People are crazy about Olive Garden and its Never Ending Pasta promotion.
Olive Garden kicked off its fifth Never Ending Pasta Pass promotion on Thursday, and 24,000 lucky fans were able to buy nine weeks of unlimited pasta, soup, salad and breadsticks for $100 plus tax. Fifty of those winners will have the chance to purchase the Lifetime Pasta Pass for an additional $400 plus tax.
The sale officially started at 2 p.m. ET, and according to Olive Garden, all 24,000 Never Ending Pasta Passes sold out instantly. “Of all fans vying for a Pasta Pass, 85 percent of people opted-in to upgrade to a Lifetime Pass,” the pasta chain said in an email to Yahoo Finance.
Olive Garden fans took to Twitter to both celebrate their purchase and complain about website glitches.
@olivegarden Yes!! Fast fingers! 4th year in a row for Neverending Pasta Pass!! Can’t wait! #PastaPass pic.twitter.com/GdiEvmf68V
— Jim Kenzig (@kenzig) August 15, 2019
Due to the flood of traffic on the website during the promotion, some fans experienced glitches preventing them from being able to purchase their passes.
@olivegarden wouldn’t let me pay thanks for waiting my time pic.twitter.com/vh5Ux1Acts
— dustin (@dustin99384521) August 15, 2019
Olive Garden replied to Dustin’s tweet with the following message:
We’re here to help--send us a DM with your email address so that we can look into this for you. We are experiencing a high volume of conversation at this time, so please be aware that we may be more delayed than usual in getting back to you. https://t.co/3Xh5OOXPn8
— Olive Garden (@olivegarden) August 15, 2019
Kevin Pyles said it he wasn’t able to order because the system said that he entered an invalid name.
Seriously @olivegarden? This was wrong. We were ready to go had everything we needed and on time then this happened. Invalid name. Please tell me how my name is invalid. Tried and tried and got no where. Never could complete the sale because of an error. Help fix this. pic.twitter.com/8uKhNQpLfi
— Kevin Pyles (@EarthboundKevin) August 15, 2019
Yahoo Finance also attempted to purchase the Lifetime Pasta Pass; however, encountered a glitch on the site when trying to finalize the order. Two separate people experienced a slight delay in putting through the order because they weren’t able to click the confirmation button despite all of the information being inputted correctly. For Yahoo Finance, the fix for putting through the orders was to uncheck the “I have read and agree to Olive Garden’s Terms and Conditions” box and re-checking it. Once that was done, they were able to put the order through.
Alex Tappin on Twitter was successful using the same trick.
This happened to me too but I just selected and unselected "agree to terms" and it worked. Got 2, one for my wife an I
— alexander tappin (@AlexTappin) August 15, 2019
Yahoo Finance reached out to Olive Garden for comment on the alleged glitches on the site during the promotion. The company replied, “We saw a huge volume on our website at sale time, which could be why you experienced the delay.”
Both Yahoo Finance people were able to purchase the Never Ending Pasta Pass but will find out whether or not they won the Lifetime Pasta Pass tomorrow.
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Heidi Chung is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @heidi_chung.
More from Heidi:
Olive Garden to offer Lifetime Pasta Passes: Unlimited pasta, soup, salad and breadsticks for life
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