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Applebee's New Date Night Pass Sold Out Immediately & Customers Are Outraged

If you managed to snag a pass this week, consider yourself lucky.
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If you managed to get your hands on one of Applebee's new Date Night Passes, consider yourself lucky. The highly anticipated offer sold out in the blink of an eye this week—and scores of customers who missed out aren't happy.

Applebee's first announced the new Date Night Passes earlier this month, drumming up excitement before they officially went on sale on Jan. 22, ahead of Valentine's Day. Those who purchased the $200 passes will receive 52 Applebee's date nights that they can redeem between Feb. 1, 2024, and Jan. 31, 2025. Each Date Night Pass holder will be able to order up to $30 of food and non-alcoholic drinks during every visit, which adds up to more than $1,500 in value.

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When Applebee's finally released the passes to the public earlier this week, the launch turned into a mad dash as customers scrambled to claim their year of affordable date nights. The passes ended up selling out in just one minute, and those who didn't succeed in their quest have been taking to social media to voice their frustration.

Applebee's Date Night Pass
Applebee's

"Not even 2min in and the @Applebees Date Night Pass is sold out. BUMMER," one customer posted on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

"Plot twist—@Applebees was only selling a single date night pass," another quipped. (Applebee's has not revealed the total number of Date Night Passes that were made available for purchase.)

Several customers even claimed that the Applebee's website crashed right after the passes went live and then sold out by the time the technical issue was fixed. Applebee's denies that the website went down during the launch.

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When contacted about the complaints, Applebee's shared the following statement with Eat This, Not That!:

"The Date Night Pass sale this week showed us that our guests are hungry for date night at Applebee's—just prior to sale time there were nearly 100,000 guests waiting to try and snag a Date Night Pass. Our passes sold out in less than one minute to guests in 41 states—far exceeding our expectations.

"We apologize to our guests who were disappointed that the limited number of passes sold out so quickly. We're always looking for ways to make date night special for our guests and look forward to sharing future offers."

Customers who didn't get a Date Night Pass can keep their fingers crossed that Applebee's will reintroduce the offer in the future. In the meantime, the chain also recently brought back its $14.99 All You Can Eat Boneless Wings, Riblets, and Double Crunch Shrimp deal, so customers can still indulge to their hearts' content.

Zoe Strozewski
Zoe Strozewski is a News Writer for Eat This, Not That! A Chicago native who now lives in New Jersey, she graduated from Kean University in 2020 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Read more about Zoe