With grocery, fast food, and restaurant prices skyrocketing, people are finding ways to save money. A man reveals how he saved money while in college by hacking restaurants’ rewards programs without creating new email addresses.
“So, when I was in college, I figured out this free food glitch,” TikTok user @mrcultdaddy tells his 473,000 followers. “Nowadays, every restaurant, every food place, they all have an app, and most of them will give you something free if you sign up for their rewards system. You just have to give them your email.”
Usually, the customers are limited to one reward per email address. However, @mrcultdaddy says if you add a special character to your email address, it is seen as a different one.
“Let’s say your email is cultdaddyspam@gmail.com. Well, if you do a ‘plus’ after your email— cultdaddyspam+hello@gmail.com—it will still go to your inbox, but most of these restaurants think of it as a different email,” the content creator shares. “You can do can do ‘plus hello,’ ‘plus grandma,’ ‘plus TikTok.’”
How does this work?
“Because these apps think of it as a brand new email, you can continually sign up and get free food or whatever the incentive is without having to make other email addresses,” @mrcultdaddy explains.
Next, the content creator shares his own experience doing this with the Chick-fil-A app. “If you signed up on the app, you got a free sandwich,” he says. “I easily got over 50 to 60 free sandwiches.”
In addition to snagging free food, this can also help weed out spam. “You should always put the plus and whatever the place is that you’re signing up at. That way, if you start getting spam emails, you can click on the top, you can see what email it was sent to, and you can figure out who’s selling your data,” he concludes.
He adds in the caption, “When times were tough.. i used this a LOT.”
The Daily Dot reached out to @mrcultdaddy via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment. The video garnered over 95,000 views. Viewers praised @mrcultdaddy for this hack.
“Doing the lords work sir,” one viewer wrote.
“I’ve made so many gmails for free trials but this sounds like a better alternative if it works,” a second praised.
@mrcultdaddy When times were tough.. i used this a LOT #freefood #lifehackstiktok #lifehacks #greenscreen ♬ Breaking News – Breaking News
Furthermore, others spilled the tea on different hacks.
“Sign up with a new birthday every month . Get the birthday freebies,” one viewer commented.
“You can also add a period anywhere in your email address and it registers as a new one but you still get the emails. It’s called the dot trick!” a second stated.
“Just include the date and you don’t have to keep track of what extra word you’ve used previously,” a third added.
Does the plus trick work for all email servers?
@cultdaddy is correct about the tick; however, it only works for Gmail. “In Gmail, you can add a ‘+’ symbol and any word you want to the end of your email address, and it will still reach your inbox. All of these email addresses will reach your inbox, but Gmail will treat them as separate email addresses,” per NC State. This trick is a helpful way to organize your email and filter spam.
What is the dot trick?
The dot trick is placing a dot anywhere in your email address, and it will not affect email delivery. However, some websites don’t recognize this feature. “Although Gmail supports this feature, most other websites don’t. Therefore, when you add a dot to your Gmail address while registering, the website thinks of it as a completely new email ID. However, Gmail will still send all the emails sent to that address to the original email address,” per G Tricks.
Update 2:26pm CT, July 19: During an interview with the Daily Dot, @mrcultdaddy shared how he learned about this hack.
“I read [an] article about data security and using this for all signups,” he revealed via TikTok direct message.
Although he doesn’t use it anymore, he did in college many times when he was short on money, getting hundreds of dollars’ worth of free stuff. Before wrapping, he gave a shoutout to restaurants.
“Thanks to all the restaurants who give free food for signing up,” he said.
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