Eat FREE at McDonald's in June - YMMV

[bhlombardy]

OK, let me explain...

McDonald's new Great Canadian Taste Adventure features five Canadian inspired menu items during the month of June:

Cottage Country Chicken sandwich (June 3 - 9)
Western BBQ Burger (June 10 -16)
McLobster Roll (June 17-30)
Maple Bacon Poutine (all month long)
Chocolate Nanaimo Sundae (all month long)


Along with the limited time menu items is a contest...

The contest involves you registering for a "Flavour Passport" and taking a picture of any (or all) of these menu items and uploading them to your passport. Each photo you submit equals one entry in the contest - up to 5 entries total (you double your entries to 10 if you share each entry with social media after submission)

"Wait... he said eat FREE in June." -- yes, I'm getting to that.


Specifically and boldly stated in the contest rules is the following: "No purchase of any McDonald's Food Product is Necessary To Enter The Contest" (this if for legal reasons so as not to define the contest as an illegal "lottery".)

So... How is one to take a photo of the food item if you don't purchase it?

You can't take a picture of a picture (as stated in the rules) so photographing posters in the store is out. And hanging out at the restaurant creeping on unsuspecting customers and snapping photos of their food is a little sketchy.

Unlike contests that require game pieces or scratch cards, you can't very well "request" one of these be sent via mail. And even IF that were possible, the window of opportunity to upload each photo is ONLY during the period that item is available -- you'd never receive it (or a coupon) in time to redeem it before the window closed on that item's submission.

"Come on... get to the FREE part of all this..." --- Okay, Okay...

So I posed this question to the staff at my local McDonald's. The brought this to the attention of the manager. He admitted that they have not been advised on how to handle this, but he then offered me that if I came in and requested the food item(s) for contest entry, that they would give me that item free -- one time only, for each item. (I have no intention to abuse this privilege -- and I wasn't specifically asking for free food.)

So today, I got a FREE Cottage Country Chicken Sandwich, a FREE Maple Bacon Poutine, and a FREE Chocolate Nanaimo Sundae. -- all of which I promptly submitted to my passport.

The manager took it upon himself to offer me these items as I'm sure he understood the dilemma here. So YOUR MILEAGE MY VARY if your local manager chooses to comprehend the scenario or just shrugs his/her shoulders dumfounded.

In any event, tomorrow is day-one of Western BBQ Burger day... I know where I'm going for lunch, but I'm also looking forward to McLobster in two weeks

[FLA]

Nice.

[jasper23]

Temping but most likely wont

[c_mcarthur]

seems like an awful lot of work and begging the management at your local mcdonalds to get some free food because of a technicality?....

[bhlombardy]

Again, I wasnt looking for free food -- I was more curious how they were to handle that technicality.

[nursegirl]

If I had the guts to, I totally would. That McLobster roll and Nanaimo sundae sound heavenly.

[Lauralove2save]

Even if they paid me to eat their food , I wouldn't do so...