Why It's Now So Much Harder to Get Free Birthday Gifts From Shops and Restaurants
Consumers have noted that more and more retailers are scaling back on free birthday gifts for loyalty members
Experts cite factors like inflation and consumer behavior as why retailers are scaling back
But if we can't get a free burger from a restaurant without having to actually go to the restaurant to claim it, is there any good left in this lousy world anymore?
"Man is a useless passion," Jean-Paul Sartre once said. "It is meaningless that we live, and it is meaningless that we die." From this quote, we can clearly tell that the French Nobel Laureate had never known the pure and perfect joy of getting a free appetizer from his favorite chain restaurant on his birthday.
And unfortunately, the pendulum of purpose that is modern living has swung closer to Sartre's stated meaninglessness, as now, birthday-havers must settle instead for getting a free appetizer on their birthday *only with the purchase of any entree*!
While you've surely noticed anecdotally, TIME has now confirmed that yes, indeed, "Birthday Rewards Programs Are Getting Stingier."
For example, they note that last fall, "many balked at Dunkin's decision to stop offering a free drink on their birthday and instead give them triple loyalty points on their purchase."
Done balking at Dunkin'? Then get ready for this: "On June 1, Sephora started requiring a $25 minimum purchase for online customers looking to claim a free gift and 250 loyalty points during their birthday month."
And if you've not yet reached the peak of despair, then strap in: "Red Robin added a dine-in only and $4.99 minimum purchase requirement for customers to get their free birthday burger."
Can you imagine spending $4.99 to get a free birthday burger? Well, friends, we don't have to imagine. Such is the dystopia we now inhabit.
What's the cause of this scaling back of free stuff? According to experts interviewed by TIME, everything from "the cost of maintaining loyalty programs," "recent impacts of inflation," and "changes in consumer behavior since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic" are to blame.
Those who have worked in retail and customer service in recent years might also point to how these loyalty programs, while good for customers in general, also tend to foster a particular type of consumer who looks to find any possible loophole to exploit in the fine print of these free items in a fixation with "getting one over" on the company, while using their "brand loyalty" as a cudgel to batter said retail workers and their beleaguered managers into submission, even though that alleged "brand loyalty" will go out the window the minute another retailer offers the same item for even a few cents less, with those cudgel-wielding consumers gladly stepping over the broken and weary bodies of those same retail workers who bent over backward for them, all to feel the rush of satisfaction from being "thrifty."
But those people made minimum wage, so what do they know?
Ultimately, the real issue here is we're no longer getting free snacks and products as conveniently as we turn a year older. And if not that, what do we have left? Just the affection of our loved ones and another year of life on this Earth?
Lame.
You Might Also Like
