Friday, September 12, 2008

The "If Honduras wins, you eat free" promotion fiasco

This is one of those times that "free" wasn't really free.
Remember the Foodcard ? the one that gives me 20% discount on several fast food restaurants ? Well, the company that owns the franchise in Honduras to all those restaurants came out with a promotion. If the Honduran soccer team would win against Canada (playing in Canada) last Saturday then the next day they would give out free food for just buying a drink.
Our team won. So the next day there were long ..I mean loooong lines on all their restaurants. I told my daughters to come with me to get some "free" chicken. Well after waiting about an hour in the drive-thru lane we got to the cashier and she laid down the conditions:
It was ONE piece of chicken per every LARGE drink. The drink was only Coke or Sprite and it was 33 lempiras per drink. That's not cheap, not free and not even close to free!! To put it in perspective a 3 Liter bottle of Coke is 28 to 30 lempiras at even the most expensive quickie-mart type place
I fell into the "throwing good money after bad time" trick and decided that since I had already waited that long I might as well buy 6 drinks and get us 2 pieces of chicken each. Well the fiasco was complete when they gave me three wings and three legs! no breasts or thighs! And these were probably midget chickens cause all 6 pieces were in a box that is normally used for a 2-piece combo. They did include 6 pieces of bread.
The final slap was that when I tried to pay with my foodcard, they gave me a mean look and took it. Then I asked for two more pieces of chicken (actually I asked for the drinks because 2 pieces cost 66 lempiras anyway). This time the lady said that I please pay in cash because the credit card machine was in the front of the restaurant. I reluctantly paid cash and went home. What a RIP-OFF!
My girls made remarks and laughed at how small the chicken pieces were. Then last Wednesday the Honduran soccer team played against Jamaica here in Honduras and our team won again. So right away they told me "Dad are we going to go tomorrow to get free tiny chicken ?" And then they just laughed to the ground. I tried to laugh too but still remembered how I had been taken.
Oh, well, I guess it's part of learning that most things are not really free.
Well at least this blog, so far, is free.

4 comments:

La Gringa said...

Oh, I hate to be ripped off!

Sounds like the old "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't (true)."

You probably could have gone to a normal Catracho chicken place and bought 4 big dinners for that price.

Well, now you know. And I do, too.

AJ said...

yeah, a regular chicken would've been 100 lps the most!

maria said...

Just wanted to congratulate you on your efforts to become debt-free. Had to comment on this post because I have not laughed so hard in a long time after reading about the not so free chicken you had. Like la gringa said free does not always mean free especially here in Honduras. Keep up the good attitude you have.

AJ said...

Mari, Thanks for your comment. They really keep me going