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It’s Monopoly month at McDonald’s! It usually leads to a ton of people spending a bunch of money and calories on food they don’t really need on the off-chance they might unpeel Boardwalk.
I’m not ripping on you. I’ve been one of those people. It’s incredibly addictive, especially if you only need one more yellow space to win a car or whatever the prize may be that year. But there’s no reason to increase your waistline and decrease your checking account just to play.
How to Play Without Paying
This contest is “no purchase necessary.” So you can get game pieces by writing to McDonald’s and requesting them. When you mail your request saying, “Please mail me game pieces,” be sure to request two game pieces which will equate to four game stamps. That’s the maximum per request.
Enclosed with your request, you will have to mail a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Make sure to put a return address on both envelopes (the self-addressed one and the one you’ll be using to mail the materials.)
Also make sure that EVERYTHING is hand-written. This includes your letter, your envelope, your self-addressed envelope, etc. No printed return address labels. No printed letters requesting pieces. If ANYTHING is typed you won’t get your pieces. Also, make sure to use a real stamp and not any form of printed or hand-printed postage. They really don’t want this process to be efficient for you because they really want you to buy their food.
But after all’s said and done, if you got your envelopes at the dollar store, you’ve used one sheet of paper, and used two standard stamps (90 cents,) You’ve probably spent less than a dollar on your request. And I don’t think any food item that will give you game pieces this year costs less than that.
Where to Mail
Mail all that stuff to the following address by October 22 of this year to get your pieces:
2012 MONOPOLY Game at McDonald’s
Game Piece Request
P.O. Box 49121
Strongsville, Ohio 44149-0121
Gambling is never a great or advisable way to spend your money. But if you’re going to play anyways, you might as well do it smartly.
Who knew? I guess you did! That does make sense about the handwriting.
Yeah…the handwriting thing stinks but it does make business sense for them.
You REALLY have to hand-write the letter and envelope? It almost seems like less work to just go buy the food.
I love how excited people get about this game.
You do! It seems like less work until you figure out how much you had to do to earn that $12 or whatever you end up paying to serve two people. Five minutes of my time is totally worth $5 or $6 in savings.
And then you win free large fries….
…and get fat.
Hahaha! But at least they’ll be free!
You are genius–how do you find this stuff out?! Love it. Saw the commercial last night and was just thinking to myself “No, Monopoly does NOT justify fast food. Do not let yourself go there!” Thanks for this info!
To be honest, we made a busy day, emergency, embarrassing trip to McDonalds. I ordered the wrong size drink and got so mad that I didn’t get pieces, but the cup said “no purchase necessary.” So I checked it out. :p
This is great, I’ll try it when they run the next monopoly promo in the UK!
Great! You’ll have to let us know how it goes! I imagine they’ll have their own rule page and mailing address. Also, I’m not sure they’ll have the no purchase necessary part in other countries. They very well may, but in the US they have it because of some crazy federal law or something. Britain may have the same thing, I’m just not sure.
I did not know this and I am going to have to try this. In principle I don’t go to McDonalds but if I can win without supporting them by buying products, I might just need to do that.
You should…I’ll route for you all the way! If you can get some money out of their contest without actually supporting them…amazing.
I had no idea that you could play without buying their food. Amazing!!! That’s awesome. I always learn something from your blog.
I had heard/seen the “no purchase necessary” thing before, but never paid much attention to it. Will be keeping an eye out on other future contests, too. 🙂 Thanks!
I was just going to say that it sounds like you’ll lose a lot of money on stamps — but I guess if you HAVE to play and don’t want to get fat, then this is the way to go!
The stamps are a heck of a lot cheaper than the food!
But Big Macs are so freaking juicy and delicious! You are taking all of the fun out =)
Haha! They are great! But if you find yourself eating them 3+ times a week with the justification of game pieces…
Oh, hell. Who am I to judge? I’m going through one of my “I can’t kick my chocolate addiction,” phases right now.
I got a better idea, live in the hood LOL. I get about 4 to 5 game pieces a day because people don’t understand the concept of a trash can. I will take a picture of my haul this week.
This is SO great! I hope you’ll share!
I haven’t played McDonald’s Monopoly for fifteen years. Man, that makes me old! It would be nice to win something off the game, though!
hahaha oh my gosh, this is awesome! I had no idea you could do this!
I don’t understand logic behind the requirement to hand write, but I really like the game!
It’s good for the company; if you have to handwrite, you can’t mass produce requests and get insane amounts of game pieces for free. 🙂
Wow, I had no idea what McDonald’s would put you through…they really want you to work for it….hand writing vs typing. I guess that’s how they know you are committed…taking it back to the ol’days! 🙂
Wow….I NEVER would have guessed that……EVER!!! How cool! I love playing that monopoly game and winning free stuff!
Me too! I never get a monopoly, though. It’s always free McFlurries and fries for me. 🙂
Thanks for the tips!
So funny – I used to buy a large diet coke OFTEN just to play Monopoly. Since it’s been years since I drank soda, I haven’t been able to play.
Hopefully this opens doors for you!
This is awesome! I never eat at McDonalds, but do feel a little left out sometimes when they have their monopoly game.
thanks for offering helpful information
come see me at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
Way interesting! I had no idea you could play without purchasing. I would love to have you stop by ‘Or so she says…’ today and share some of your great ideas with my readers! The ‘Your Great Idea’ link party runs every Sat through Tuesday. Hope to see you there! http://www.oneshetwoshe.com