Chipotle is offering the chance to win free meals next week – but there’s a catch. Select customers have until May 12 to enter the chain’s giveaway. Chipotle is giving out $2 million worth of free food to thousands of customers — but only if they’re teachers or healthcare workers.
To celebrate the upcoming Teacher Appreciation Week and National Nurses Week, customers in those professions can visit specially designed websites now through May 12 and enter for the chance to win an e-gift card worth a free meal. Once the entry period has ended, 100,000 healthcare workers and 100,000 teachers will be randomly selected and asked to verify their employment status within 48 hours via ID.me. Those who do will then be emailed a gift card for a free entrée. Winners will be notified beginning May 13, the company said in a press release announcing the promotion.
Chipotle started the promotion in 2016 and has since given away more than $16 million in free food to teachers and medical professionals. The program had “its highest participation to date” last year, according to the press release.
“At Chipotle, we're committed to showing up for the communities we serve, and that starts with the people who make a difference every day,” Stephanie Perdue, Senior Vice President of Brand Marketing at Chipotle, said in a statement. “Recognizing teachers and healthcare workers through this program is one way we can give back meaningfully.”
Chipotle has previously offered promotions on special occasions. For recent Friday the 13th celebrations, customers with tattoos of any kind (including temporary or drawn-on) could buy one entrée and get their next one free. The offering was introduced after the phrase “tatted like a Chipotle bag” was coined in 2019 when an X user shared a shirtless picture of Adam Levine during a performance, noting that the singer’s tattoos on his chest and arms looked like the design of the fast food chain’s to-go bags.
Aside from in-store promotions, Chipotle recently announced an overhaul of its rewards program, with the promise to “deliver more frequent rewards, greater flexibility and deeper everyday engagement for its 21 million members,” according to a company statement. As part of the change, loyalty points do not expire as long as customers make one qualifying purchase of at least five dollars each year. There are also fewer points needed for reward redemptions, and new options such as 50 percent off a meal. Redeemable items can range from a full entrée, using approximately 1,625 points, to a side of guacamole for 500 points.
