Free Quiznos Sub?

Has anyone else tried to redeem the coupons from Quiznos Million Subs Giveaway?

There seems to be a lot of hubbub over this one, which The Consumerist has covered pretty well. Since since issues with redeeming the coupons seem to be ironing out, I thought it would be safe to try to redeem the coupons both me and the boyfriend received. We got a reminder email from Quiznos last night to print the coupons. We did, and decided to find a location to visit today.

We found a location, although the nearest was 15 miles away. But it was a sort of lame adventure.. what else would we do on a random Saturday? We piled in the car and drove to it. Once inside though, it was a small nightmare. We were told our coupons were no good, they wouldn’t accept them, but then when I tried to find a corporate phone number to find they decided to “try to run the numbers through.” We stood there for a good half an hour while multiple employees told us different things and took info off of our IDs. In the end, though, the coupons were denied and we were told they were fake and no good. Surprising since we had printed the coupons directly from the Quiznos email the night before.

In the end all was not lost – we were so hungry by that point that we went to the Mexican place next door and had the best lobster chimichangas possible. Still, we were bummed, considering we thought we would try something new. And standing in that store for a half an hour smelling the food and then being denied was a whole ball of fun, lemme tell you.

I’m not totally ripping Qiznos a new one yet. I know that there has been a lot of miscommunication on this one between the store locations and corporate. I have emailed millionsubs@quiznos.com with the complaint. I’ll let you know how this turns out.

And as an update to this post concerning my trouble with enrolling in free prescription programs – the issue has seemed to resolve itself. One day GlaxoSmithKline just started randomly sending me bottles of my medication – granted, it’s what the prescription was for, so I won’t complain. AstraZeneca was actually a pretty good sport – after the 3rd phone call where they had “not received anything from my doctor” when I know the doctor faxed something in, in exasperation I said “What ARE you guys? Is this really a prescription program? Or an illegal drug front? What are you guys selling?!”

I really wouldn’t recommend that technique for someone trying to enroll, but the guy on the other end of the line was a great sport, laughed, and gave me his personal fax number. A week later I had the meds. So good for both of the companies.

There are some great blog posts coming up – one in which I ponder the price of $20 chicken breasts and decide to debone a whole chicken (it’s just chilling in the freezer now and I am scared shitless) and review awesome and inexpensive makeup. Good stuff!

AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline – free meds?

Does anyone have any proof, anywhere, that patients are actually enrolled in the free medication programs from the above mentioned manufacturers?

I am uninsured. I was also on medication that was extremely expensive ($280 and $160 a month). Since I am unemployed and well under the income limit, I decided to enroll in the programs for free medication from AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.

I started enrollment in early December. Both enrollment programs said that I would have my medications in well under two weeks.

It’s January 27th, and I have yet to see any medications from either programs.

Both have told me I am enrolled and I am eligable. But here is where the nightmare begins.

Dealing with GlaxoSmithKline and their Bridges to Access program was a nightmare. The nurse from my doctors office worked very, very closely with me on enrolling and making sure I had extra meds. GlaxoSmithKline, though, does not know what in the hell they are doing.

My application was returned to me numerous times for “corrections”, although I didn’t need to really do anything. They have no records of when the doctors office call, they had trouble with my prescription, and furthermore, if something screwed up *no one knew what to do.* I was told to re-enroll, call back tomorrow, just wait (yes, just wait), and to call my doctors office, and to have my doctors office call them. (Although they had no idea when my doctors office called back.)

I finally gave up. I went off the medication, went through withdrawal for a couple of weeks, and was fine. Well, relatively.

With AstraZeneca and their AZ&Me program, they are having “problems receiving my prescription slips.” What this means, though, is that they are actually sending me the multiple prescription slips that they have “rejected because they were unsigned.” I have a stack of prescriptions here for Nexium. Complete with social security number, date of birth, address, and signed. Not stamped, AstraZeneca, because you keep telling me “Well, if it was signed it must have been stamped, and we can’t accept that.” But when I say “I am holding it IN MY HAND, there is no stamp” you say “Well, it needs to have this info on it..” and I say “Yup, it has that.” And this is the point where the representative starts stuttering around so I just say “Goodbye” and hang up.

The thing is, I can’t just give up on this one. My stomach issues insist that I use something for the GERD, and that happens to be Nexium. So every day I call AstraZeneca, I am told the same thing, and I call the doctors office, and the nurse patiently calls again.

Is anyone actually enrolled in this program? Do they give out free meds, or is this just a PR trip? I have been very, very diligent about this, and my doctors office is great, and they work with me. I would figure that if anyone was able to enroll in the program, it would be me, since I have been playing the medical ropes for a long, long time. But I’m finding it damn near impossible.