Subway ditches stamps

We recently discovered that one local Subway franchise was no longer giving out stamps. So we started frequenting a different Subway location. We had been wondering why the first store had made this change. Now I know why.

Ever since the 1980s, Subway customers have received a stamp for every six-inch sandwich purchased (two stamps for a foot-long); filling up a Sub Club card with the requisite number of stamps entitles the customer to a free sandwich. Alas, by the end of September 2005 the Sub Club will be no more, another victim of technology which makes counterfeiting coupons and proof-of-purchase stamps on home computer equipment all too easy.

I guess we’ll have to see what happens with the new magstripe based cards that are mentioned. The problem with that is that we probably won’t be able to share credits like we do now. I usually give my stamps to Susan, and we consolidate our collective family stamps to fill up cards.

via: dangerousmeta

Other Posts of Interest

8 Comments

  1. Posted 6/15/2005 at 2:03 pm | Permalink

    Cielo and I just had a little incident with our stamps. Some restaurants only redeem their own stamps, so even from across town stamps might be invalid… then we heard about them ending the whole stamp thing and were kind of dissapointed. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

  2. Posted 6/15/2005 at 2:35 pm | Permalink

    I’ve had cards filled with stamps from 6 different stores and never had a problem… but then I went to a store in Spokane that was an early adopter of the mag-stripe cards.

    Then, when I presented my new card at another location, they gave me a puzzled look and asked why I had one of those cards already. Then they handed me stamps for my purchase.

  3. Posted 6/15/2005 at 4:13 pm | Permalink

    How sad that people would counterfeit Subway sandwhich stamps. Or was that really a problem?

    I used to eat at Subway two or three times a week and would horde my stamps until I was flat broke. I could get a week’s worth of lunches for nothing.

  4. Posted 6/15/2005 at 4:34 pm | Permalink

    Getting a free sub (after buying enough) is what made subway that much better than everything else. Now I have to have another chunky magnetic stripe card for that?

  5. Chris
    Posted 7/10/2005 at 2:59 pm | Permalink

    Not to mention the stores with the magnetic strip cards have also LOWERED rewards for purchases. No more free subs after 2-3 visits.

  6. brandi
    Posted 7/16/2005 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

    i am a manager at subway and just want to clarify that all the states will stop doing them i dont know if you guys know but we had to buy the stamps and the cards from the main headquaters and a lot of employeess kept stealing them when managers wearnt around and then they were selling them to other people and even going to another subway and using them theirselves i also had a couple employees in the past who did this so in other words they just started costing so much money it was breaking them but please dont stop eating there i know it sucks but we really enjoy you guys all coming in thanks

  7. anon
    Posted 12/3/2005 at 8:56 pm | Permalink

    Now it seems that at least some Subway stores are not honoring the cards either.

    Seems “hackers” are at fault.

  8. Posted 5/12/2008 at 3:52 pm | Permalink

    This is just another case of a major company not being able to handle their own security to effectively combat counterfeit money. Instead of comming up with a solution they simply eliminated their entire rewards program, which SERIOUSLY upset a lot of their hardcore fans and customers (including myself). I understand that they were “losing money” but they should have come up with a better solution.

    One could be to invest in counterfeit money pens, but they’d have to be adapted to subway stamps and that may be one of the reasons why they decided to cut their rewards program. Either way the rewards program us gone and there are still a plethora of counterfeit money scammers out there today.

One Trackback

  1. By sobriquet.net on 6/18/2005 at 1:02 pm

    Funky web-based calendar program (Beta) Subway ditches stamps

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Comments or website URLs deemed to be off-topic or inappropriate may be deleted at the site owner's discretion.