Quiznos Million Sub Giveaway Fiasco Makes Them Penny-Wise and Pound-Foolish

I posted the other day about Quiznos’ awesome Million Sub Giveaway.  You were to go to their website and print a counpon for a free sub, redeemable within five days of printing.

Husband and I each printed a coupon, and the ink wasn’t  dry before I began hearing rumblings about problems redeeming them.  Some franchisees were refusing to redeem them at all while others were insisting on an additional purchase or only allowing them to be redeemed for $1 or $2 off the regular price.

Apparently Quiznos corporate was telling franchisees that they were not going to be reimbursed anything for their  costs for this promotion and many franchisees were…displeased.  Then Quiznos said they’d reimburse $.75 for up to 300 coupons per store, raised it to 500, then said they’d reimburse with no limit.

So although I did have a bad taste in my mouth from the shaft Quiznos was giving their franchisees and from the franchisees’ response, that wasn’t enough to stop me from trying for some free subs.

Yeah, you already know this didn’t end well.  In fact, it ended with me sending this e-mail to Quiznos:

To Whom It May Concern:

My husband and I attempted to redeem the properly executed coupons we printed from your giveaway site and were refused service.

The Quiznos at (one of a million strip malls in)  Florida had a copy of the coupon taped to the counter with a sign that said something to the effect of “Not Accepted Here”.  The proprietor was unapologetic, saying that you were only going to reimburse $.75 per sub and that was not enough.

What puzzles me most is how short-sighted both Quiznos corporate and these franchisees are.  We’d not ever been to a Quiznos before, so we were using this giveaway as an opportunity to try your food.  We walked into that store at 7:10 pm and there was not a single other person there.  On a Friday night.  And the Italian restaurant next door was packed.  With people waiting to get in. Your franchisee refused to accept these coupons, perhaps thinking he would have made no money at all.  We could have been planning to order one or two or five more subs in addition to the free ones, not to mention drinks and perhaps chips.  So he lost all THAT potential business today, too.

But that’s not all.  What that franchisee – and you – are now left with is two people who will likely never enter Quiznos again – certainly one thousand percent sure never enter THAT Quiznos again.  And one of us has a fairly popular (okay, I’m reaching) blog where our experience will be posted for many more to see.

We are very curious to see your response to this e-mail, and if you’ve learned anything from your penny-wise and pound foolish decisions.

Be This Way

Honestly, I could care less about the free sub.  I can’t help but think that Quiznos would have had a much better return on their promotion dollars by being mensches.

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