This afternoon, I went to Park Ridge to do some errands. Had lunch at Burger King in Park Ridge to use one of the coupons from the coupon book they send out every few months or so. At this Burger King, the manager was working the cash register. As I was counting out dollar bills to pay for the meal, he asked "Did you win these in Russian roulette?" Uhhh...
There is one more thing I didn't mention on Sunday because I was still in communication with a customer service rep. I was actually planning on going to Red Robin in Easton because I had a coupon from Red Robin eClub. It wasn't that big of a discount -- buy a burger, get the drink free, about $2 off -- but I wanted to try their chili burger. Before ordering anything, I asked the server and then the manager whether they would take that coupon. The manager told me that they didn't take these coupons because they were a franchise restaurant, not a company restaurant. Huh? Okay, so I didn't get anything there.
I went home and checked the Red Robin restaurant locator but saw no difference in the way that restaurant is listed from any other Red Robin. So I sent an email to customer service asking if there is a way to find out which Red Robins take eClub coupons. Here's the info I got:
1. Most coupons are chain-wide but some promotions are applicable to a subset of or just one of the Red Robins.
2. You can set a preferred location on your eClub account to receive promotions from that restaurant in addition to chain-wide promotions.
3. There is no way to have more than one preferred location.
My problems then are as follows:
1. Coupon emails don't specify whether the coupon is chain-wide or restaurant-specific so if I'm not at my "preferred location", I can't tell whether I can use the coupon or not.
2. I travel to a different area every weekend so most of the time, I'm not at my "preferred location". The nearest Red Robin is in Clifton but I rarely go there either.
The other mystery is although I didn't have a preferred location listed on my eClub account, I received a coupon that was not chain-wide anyway. Because the coupon didn't mention a specific Red Robin location, I don't know where that one is good. In summary, Red Robin coupons are as much trouble as Subway coupons.