Pokémon Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon:
The Infinite Premier Ball Trick

The Thrifty Megamart is a shop present in Alola, and it lives up to its name by giving you a coupon for half-price on the items it offers each time you enter it. It's certainly great if you're trying to save your PokéDollars, but there's a very minor oversight we can exploit.

Where to find the Thrifty Megamart

[Pictured: Royal Avenue, as shown on the top screen of your 3DS when you fly to it.] [Pictured: The flight map, with the cursor on Akala Island's Battle Royal Dome.]

The particular Thrifty Megamart you need is located on Akala Island (the second island you encounter), and more specifically in Royal Avenue. If you have Charizard as a Ride Pokémon, you can fly to either Royal Avenue or Battle Royal Dome - either is fine.

[Pictured: Rotom's map, with the player icon outside of the Thrifty Megamart,] [Pictured: The player character on the overworld, next to the doors of the Thrifty Megamart.]

When you arrive in Royal Avenue, you simply proceed to the upper right corner of the town to find it, tucked neatly behind the parking lot.

The process itself

Let's begin!

[Pictured: A shop clerk welcoming the player to the store.]

Upon entering, you will be given the aforementioned half-price coupon. It applies itself in the form of the shopkeeper giving you half your money back once you buy something, so for this particular trick you will need at least 2,000 PokéDollars. More is always great, of course!

[Pictured: The PokéMart menu, shown buying Poké Balls for 2,000 PokéDollars.] [Pictured: [Pictured: The shopkeeper giving the player half the money they spent back, which in this case is 1,000 PokéDollars.]

For every 10 Poké Balls you buy, you get a free Premier Ball, and by buying 10 Poké Balls at a time you can acquire a small collection of said Premier Balls. Ordinarily this would leave you with hundreds of Poké Balls and a small number of Premier Balls, but there's another facet to this particular trick.

[Pictured: The Sell menu, with ten Poké Balls selected.] [Pictured:

Despite the discount coupon, you can sell the same Poké Balls back to the shopkeeper for exactly the same amount of money. While this would seem pointless, this means you can keep all the free Premier Balls you got and technically keep all of the PokéDollars you previously spent.

[Pictured: The player's bag, with 2 Premier Balls selected.]

With a lot of time and patience, you could potentially have hundreds of Premier Balls and get the entirety of the money you spent on Poké Balls back. There is nothing the game can do to stop you from accomplishing this.

This does have limited uses, as Premier Balls have the same effectiveness of a regular Poké Ball and many people would rather have the added strength of, say, Ultra Balls. However, if you really enjoy the aesthetics of the Premier Ball or enjoy having Poké Balls that match the colours of the Pokémon you catch them in, this trick is a real treat. Additionally, if you had the patience to rack up hundreds of Premier Balls, you'd probably never run out of things to catch Pokémon with ever again. The possibilities are endless!

In regards to Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon...

In US/UM Roto Bargain can allow you to do this at any PokéMart you want, albeit temporarily, but it will not further reduce the prices at Thrifty Megamart. Alas, the Thrifty Megamart shopkeepers are too smart for that! At the very least, there's far easier ways of making free money in these games.

  • Special thanks to Danny/Scyther-No-Scything for providing the screenshots used in this article. Check out his blog for some excellent Pokémon gifs and content!

Page last updated on 1st March 2020 at 23:27 GMT.