Our first post is Subway UK (aka Eat Commerce Limited.) In May 2024, they withdrew their existing Rewards and ordering app, and replaced it with a new one. Apart from it being harder to earn points, their registration process refuses to accept email addresses with a “+” sign in them. This is a perfectly valid character according to the RFCs, and, indeed, is used by many email services (e.g. gmail) to provide “sub-addressing” to emails. The previous app accepted these. The app helpdesk don’t see this as a problem. Obviously they feel they are allowed to dictate to me exactly what my email address should be. This website is partially in response to their arrogance and condescending attitude when I reported this fault.

A more important failure is that they don’t actually validate the email address you provide when registering with the app. This means you can actually type in any random email address, and you’ll be granted access to the app.

Plus, the app is incredibly slow…

Under the new scheme, points are earned at 10 points per £1 spend. If you spend enough, you might reach 12 points per £1. You can redeem points at a rate of 150 points for a £1 discount on your order. It will take over £100 of purchases to get enough for a free footlong sandwich, depending on the menu item and local pricing. Compared to the old app, where you earned 2 points per penny spent, if you visited at least once per week, and so it would only take a £50 spend to get a free footlong (a simple 1000 points.)

As an aside.. New users to the app are given a “50% off any footlong” voucher, and a free cookie. This is worth approximately £4.00. i.e. 600 points, the reward from a £60 spend.

Given the slow rate of accumulating points, registering a new account under a new email address to get a fresh set of new-user offers feels like it might be the easiest way to realise a benefit from the new app… maybe this is why they don’t allow sub-addressing – it would allow you to quickly create multiple email addresses without you needing to create an new email account for each of them. Of course, that part only holds if they actually validate the email address you give! <facepalm> (Needless to say, don’t save your payment details to the app if you don’t control the email address you give it!) However, it is a breach of the terms and conditions to hold more than one account. They will close all your accounts if they detect this, deleting any points on them. Bear this in mind..

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash.
This is not a subway sandwich – it looks much nicer!