Because of the huge phenomenon that Black Friday has become over the past decade, food retailers are jumping in to try and get in on the promotional action. But are their deals worth it? Mostly not.
Let's begin with a less dumb one. Buy a gift card from Cheese Cake Factory and you get two free slices of cheesecake. Sounds simple enough, but each cheesecake is represented by a "Slice of Joy Card" which is another way of saying a cheesecake voucher:
The next "deal" is a little more ridiculous: at 7/11, if you bring in your own cup, you can fill it with Slurpee for $1.49. The only limit is the diameter, which must be 10 inches or less. Could you imagine filling up even a six-inch wide bucket with Slurpee?
The most absurd of all these deals is the convoluted "Black Friday Whopper Shopper" from Burger King where, after jumping through a few hoops, you get a free whopper. On their website they explain that if you go and buy something form an assortment of participating brands, Burger King will give you a burger. For example, buy a pair of Nikes and get your whopper free! Burger King asked, in their video explaining the deal, if anyone had ever seen a sneaker retailer give away free burgers, a question they answered themselves: "of course not, why would they?" After you create an account, go to the third party shop and redeem your code, "all that's left to do is wait for your free whopper vouchers to arrive in the mail." Happy shopping.
See a more comprehensive list here.
