Everyone can agree on two things: food is fantastic, and so are getting things for free. What's even better than both of those things is combining them, and getting food for free. Although, that can sometimes be a little bit difficult since everyone likes food. Don't worry though, there's always a way around things. Just ask these people.
People on Reddit share the secret loophole they found which lead them to get free food. Content has been edited for clarity.
Half Really Is More
“My company cafeteria had an option to order a half burrito. However, the cost of two half burritos was less than the cost of one full burrito. On top of that, the chef would make a half burrito by cutting a new tortilla in ‘half’ and generally gave a healthier portion than just a half. Thus, ordering 2 half burritos was equivalent to about one and a half full burritos and cost less than a full burrito.”
Loopholes Where You Don’t Expect
“My college campus had a cafe with a deli and salad bar. The deli sandwiches were way over priced, like $8 for a standard turkey sandwich. But the salad bar was very reasonable (Subsidized to promote healthy eating).
So I found that the salad bar had all the same ingredients as the sandwiches, the meat was just shredded. The deli would sell slices of bread for $0.25 each, so I would just buy the bread, load up and weigh my ‘salad’ and grab some free mayo and mustard packets, then build my own sandwiches for under $2. Used that trick for my last two years.”
The Best Loopholes Embarrass Mom
“When I was young (about 12 years old) I received a free chicken sandwich coupon for Chick-fil-a that I got from a contest at school. There was no fine print on it. No expiration date, no ‘one per customer,’ no nothing. So I used my dad’s photocopier at home and made a ton of copies, talking like 100 copies. Every week my mom would drive me to Chick-fil-a, wait in the car (I think she was embarrassed but didn’t want to suppress my enthusiasm), I’d go inside, and walk out with a couple free sandwiches.
Did it for like a year before we moved away. Pretty sure the high school employees just took pity on a 12-year-old and honestly didn’t care enough to say no. I work in marketing now and fine print is one of the things I proofread 3 times before approving.”
A Month Long Feast
“A few summers ago, I was working on a construction site near a McDonald’s and we would go there semi-regularly for lunch. This was the same year that Mcdonald’s started mobile ordering, and it started while we were working there. I figured the ability to order on site and then just drive over in the truck and pick up curbside would be convenient, so I downloaded the app and gave it a shot.
Now, the owner of the local franchise is a cheap arse and never participates in any promotional pricing. At the time, he was abstaining from the 2 for $2 and 2 for $5 menus. Unfortunately for him, whoever set up the mobile ordering menu didn’t properly turn off the promotional items for this particular restaurant. Rather than removing them from the menu, they set the price to $0. This meant that you could get McDoubles, McChickens, Big Macs, large fries, and Quarter Pounders all for free, and get as many as you want. The only catch was that you couldn’t actually make a $0 order, the app wouldn’t allow it, so you had to buy a $1 drink or something. The whole crew ate for almost free for nearly a month before they noticed.”
How Did No One Else See That?
“At a boarding school I went to, there was a required breakfast from 7:30-8:30 am. The classes started at 9 ended at 3, and you had a required sport from 3:30-5:30 and dinner at 6. If you missed breakfast, you received half a demerit, if you had 2 demerits you would receive a detention that weekend from 10 am-12 pm and every week until you worked off the demerits.
I figured that sleeping in was more enjoyable than walking a quarter mile in the cold morning air to breakfast, and skipped every time. But wouldn’t you be hungry you ask? No, since there was a 15 minute break after your first class for announcements and a 10 minute recess after that, I would go to the cafeteria and grab snacks (bagels and such) that they served during that time as my breakfast. Now come end of week, I would have 2.5 demerits and be looking at a detention, to avoid this I would have to work off the demerits. I found out after the first practice my wrestling coach would offer to clear a demerit to whoever stayed and mopped the wrestling matts. I stayed and mopped 3 times a week to clear my demerits and I’d get done at 5:45 and have just enough time to shower and make it to dinner. During those 15 minutes I’m mopping the mats, most of the team were stuck waiting for a shower to open up anyway.
I was able to get 5 extra hours of sleep every week and only lost around 45 minutes of worthless waiting to shower time anyway. Pretty solid loophole that worked from September till spring time when wrestling ended. Still shocked no one on the wrestling team aside from my coach figured out why I would volunteer to clean the mats so often.”
So Much For So Little
“When Burger King first released their rodeo cheeseburgers (cheeseburger with onion rings and bbq sauce), they were $1.50. However a double cheeseburger at the time was $1. So I would order 2 double cheeseburgers and a value sized onion ring, and a side of bbq sauce for a total of $3, and would just add onion rings and bbq sauce to the double cheeseburgers myself, creating two DOUBLE rodeo cheeseburgers for the same price as two single rodeo cheeseburgers.
I nearly ran Burger King out of business.”
“No Way This Will Work”
“Facebook once had a deal with Papa Johns where if you shared a specific ad, you will get a coupon code for a free medium pizza. This was in 2009, and at the time Facebook was the king of social medias. Me, being a broke college student, thought it would be a genius move to simply share the link multiple times.
I did.
I got the same code for each share. I thought to myself, There is no way this will work.
So I ordered ten pizzas, in different orders. Ten orders for one pizza each all using the same code. My friends and I go to pick up the pizza, and the lady looks at me and thinks she is about to sum up a giant total. She looks at the price and does a double take, ‘Uhh you owe, uh…hmm…nothing?’
I give her a smile and a wink, (couldn’t afford to tip) we take our pizzas and go on our merry way. We get to our car and realize… it worked. This actually worked. That night became known for what we now call: ‘FacebookPapaFREE.’
We gave the code to everyone one of our very poor friends, Papa Johns closed early that night.
All of them.
In our entire city.
It was glorious.”
At Least They Shared
“College dorm had a chicken sandwich for 4 dollars. Very simple, just whole chicken, bun, lettuce, tomato. You could ask for bread off and they would take a dollar off. You could ask for extra meat for 1 dollar and they added another piece of the chicken. Queue me and the guys every couple days buying 1 chicken sandwich, no bun, 5 extra meat. Dice it up and make some rice, put in tupperware. 3 days worth of food for 8 bucks plus rice. But we rotated buying massive bags of it.
They stopped doing that after a semester.”
This Took Some Time To Figure Out
“I found out a few years ago a way to get free drinks and snacks from a vending machine, similar to the dollar with tape trick. Now most vending machines today are updated and the tape trick no longer works. Now, all you need is a vending machine with a credit card reader, a prepaid Visa gift card, and a backpack. Get a card with some amount of money on it, and use it normally, getting the balance down to around the price of a drink at the vending machine, I’d say 3 dollars just to be safe. Then, proceed to buy a drink from the vending machine, when the drink dispenses, the machine will ask if the transaction is complete, hit no and select another drink. Repeat the process until backpack is full. I once got the balance of my card to be negative over 100 dollars. The machine only checks to see if you have enough money on the card right before the first transaction.”
So Much For So Little
“A few years ago, Wendy’s introduced the four for $4 deal. Sandwich, nuggets, drink, and fries, everything for only $4! A real steal. However, they didn’t charge much for larger sizes. So you could get large fries, a large drink, a burger, and 4 nuggets for essentially $4.
That’s a good amount of food for not that much money, when considering the equivalent at McDonalds woulda cost around $12.”
They Knew How To Make A Buck
“I used to work in a grocery store and every Monday night these two ladies would come in and buy reduced meat. Now due to a system glitch or something, the total after scanning all the reduced barcodes would be a negative sum meaning I had to give them the meat for free plus money (usually about 12 – 15 quid).
The first time it happened, I told my supervisor and she just replied with, ‘Yep, that’s correct.’
I tried to explain to her again what was happening because I didn’t think she heard me correctly and she just said, ‘Yeah Mike, that’s just how it works with reduced items.’
I never questioned it again. The ladies were there every Monday until the store burnt down due to some teens starting a fire in the bushes.”
An Impressive Record
“When I lived in Virginia, there was a place called the Genghis Grill. They had the idea to have a sign at the counter that said if it fits on the plate, they will cook it. And they had three sizes of plates. Everyone would fill their plate with sliced meat and veggies and and all the store fry fixings.
I went in once with some work mates and we were soaring. The plates are flimsy so after a certain amount of weight, they would fold and if your items fell to the floor, you still had to pay for it. I figured out that if you make the devil’s tower out of sliced meat and then put the vegetables into it as if it was a volcano you would get so much more on the plate. My best success was getting 17 lbs of stir fry for $5.95.”
15 Seconds Of Work For So Many Free Lunches
“I’m a truck driver and stop every day at the same place. There’s a McDonald’s next door. On the receipt was a link to fill out a survey. If you filled it out and wrote down a number on the receipt you could turn it in for a free Mcdouble or a medium fries.
So I made two separate orders and got two receipts. Filled out two surveys that took 15 seconds each.
The next day I used the receipts to place two separate orders for one free Mcdouble and one free fries to see if my suspicions were accurate. I got two receipts and indeed, the survey link was printed on each receipt. I ate free lunch for 2 months before I started intermittent fasting.”
It Was A Good Ride
“I’m a software engineer working in test, of which half the job is basically trying to find loopholes in everything to make someone else’s life miserable.
The best loophole I’ve found was while working at a fairly large company. There were two cafeterias; a smaller one with a pretty bleh salad bar, and a big cafeteria that had very nice food but ridiculous mark up. Food was sold by weight, except for combo meals.
One of the offerings was $5.99 for a chicken and rice, but $6.99 for a chicken and rice + sides. There was no sign that defined sides, so I loaded up a plate with mashed potato from the salad bar, and called it a side. Cashier blinked, said nothing, rang up my order ($16) and then discounted it down to $6.99.
For months I abused the living heck out of the loophole. Whenever someone questioned me on it, I would ask them for the documentation that specifically stated what were and weren’t sides. Since they couldn’t present any to me, I ate chicken and rice + sides for something like 4 months straight, eating 2 of my 3 daily meals there for $6.99 a day.
Finally, my shenanigans caught the attention of someone higher up, and they changed the rules such that sides were actually defined. I only found out when I got to the cash register and they rang me up for $33’ish and said they weren’t sides, carefully defining what sides were. I paid for it without disputing it and went back to eating the cheaper salad bar.
I did this at the salad bar as well, since they maxxed out the cost by weight and ‘toppings’ were free, with the definition of toppings being pretty loose and applied after you bought your food, but since the food wasn’t that good, no one ever tried to stop me from doing it there either.”
Be Careful What You Say
“I was maybe 4 or 5. My mom and dad were having a party, and they had all their adults friends over. I was told by my parents to not go into the living room to bother anyone unless there’s an emergency, but I can go into the kitchen to get food and drinks
So the party’s been going on a while, I go to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water (There’s a stool nearby so I can do this for myself easy enough). While in there, I notice a plate of freshly icinged sugar cookies. A whole plateful. I love sugar cookies and I love icing. I wonder if I can have one.
Then I reason, it’s not an emergency, so I can’t ask, so might as well take the whole plate.
Mom came to find me later furious (with Dad on her heels). She asks me what I was thinking of, taking the whole plate of cookies.
I said, ‘I wanted to ask, but you said only ask in case of emergencies.’
Dad started cackling.
Mom deflated, and said, ‘I DID say that didn’t I?’
Didn’t get in trouble.”
At Least They Found It Funny
“A local restaurant chain near me ran a special where every purchase gains you points, and every 100 points you get a $10 discount on your next purchase. It turns out to do this, they would just credit $10 to your account, which was usable when you used their rewards card.
So I purchased a $100 gift card, and got $110 in value. Then I used the $100 gift card to buy another $100 gift card, and now had $120.
I stopped there once I confirmed the loophole, and the staff was laughing pretty hard about it. The rules quickly changed.”
This Guy Knows It All
“In the 80s – Dominoes had this ‘secret shopper’ thing you could sign up for – we got 1 free pizza per month on that for about 2 years (you mailed in the receipt and completed survey). They also gave you a free pizza if it took them over 30 minutes to deliver your pizza (maybe it was an hour, this was a long time ago). About half the time, they took too long to deliver. So that was 2 free pizza that month.
When I was in college, local bars used to have happy hours with free food and no cover. I drank water unless someone bought me a drink.”
A True Friend
“Any Starbucks used to give you $.50 refills on iced coffee/iced tea/hot coffee (they still do at that price I believe) as long as you had your cup. One of my friends worked at Starbucks and gave me a sleeves of venti iced cups, and I knew how to write the the cup code for iced coffee with vanilla syrup from previously working there.
So each day I would take a new cup into the local Starbucks and get my $3 venti iced coffee for $.50 for several months. I believe refills are still 50 cents but you have to get them from the same store during the same visit.”
Some Serious Teamwork There
“My mom told me I could eat my candy in the cabinet so long as I could get it out without climbing on anything or touching the counter. So I had my sister crouch on the floor as a step stool, I retrieved the candy, but my mom tried taking it away.
She said, ‘I told you, you can’t step on anything.’
My sister chimed in, saying, ‘I’m a person mommy, not a thing!’
That’s the story of how 4-year-old me got candy for dinner!”
They’re Already Taking So Much Money
“The cafeteria at my university had QR codes that you scan with an app every time you make a purchase to earn rewards, up to and including free food items. I took pictures of all the QR codes, uploaded them to my computer, and then just scanned them off of my computer screen. I never paid for food for the last two years of college.”
All Good Things Must Come To An End
“A few years ago, my local subway gave me a ‘loyalty rewards card.’
There were 7 squares on the card. Each time I bought a sub, they would stamp one of the squares and the 7th one would be free… and they would stamp the 7th square also.
I noticed that the stamp ink could be rubbed off just with my finger. Every time I got the free 7th sub, I would tell them I wanted to keep the card and immediately rub the stamp ink off.
I didn’t pay for Subway for nearly a year.
One day I went in there and presented the card and they pulled out a new hole punch thing… and that was the end of my little scam.”
They Perfected The Art Of The Scam
“UberEats Australia use to have a promotion where you get $20 off your first order. So I would go to the local store and buy a new sim card for $2. I set it up so that I had a new number. I wouldn’t put money on the card, but I would still be able to receive texts. Then I would set up a new UberEats account with my new number. Instantly get $20 off a meal, which a main, side, and drink usually cost less than $20. I did this a few times.
Eventually, the deal was dropped down to $10 off your first order and it stopped being worth the time and effort.”
A Pretty Good Discount
“So currently in Switzerland, McDonald’s has a little easter egg where, at the bottom of your receipt there’s a QR code. If you scan it ,it will take you to a survey that you fill out and get a free McFlurry. The thing is, the QR code is on all receipts but it doesn’t say what it does. I guess they think that people only buy meals or stuff over 12 bucks? Me and some friends decided to buy a single packet of ketchup for 20 cents (yeah, I know, Switzerland charges for sauce) and it works! You pay 20 cents for a Mcflurry instead of 3.50!”
The Good Old College Trick
“When I was young and poor, the trick was to sneak into the bar and order sodas all night and sneakily top them up with adult drinks under the table. Maybe buy a hard drink every 2 or 3 just so people don’t start wondering why you’re getting trashed on soda.
Another one was to get a large cup from McDonalds, put your drink can inside the cup with ice around it to keep it cold, and drink it through the straw so you can get hammered in the park without raising suspicion.”
HR Didn’t Care
“My previous employer had some weird expenses policy whereby you couldn’t claim for an actual lunch, but you could claim for incidentals and smaller snack items.
Just buy enough of those to constitute a ‘lunch’ and there you go. Free lunch. The human resources department just let it slide because fixing it would require things to be locked down so tightly that people would more or less mutiny.
Someone I knew also fiddled the system by going to a pub for an ‘All Day Breakfast’ lunch at about 2pm. He filed it as ‘breakfast’ – because on the menu it technically was – and it was signed off and paid out.”
