Why You Should Always Check Your Chick-Fil-A Receipts

For most people, the receipt for a fast-food purchase is just the last in a series of hurdles separating customer and product. It's like a stock sign-off phrase in an instant messaging conversation: a pure formality. But even sign-off phrases get read –– receipts just get discarded! This is more or less what TTAG Systems (a telecoms and IT company) discovered in a 2016 survey: 48.6% of fast-food customers throw away their receipt, upon receipt

If you're a regular at Chick-fil-A, though, you may want to have a closer look at that scrap of paper. You could be missing out on some valuable savings. A quick visit to the Chick-fil-A subreddit confirms that many patrons of the fried chicken restaurant don't bother holding onto their proof of purchase –– unwittingly discarding some delicious promotional goods in the process. "I throw away at least 200-300 receipts with surveys everyday," says ohmyglob44, Reddit user and an employee of Chick-fil-A.

"Surveys?" you ask. "What surveys?" According to The Krazy Coupon Lady, about one in five Chick-fil-A receipts comes with a customer satisfaction survey (or to be more precise: a unique code granting one-time access to the Chick-fil-A survey website). When completed, the survey entitles the participant to an Original Chicken Sandwich, redeemable via a code sent to the customer's email address or Chick-fil-A mobile account.

As with any fast-food promotional offer, Chick-fil-A's surveys-for-sandwiches deal has been subject to gaming. As Reddit user RK-Today pointed out, the receipts for free Original Chicken Sandwiches sometimes contain redeemable surveys, and so a single survey-receipt could yield, in theory, unlimited free chicken sandwiches. Meanwhile gemleoo took to the Chick-fil-A subreddit to ask (for a friend!) if it was illegal to redeem other people's receipt surveys. LieutennantDan, a Chick-fil-A manager, quickly set him straight, explaining that store management is able to track receipt redemption, and to disable Chick-fil-A accounts exhibiting "suspicious" receipt activity.