You could be forgiven for thinking Wendy’s latest promotion is an April Fool’s Day gag. After all, offering a card offering one free breakfast sandwich per week for a year on April 1 is almost daring people to be gullible.
In fact, though, the fast-food chain insists the offer is legitimate. The catch, though, is it’s only available at select locations in some states.
Starting at 2:00 p.m. ET on April 1, the first 100 customers in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey to show up at the stores offering the card will receive one. Delivery customers are not eligible for consideration—and you’ll have to be 16 years or older to qualify.
The rules are the same for customers in Philadelphia. In Florida, though, customers in Tampa, Orlando, Miami and West Palm Beach can get their cards when the stores open.
The offer is only available in select Wendy’s locations.
Wendy’s launched its breakfast service in 2019 and has been touting it more heavily of late with an extensive ad campaign. Breakfast service is the chief battleground in the fast-food industry for the past several years, with McDonald’s kicking off the scrum when it introduced all-day breakfast in 2015.
Beyond Wendy’s, Taco Bell and Whataburger also subsequently launched breakfast service.
Wendy’s is still recovering from a misunderstanding of its February announcement that it planned to introduce dynamic pricing, where it would lower the cost of some menu items in non-peak periods. Many equated the dynamic pricing wording with the surge pricing model of Uber and Lyft, which hike prices (often considerably) during times of high demand.
The restaurant said that was never its plan and it has put all dynamic pricing plans on hold for at least a year. Some customers are still wary, though.
Wendy’s has also embraced technology in a more aggressive fashion lately, announcing last week plans to begin experimenting with food deliveries via drone and in May began experimenting with an A.I. chatbot for drive-thru orders.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add locations that are taking part in the promotion.
