The Corner Penthouse

When I wrote about the McDonald's official Android app in the past, it was due to the poor programming of it. None of that has been fixed, sadly. I'm writing about the app again to help let everyone know of another issue, this one being something that caused me much distress in the Valley Stream, New York McDonald's restaurant today.

One nice thing about the app is that users can get a special "deal" every year for their birthday. I wasn't using the app in 2022, so my first time getting this deal was in June 2023. At the time, the deal was "one free bakery item". I guess McDonald's got some complaints from people who can't eat sweets or gluten, so the deal this year is "1 free item".


The deal was added to the app the day after my birthday, and expires in 7 days. When I first saw this deal in the app yesterday, my eye went straight to the text "Celebrate with a choice of 1 free item." I figured that "1 free item" meant anything on the menu, so I went to the Valley Stream McDonald's and ordered a McFlurry as the dessert for my meal. The Grandma McFlurry stopped being sold a few days ago, so I opted for the M&M McFlurry. The deal/coupon didn't apply to my order, so the young teen working the register had to get the manager. She couldn't get the register to do anything to make the McFlurry free. I said that the app said "1 free item", but she showed me that the picture menu on the register was only allowing a few items to be used with the Happy Birthday deal: a cheeseburger, a McChicken sandwich, and french fries. As I didn't want any of the three at the moment - I had just finished having my lunch - I really didn't know what to select. I wanted a dessert item, not a meal item. After all, you get CAKE as a birthday treat, not a cheeseburger. I chose french fries, since if I didn't want them, my sister could eat them. (She can't eat gluten, so neither sandwich would be good for her.)

The manager had a hard time getting the McFlurry off of my order, as I only wanted it as a free birthday gift. Eventually, she was able to "work her magic" to get the McFlurry and the fries marked down to $0.00. She could have been nice and done this for me from the start, and thus gave me the McFlurry for free as a birthday gift, but I digress. She did tell another employee to "tell them not to make the McFlurry". She then looked over towards the back and noticed that they had made the McFlurry already. Why an order goes through to the "processing" stage before it is completed and paid for at the register, is unknown to me. I guess McDonald's wants to have orders made as quickly as possible, but this incident is an example of why that's not a good idea.

A few minutes later, the manager gave me my free medium french fries. Since the McFlurry had already been made, she should have given that to me as a birthday freebie. Instead, either an employee ate it or, more likely, they threw it out. What a waste of food.

After I got home, I took another look at the McDonald's app to see if I had reason to complain to McDonald's corporate about what happened. The Birthday deal was still there (it was never officially used because the manager had to manually adjust the prices for the fries and the McFlurry to $0.00), and that's when I noticed that below the "Celebrate with a choice of 1 free item" line was a small link titled "View eligible items".


The list includes just seven low-value items: Cheeseburger, Hash Browns, 6 pc. Chicken McNuggets, Sausage Burrito, Iced Coffee, McChicken, and French Fries. Three of these items are only sold during breakfast hours, and the other four are only sold during lunch and dinner hours, which makes this list even smaller! Since this is for a birthday, when cake is traditionally served, why isn't there a bakery item (apple pie, cruller, etc.), or any dessert item (ice cream cone, McFlurry, etc.), on this really small list? It's all cheap "value-priced" items, some of which (Cheeseburger, McChicken, Hash Browns) I can get for free for every $15 I spend (which gets me 1,500 points in the app). You know what else I can get with 1,500 points? A vanilla ice cream cone! McDonald's offers free medium french fries to everyone every Friday through the app, as well as every day after the New York Mets play a game in which they score at least 5 runs, so why is that even being included as a "free birthday item"? At the very least, put a Big Mac on there. I'm not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, but a free birthday item should feel special.

The app designers, I feel, botched the way this deal is presented. Instead of putting the link to the list of eligible items on a separate line of text in a smaller font, it should have been part of the larger text above it. The deal should have read, "Celebrate with a choice of 1 free item from this list" - with "this list" linked to the pop-up window that has the list of items in it. Since the list is so small, it could have been given right there on the main deal screen. The text could have also read, "Celebrate with a choice of 1 of these free items: Cheeseburger, Hash Browns, 6 pc. Chicken McNuggets, Sausage Burrito, Iced Coffee, McChicken, and French Fries." Heck, the app could shorten that list down to just the items being sold at that particular time of the day, so it wouldn't even be a large block of text.

Anyway, now that I have explained all of this, I hope it helps other McDonald's app users who still have a birthday coming up this year to plan their deal usage properly. If McDonald's gives this same birthday deal in 2025, at least now I know how it works.