T-Cellular Tuesdays was incredible, however this yr has been fairly weak

In 2016, T-Cellular’s then-CEO John Legere introduced a brand new function for subscribers: T-Cellular Tuesdays. Every week, subscribers may get a particular freebie, low cost, or deal. The corporate rolled out a particular app for this, which alerts you each Tuesday when the brand new promotion is stay.

Within the first few years of its existence, the Tuesdays program was superior. There have been free present playing cards for common eateries at a $5 worth, together with Starbucks and Dunkin’. You may additionally typically get completely free film tickets. And, after all, we will’t overlook the free Domino’s pizza weeks, which most likely brought about many Domino’s staff to stop their jobs because of the overwhelming demand.

Since these glory days, nevertheless, Tuesdays have develop into a lot much less thrilling — one may even say boring. Free present playing cards of an honest worth not often occur, most film ticket offers are closely restricted reductions for particular movies, and I haven’t seen something as substantial as a complete free pizza in years.

This previous week was significantly unhealthy. Normally, the top-most itemizing within the Tuesdays app is the spotlight deal of the week, and this previous Tuesday, this wasn’t even a deal. As an alternative, it was simply an advert for a service known as Pizza Offers, which might supply reductions on pizza in your space in case you enroll.

To T-Mo’s credit score, there have been different offers this week that weren’t horrible (a one-year membership to pet-care service Pawp wasn’t unhealthy, even with the numerous elimination of the $3,000 emergency profit paid customers get). However that doesn’t change the truth that this whole yr has been mediocre for T-Cellular Tuesdays. Have we reached the tip of Tuesdays’ golden years?

Whereas the Pizza Offers “supply” is an egregious instance of the fluff the Tuesdays app has delivered this yr, it isn’t alone. Listed here are another issues I’ve seen in 2023 which have left me underwhelmed:

• Join the Panda Specific app and pay $1 to attempt the Chili Crisp Shrimp Bowl
• Get 24 long-stem roses from Rose Farmers for $39.99 plus tax
• Get a free film rental from Redbox
• Obtain 72 Shore Factors at Jersey Mike’s by signing into the app as a brand new buyer
• 10 free picture prints

These offers are fairly meh, from my perspective. Additionally they current an issue that’s plagued the Tuesdays promotions just lately, which is providing freebies/reductions from retailers that aren’t prevalent all by means of the US. As soon as you progress away from the East Coast, for instance, you gained’t discover too many Jersey Mike’s areas, particularly in case you stay in the course of the nation. This makes the star deal of the week ineffective for a substantial portion of the US inhabitants.

One other challenge with many T-Cellular Tuesdays offers is that you just typically have to subscribe to or signal into an app to get the deal. Clearly, that is what the companion manufacturers need as a result of this snags your data for commercial functions. However generally, this may be problematic. The beforehand talked about Pawp deal requires you to enter your bank card info into the app for the free yr, which places you susceptible to routinely paying the $99 subscription charge when your free trial is up.

Lastly, one thing else in regards to the Tuesdays program that’s been annoying is the over-reliance on T-Cellular swag. This yr alone, we’ve seen a number of tote baggage, a Halloween pail, a drink tumbler, and a mug. Not solely are these generic stuff you’ve most likely obtained one million of already, however it’s worthwhile to go to a T-Cellular retailer to get them, and it’s worthwhile to do it earlier than anybody else does as a result of every retailer solely has a number of to present out. Usually, these have been the spotlight deal of the week, too.

I’m making an attempt actually onerous to not trash on T-Cellular Tuesdays an excessive amount of right here as a result of there are nonetheless some terrific perks. Yearly, for instance, T-Cellular offers away a free MLB.TV subscription, permitting you to observe virtually each American baseball sport. This can be a $149 worth. This yr, T-Cellular subscribers additionally obtained a free year-long subscription to MLS, which exhibits all American soccer video games. For sports activities followers, these are crazy-good promos.

Even the free meals offers may be good in case you stay in an space the place they work nicely. Yeah, a $2 Baskin-Robbins present card gained’t get you a lot, but it surely’s nonetheless free cash. Even the beforehand talked about Panda Specific deal continues to be an honest low cost; that’s dinner for simply $1!

Nonetheless, these offers simply aren’t nearly as good as what we noticed within the early days of T-Cellular Tuesdays. For a lot of people, listening to the phrase of free Domino’s and Starbucks might have been the nudge they wanted to change to T-Cellular. Now that they’re in, they’re seeing the free perks get weaker and weaker, which feels quite a bit like a bait-and-switch.

As a T-Cellular subscriber, the shortage of terrific offers within the Tuesdays app isn’t going to sway my loyalty to the service. There are different nice T-Cellular perks, similar to free Netflix and Apple TV Plus, high-speed worldwide information, and free Wi-Fi on just about each flight I take. However I used to inform folks all about how superior T-Cellular Tuesdays is once they requested if I preferred being with T-Cellular. I don’t actually carry that up anymore, which is disappointing.