That's for the food prizes with the monopoly pieces. They expire on 11/15

McDonalds and/or Best Buy notified eBay, and they are periodically killing the auctions.

a drag...

Im sitting here wondering what the consequence would be if I stacked my BB bucks and also used my reward zone card if they would be able to track it when I relized even if you do an in store pickup youve still established the order under your account so it doesnt matter, if they come after you they come after you.


Can I even make special reward zone purchases online?

I was getting ready to send out 40 requests and noticed the dreaded words "while supplies last." Have I waited too long to send these requests? If I do in fact get all of my requests within 4 weeks that will leave me about 1 week to use them, which is something else to consider as well. I'm debating on whether or not to send at this point.

Is it too late?

I don't think it's too late, I'm sending more out Monday. Last year people who sent it out on the last day possible, got all of their request back.

Additionally, McDonald's is still advertising this promotion in stores and on television. If they had ran out of free pieces, they would no longer be in compliance with the no puchase necessary requirement involved in promotions of this type. If you want to be extra careful, put your return address on each request so if they do get sent back, you'll still get your envelope with a good stamp back. That's assuming they don't open them up and send them back to you empty or something like that.

I think it is too late to send off SASE and expect to use the food prizes you'll get. I've been sending some envelopes off everyday since about October 11. Haven't received any back yet, so the processing time is at least 2 weeks. I think after the batch that goes out this Monday, I'm done.

THANKS EVERYONE!!!! Please keep posting those SASE response statistics. I am especially interested in response times, $3/$1 ratios, and number of food prizes.

I got started late with the following mailings:

30 SASE sent 10/22
50 SASE to be sent 10/24
60 SASE to be sent 10/25
30 SASE to be sent 10/26
30 SASE to be sent 10/27
30 SASE to be sent 10/28
===================
230 total requests

It's interesting (according to illini420) that the response time is currently over 14 days. Think about it. Someone has to open every envelope we send, remove the SASE, stuff the SASE, and then seal the SASE. This is a manually intensive process. I would hope that the fulfillment agency would increase their staffing with the demand increase. Since the response time is slipping, my sense is that they are being slowly buried. If they suddenly hire some additional staff we should see a sudden drop in the response time.

The only risk to mailing them in late, is that you may only get $1 Best Buy bucks. The first 68 million pieces have both $1 and $3, the last 5 million pieces are only $1.

ADDITIONAL GAME PIECES. McDonald's reserves the right, in its sole discretion, at any time during the Game, to distribute up to an additional 8,736,000 Game Pieces in the United States, Guam and Saipan and/or up to 5,000,000 additional Chance Pieces in the United States, excluding McDonald's restaurants located in Wal-Mart stores, if and only if, Sponsor determines that consumer demand substantially exceeds Sponsor expectations. Codes that are printed on any additional Game Pieces can be used to play the Online Game, but only Low-Level Instant-Win prizes for the Online Game and Food Prizes will be seeded within the additional Game Pieces, and only $1 Best Buy Bucks will be included within the additional Chance Pieces. The odds stated in these Official Rules assume these additional game pieces will be distributed.

Even at $1, it still works out to a 26% discount, plus any food value if you can use them in time. But I don't know at what point McDonald's starts to distribute the last 5 million pieces. They did not do this last year, so I would not wait until the very last moment, if you want to max out your return.

Two other comments:

1) If you mail in enough envelopes, you actually have a shot at winning the 300,000 RZ points prize($109.99 retail value). The odds are 1 in 1320. My brother just won, he mailed in 300 envelopes early on, the way it seems to work you get 2 chances in every envelopes, so your odds are 1 in 660 envelopes.

2) I mailed in 300, i got 51 $3 best buy bucks so far, and 88 $1 bucks, so about 37% hit ratio so far.

I've chatted with several McDonald's management employees...from store managers to district managers. I hear a lot of "old wives tales" and "scare tactics" to keep McDonald's employees honest during this game. Tales about being able to track Best Buy Buck serial numbers to the distributing store. Or the "arrest of employees at the *insert-city-here* store for selling BBBs." There's more but it all sounds like urban legends and "big brother is watching" stories.

No one I've spoken with had any knowledge of the "last 5 million" pieces. (I know -- it's in the rules). After I explained about the last 5M, everyone agreed it would only be used to "smooth" out areas with extremely high demand. All the district managers I spoke with (3 of 'em) feel like the in-store game will have enough pieces to extend a couple of weeks into November. I guess we'll see.

Questions for Misterchimpy: I thought you got four game pieces and one BBB per SASE. Then 1 in 1320 would be 1 in 330 envelopes. Right? Also, did you mail in 300 all at once, or spread out over a couple of days? How long are they taking to get back to you?

Also...Thank you VERY MUCH Misterchimpy for your $3/$1 ratio update. I have collected 48 tickets from various McDonalds visits. My ratio was running at 38% but then dropped off this last week to 29.2% (14-$3 tickets, 34-$1 tickets). I don't believe this is due to the "last 5M" effect....more a case of just bad luck when collecting them one at a time, here and there.

Misterchimpy is correct. Each game piece consists of either 2 monopoly pieces or 2 monopoly pieces and 1 best buy chance piece. So in each envelope we get only 2 game pieces that total 4 monopoly pieces and 1 best buy chance piece. That is the way it was explained to me by a friend working for McD's.

Hopefully i start getting some of my SASE back Monday. I sent out around 600-700 total, lost exact count. I'll probably send out a total of around 1000 by the end of this. Spending $740 on stamps is enough for me. But it's a small price to pay for all the holiday gifts I'll be able to take care of, not to mention some goodies for myself.

Also, has anyone had trouble redeeming Best Buy Bucks online for DVDs this weekend? I heard from others that if more than $3 are used the order will be cancelled and the BBB will be void (guess you could legitimately use them in store then anyways). Not sure if that's just another rumor to scare us from using them.

Holy Crap!

1,000 !!! Wow

I ordered a cd using 13.00 worth of the certificates, it hasn't cancelled yet. Fingers
crossed.

"Heard from others"? Who are the "others" and what led them to conclude that orders are being cancelled? Just looking for some more information to determine the accuracy of this development.

I went ahead and entered a 3-for-$20 DVD order just now. I paid with twenty $1 BBBs. I'll try to pick it up tomorrow at the store.

I placed an order last night using around $30 BB$ on one DVD set (Mr. Show Exclusive) for in-store pickup. I'm currently on the other side of the country, but have gotten no cancellation notices. Everything so far still seems okay. Hopefully I will get in early enough tomorrow to pick it up.

I've done this several times already and it has not been a problem at all previously. I did read one guy claiming his order was cancelled (from FW), but that seems to be an isolated event (maybe his CC info was wrong, who knows).

Discguy--

As I mentioned, I received 139 through yesterday 10/22. They were mailed as follows.

10/4 50
10/5 50
10/6 50
10/7 50
10/10 50
10/17 50

The first 50 or so arrived within 8-10 days, the rest seem like more like 2 weeks. I have done better on food prizes than the odds imply(1 in 4.7 or so), I probably have gotten about 40 or so. And yes, illini420 is right, the rules are confusingly written, each game piece of 2 monopoly pieces counts as one when figuring the odds. Interestingly, in the rules, it does state that mail-ins should only receive 1 monopoly game piece and one chance piece, but that has not been the experience so far. If that turns out to be the case at the end, it isn't a big loss.

Some people are reporting problems redeeming them, although most are not. A few stores seem to be setting arbitrary limits(i.e. less than 300) on how many can be redeemed per day and there are reports of some online orders(as noted above from Fatwallet) being cancelled. But most people don't seem to be having any problems redeeming them, at least so far.

Just "others" on another message board. I personally think they're just trying to scare off people from sending SASEs in so that if they are running low, there's less competition for their letters. I was just looking for confirmation here cause the people here are much more reliable. Thanks. I'll probably just order something around $20 w/ in-store pickup as a first try, then if that goes w/o a hitch, I'll go for the larger gift sets on my wishlist.

That was one of the "others" I referred to earlier. Seems isolated or fabricated to me.

Misterchimpy: thanks for all the information. Very helpful.

Since I just started my mailings, I have no responses yet. But I am confident about what is promised in each SASE. While the official rules are a little fuzzy..
...in-store McDonald's employeses will hand you a small piece of paper 2" x 4" labeled "Instructions for an alternate means of entry." Here, the SASE contents are clearly spelled out. The fine print states (in part):
It's clear that each SASE will contain four (4) Monopoly Stamps and one (1) Best Buy Buck.

My earlier confusion was if the odds were figured per each Monopoly stamp, or per each game piece containing two Monopoly stamps. Thank you for clearing up this issue for me. I see now that the odds are figured on each game piece (containing two Monopoly stamps). So there are two chances per SASE as calculated in the odds charts yet there are four Monopoly stamps. Thanks!

illini420: Thank you for clearing up the source of those rumors. Glad to hear this was not a first or second hand experience for you.

Bleh....I rarely got to McDs (maybe once a month or two at the most and NEVER supersize). But, I stopped by there yesterday and got some food supersized.

NO FREAKIN BB BUCKS OR GAME PIECES. BASTARDS.

What McD's are you going to? They don't super size any more last time i asked for a SS, the girl looked at me and said "You see dat movie?" I said "uhhh...super size me? yeah." And she said "so we don't do dat no more."

^

Yeah, they stopped for a while I think, but they are doing it again.

Back by popular demand maybe? Ha.

When we ordered, my girlfriend got a combo meal and told them to "super size it"...they didnt ask questions, so I assume they are still doing it.

We split the fries and even had some to throw away. BUT, alas, NO GAME PIECES AT ALL! The bag advertised the game pieces, but nope, none there.

I am sure they are just tired of explaining to people why they dont supersize anymore. Instead their large is now a medium, and their supersize is now a large. same thing, different terminology. as far as i know, though, the supersize is not coming back. probably ever.

So, did anybody spend a large amount ($100+) online in BBB and then double dip by spedning them in store too? Just wondered if there's been any problems with that?
Anybody think the best strategy would be to use them online first and then in store? Or first in store and then online after having written down the codes beforehand?