Leon has followed Pret a Manger in creating an unlimited coffee deal to lure people back to work in the cities – where Leon has the majority of its shops. But it’s offer seemed too good to be true, so we checked.
The headlines of a number of national newspapers carried the story of unlimited coffee for £15 ($19) a month, 25% less than Pret a Manger’s deal which we reported on last week.
Pret a Manger also limited you to 5 coffee’s a day and those had to be spaced out by 30 minutes. Leon’s offer is for unlimited coffee’s; does that sound too good to be true to you? Unfortunately, it is.
Tracking down the offer on their homepage wasn’t easy, but searching google for it eventually revealed the offer page, and with a bit more digging, the terms and conditions, which can be found here: https://leon.co/terms-and-conditions/
The offer cannot be redeemed at the till, but rather it must be purchased via a ‘click and collect’ system Leon calls Smart Order.
However, the kicker comes as you read down the short conditions.
There is a total redemption limit of 75 coffees across the 30 day offer period.
I’m pretty certain that most of us have a different interpretation of unlimited. It reminds me of the ‘Unlimited’ Internet broadband providers used to offer, that actually was limited after all under their fair usage policy.
It still seems like a good deal to me, especially as Leon has for a long time been a supporter of Fairtrade and the rainforest alliance. But someone in their marketing department needs to rethink whether the attention from a catchy headline is worth damaging their reputation.
