According to tipster Rich Piotrowski, a former Quiznos franchise owner who won a counter-suit against the company, the big reason why some Quiznos were being jerks about taking the free sandwich coupon is that at first corporate was making the franchises pay for all the sandwiches. (Quiznos mandates franchises buy all their ingredients from HQ, often at above-market rates…). Then it looks like they decided to reimburse up to 400 coupons, then bumped that up to 700 to meet the demand, and now they’re going to reimburse all coupons. Don’t give away free stuff in these times unless you’re ready for an onslaught of interest, at the outset. Corporate seems to have realized this and contacted us to say that if you have any problems redeeming coupons you can email millionsubs@quiznos.com. Tipster’s comment, and an internal Quiznos memo, inside…

Rich Piotrowski writes:

The reason so many Franchisees are not honoring this coupon is that the company delayed this promo TWICE, as many of the Franchisees said they would not go along unless Quiznos Corporate (which makes about a hundred million a year selling food to its franchisees, and prohibits them from buying food from anyone else) paid for the food in this promotion. Late last week, Quiznos decided to roll it out anyhow saying no, franchisees would have to pay the entire cost. Every other system (such as Denny’s Arby’s etc) the cost of the promo was shared by both parties. In addition, most of those system sell food at cost to Franchisees. Like those other systems, Quiznos makes money by collecting a 7% royalty and 4% from franchisees which they say is for advertising. Unlike those other system however, on top of those fees, Quiznos makes that hundred million IN ADDITION by selling food to them. And you wonder why Franchisees are not honoring the coupon?

Internal memo:
We also received the original instruction memo sent out to franchises on Feb 20. It makes no mention of how many coupons Quiznos will pay for.

Message to us from Quiznos:

The response to the Quiznos Millions Subs Giveaway has been nothing short of overwhelming. That’s great, right? Right… but given that we have had over a million consumers respond in only three days, there are a handful of people who have reported some problem redeeming their free sandwich. If you’re one of them, please let us know right away by emailing millionsubs@quiznos.com. We’re working hard to address every issue very quickly.

When asked about Rich’s comments, Quiznos responded:

In this current economic environment, Quiznos is continually working to develop new products that offer great food at a great value for its guests, while still helping its franchisees control costs. America’s response to our offer to get a high quality great tasting Quiznos sub for free has been nothing short of overwhelming. In light of this, Quiznos is reimbursing it’s franchisees for the cost of all of the free subs.

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Troubles With Redeeming Quiznos Free Sandwich Coupons
Free Quiznos Subs
(Photo: Ben Popken)