Subway Is Making a Big Change That Customers Will Love

Here's hoping it's a change that sticks.

Subway may like to give away a million free sandwiches occasionally, but not every franchise location participates in free sandwich deals or other national promotions offered by the sandwich chain. That’s changing. Earlier this year, Subway sold to the private equity firm Roark Capital Group, although the sale is pending.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the sale between Subway and Roark, the firm that also owns Jimmy John’s, Arby’s, and many other fast-food establishments. The FTC seeks to determine if adding Subway to the Roark portfolio will give Roark “too much control of a lucrative segment of the fast food industry,” Business Insider reports.

The uncertainty of the sale is a good thing for customers of Subway franchises that don’t usually participate in promotional deals.

Subway Must Accept Your Digital Coupons

Starting Dec. 28, Subway will require all franchises to honor all digital deals. That info comes from an internal memo from Subway that was leaked to the public. Subway is requiring all locations to:

• Honor all digital programs and programs, including loyalty rewards and digital discounts

• Participate in loyalty incentive programs designed to attract new loyalty members

The memo also says that Subway will not reimburse the franchise locations for honoring these programs, which may be why many sites choose not to participate. According to a recent thread on Reddit, user wonderlesswrld (who identified themselves as a Subway general manager) said that franchise owners "pay Subway 12.5% royalties." That percentage is paid for the amount of a sale before a coupon is used. With restaurants' already skinny profit margins, accepting coupons under that condition may be a loss for some franchises.

It’s unclear from the leaked memo whether this move is meant to sway the FTC or increase revenue to make it worthwhile for Roark to continue with the acquisition (or a different reason altogether).

What is clear is that in a few weeks, all Subway customers will be able to take advantage of all deals at all locations.

If you’ve been avoiding Subway because you haven’t been able to get a deal, plan on heading to your closest location after Dec. 28. If you need a recommendation on what to order, take a look at the sandwich that chef and cookbook author Alison Roman always orders from Subway.

Read the original article on All Recipes.