Beat The Recession Thread

[FarangBuddha]

Even thought the grand poo-pahs of high finance (that would be the Banksters, Finance Ministers, and Central Bank chiefs who drove the world economy off a cliff) are telling all of us that the recession is over, many on the ground are still feeling the after effects of the Great Recession. This thread is a place to post in one place any special offers merchants or restos may be offering. These could be either one-off time limited specials, ongoing/repeated specials, or long-term deals (like membership card schemes). Having them here in one thread will make them easy for people to find.

I will start off with one of my current favorites...McDonald's McCafe Club card. As many know, over the past year or so, McDonalds has rolled out espresso based coffee drinks in many of their restaurant outlets. I am a big fan of coffee and was at first skeptical of Micky D's making a decent latte. However, I do make make a fetish out of a cup of coffee or a cappuccino and when I tried it, it was fine...not the best but certainly not the worst. Couple that with the price and the convenience of many locations, most being open 24/7 and you have another place to pick-up a decent cap or latte in town.

The McCafe Club card makes the pricing downright cheap compared to their competitors. With this membership card you get lots of discounts and the membership cost is effectively free (in fact, you actually make about 5 bucks by joining as I'll explain later). The basic deal is: for a fee of B 99, you get a 15 month membership that entitles you to a 25% discount on all their espresso-based drinks (hot or cold) as well as a 10% discount on all bakery items. (This brings the price of a small cappuccino down from B 65 to B 42, a very cheap price and almost half the price of some of their competitors.) This alone would be a good deal because if you are a regular drinker, after 6-7 coffee purchases, you would have recouped the 99 baht...but it gets even better. When you join, you also get a bunch of McCafe coupons good for things like a free extra espresso or syrup shot in a drink, free muffin, 50% cake discount, etc. The total value of the coupons adds up to B 264. (So for B 99, you get B 264 worth of coupons...therefore actually making money.)

And it gets even better...the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month are Super Tuesday, with 2-for-1 drinks. Yep, you buy one and the 2nd one for you (or a friend, wife, GF, stranger at the next table, the beggar outside, whoever) is free. (I usually get them to upsize my drink from small to medium...but sometimes this gets lost in translation or I get the dreaded "no can do" so I still end up with 2 separate cups to drink ).

So for anyone currently enjoying McCafe coffee with any regularity this is a great deal. For anyone else, I encourage you to check it out. Brochures are at the cafe counters but the writing is all in Thai.

Edited November 30, 2009 by FarangBuddha

[keeniau96]

Pretensions of connoisseur in a plastic or paper cup. Sniff. Same for Starbuck's.