You can get a fiver off your groceries when you fill up you car this week - but there's a catch.
The deal is not available at all Asda supermarkets - and some of the region's most popular stores are not included in the offer, which Asda says is a trial running in only 30 shops in the UK. The supermarket chain has around 45 stores in the North East, but you can only take up the offer in the south of the region in the following stores:
- Sunderland
- Peterlee
- Thornaby
- Hartlepool
- Bishop Auckland
- Spennymoor
- Stockton
- Darlington
- Skelton
- Middlesbrough
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This means shoppers in some of the region's busiest stores - including Gosforth, Metre Centre and Benton - can't claim the offer, even though these stores have an on-site petrol station. The other trial areas are in Scotland, Wales and the West Midlands.
The deal gives customers £5 off their grocery shop of £40 or more when they fill up their car at one of Asda's forecourts, as long as they show their fuel receipt to the cashier before paying for their shopping. The offer ends on Friday, so you'll have to be quick to fill up, but you have until the end of the month to redeem the £5 off.
Asda said: "Asda is trialling the voucher the help support customers with the rising cost of living increases, after recent Asda research showed that 58% of customers are doing fewer, larger shops to save on fuel and 51% are combining grocery shopping with other errands to keep driving costs down."
The deal comes as fuel prices continue to rocket across the UK - according to latest RAC figures, the average price of petrol now stands at 191.27 per litre, while it's 198.84 per litre for diesel.
The competitions watchdog has launched an inquiry into rising fuel prices, acknowledging concerns about retailers making profits from the fuel crisis - but said this was not a big contributor to soaring prices.
The Competitions and Marketing Authority (CMA) found the increase from the crude oil price when it enters refineries to the wholesale price when it leaves them as petrol or diesel has more than tripled in the last year, from 10p per litre to nearly 35p per litre. It said that retailers' margins "remained about 10p per litre on average" over the same period.
CMA general counsel Sarah Cardell told The Mirror : "While there is no escaping the global pressures pushing up fuel prices, the growing gap between the oil price and the wholesale price of petrol and diesel is a cause for concern. We now need to get to the bottom of whether there are legitimate reasons for this and, if not, what action can be taken to address it. On the whole the retail market does seem to be competitive, but there are some areas that warrant further investigation."
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