StanfordPines I can't access the app- it's been telling me for ages that Ocado are rolling the app out to a few customers at a time. It's really odd. So I can't access slots via the app, and I can't see them on the website.

Maybe they are prioritising some customers first, and I'll have to wait? [/quote]
Have you tried deleting the app and downloading again?

[StanfordPines]

I just checked my address for Christmas deliveries, nothing at all. However my mum’s address (I was sending deliveries to her during lockdown down) has slots right up to the 24th!

[Chaotic45]

@StanfordPines yes I tried that last night and it's twill SATs the same thing. It's very strange!

[lexloofah]

It's like there are two or three different Ocado's.

No email but thanks to insomnia was online at 3am and up popped slots for Christmas week after being blanked out previously. All at varying prices, I chose a lunchtime £3.99 one I would have hesitated over 9.99 as already paying full price for smart pass.

It turns out I don't need much Christmas related stuff as getting meat, veg and milk locally so going to use it for the other meals that week

[crazyaccountant]

I'm in the NE and logged on just after midnight and got a £9.99 slot for 23rd, I have a smart pass but only had it a few months as Ocado only just expanded to our area shortly before lockdown. I normally prefer to shop myself particularly for Christmas but happy to have a slot this year, tried Waitrose when slots came out the other day but seemed to be immediately fully booked so clearly the online slots are super popular this year!

[Madcats]

Whilst I was waiting for my Ocado delivery last week, I found that I could launch the app and see the order amount and delivery update before the "go away, we don't like you" screen covered it.

With half term approaching I think I am going to start emptying the freezer to make room for some Xmas goodies in case our Waitrose gets raided by locusts at Christmas.

I wonder how Ocado's sale figures are doing? I feel fairly confident we've dropped a good £300 of monthly spend over the past 12 months.

[LittleRen]

@NotGenerationAlpha Thank you so much! I haven't had a xmas email but I went on my laptop and saw the star... got one for 23rd!!

[LittleRen]

May be worth others checking for the star as it's nowhere to be seen on the app!

[XiCi]

The star wasnt on my app but was there when I logged on to the site. Sane happened with the free percy pigs
I've caved and booked a slot on 23rd. I also registered for Waitrose and got one for 21st so will see what's what nearer the time and cancel one of them. I'm usually ok Xmas week. I have Xmas dinner/Boxing day sorted with M&S collection and usually just pick up a few bits from the shops. I'm in an area with a high covid rate though and god knows what the situation will be like at xmas so I'll decide nearer the time which option to go with.

[viccat]

Managed to book mine for the 23rd just after midnight last night too. I'm finding a lot of products in their Christmas section specifically are showing as out of stock for that delivery date, though! Things like brandy cream, lots of veg, almost all vegetarian mains and lots of things in general. Everything also seems much more expensive now - they always used to do Waitrose buy 2 for 3 or 3 for £X type deals on party food in previous years but nothing like that now.

[Fuss]

Still nothing for me.
I checked the app earlier as well and I'm not important enough for that either. Reinstalled it but still nothing. Deleted it now.

[viccat]

I wonder if the Christmas slots are released regionally/by area? A local friend who's only had a Smart Pass for a couple of months got her Christmas access at the same time as I did, and I've had my Smart Pass for at least 8 years if not longer.

[GiantKitten]

I’m very happy with Waitrose today. The £6 wine I ordered is OOS & they’ve replaced it with £10 wine at the same price

(I suppose that’s an unexpected advantage of the order being picked from limited stock in store?)

No Christmas email from Ocado yet, but we’re lucky to have Booths here, so we always get the fancy stuff there and the mundane from Lidl and Aldi.

[StanfordPines]

@viccat

I wonder if the Christmas slots are released regionally/by area? A local friend who's only had a Smart Pass for a couple of months got her Christmas access at the same time as I did, and I've had my Smart Pass for at least 8 years if not longer.

That might explain why there were still lots of slots for my mum’s address which is about 300 miles away and a different depot.

[GaryUnicorn]

Still no email about Xmas, and I’m in SE London. Anybody from round here had an email?

[CrunchyCarrot]

The only emails I ever get from Ocado are about my Smart pass. Nothing else. Thanks for the headsup about Xmas, got a slot on the 21st, not too bad.

[ElectricEels]

Still no xmas email here . South east.

[BentBastard]

I'm SE and had a Xmas email. Just had a peek and it's showing a decent number of slots still so they haven't all been snapped up yet.

[JuiceyBetty]

I’ve not got a smart pass anymore as I cancelled it in frustration when I couldn’t get on the site for weeks on end then when I did I couldn’t get a slot. I now regret cancelling it as I forgot about Christmas deliveries.

[StanfordPines]

If memory serves they tend to release a few extra slots every week or so.

[lexloofah]

Anyone else had their Favourites go haywire? I keep removing items from favourites but next time I look they are there again even when I haven't ordered them since. It's driving me nuts.

Presumably there is a set limit as well as when I do manage to unfavourite a few things, other items appear at the bottom of the list that weren't showing before

May you all be blessed with a Christmas delivery star this fine Sunday