YAS! Is there a better combo than mixing Big Macs and free swag? Nope? Well buckle up because it’s time to talk about the McDonalds Monopoly and how to better your chances of winning.

I used to work there too, so I know what I’m talking about. The job SUCKED so badly, as the restaurant was always horribly busy and customers can be so rude and/or drunk.

Plus, my law degree with less complicated than those tills!

McDonald’s Monopoly

In my opinion, you’ve got two types of people who like to participate in McDonald’s Monopoly. You have those who collect the stickers whenever they planned to eat anyway. They don’t think too much of it, but if they win, it’s nice.

Then there’s the people who go all out to win the big prizes (probably you considering you’re reading this!). They are strategic with what they buy and will know exactly what they are looking for.

You also have people who completely ignore it and don’t even bother acknowledging the game (but these people work within your favour).

What is McDonald’s Monopoly?

I’m going to go into great detail here, but the TLDR version is its like real Monopoly (where’s you’re trying to buy areas of a board), but instead of fake money and getting to annoy your family, you get cash, cars and free food!

You play the game by buying promotional McDonald’s Monopoly food items, then peeling back the stickers to reveal game pieces (you know, Mayfair, Old Kent Road etc.

Some food items give you two stickers while some will give you three. In the past, the size of the meals used to matter, as in – you’d get three stickers if you bought a large meal and two if you bought a medium, but McDonald’s has stopped that.

I suppose they can’t encourage people to eat more than they would normally!

Some of these stickers will give you an instant win (you could win a car instantly, it’s not just free McFlurrys) or by collecting properties to make sets and therefore win big prizes.

Lots of people buy and sell these stickers because there is a limited number of prizes, so it’s almost a race to win them.

When does McDonald’s Monopoly 2019 start?

It’s on Maccie D fans! McDonald’s Monopoly starts again this year on 20th March 2019.

McDonald’s Monopoly Prizes

Like in previous years, there is an instant win element, collect to win as well as online instant win prizes (here’s an older blog I wrote about it).

I started to write out the full list of prizes but it started to get ridiculous and I have murder documentaries to watch on Netflix. There are thousands of prizes, and you can see the full list here.

Prizes include:

• £100k cash provided by Mcdonalds (4 prizes – Collect to win)
• MINI Cooper choice of 3 door or Convertible models (5 Instant win prizes and 15 Collect to win)
• £2,000 to spend on a holiday provided by loveholidays (50 x collect to win prizes)
• PS4 Pro (150x instant wins, 500 collect to win prizes)
• Any phone with a 1 yer sky mobile plan (100 x instant wins, 300x collect to win prizes)
• Urbanears wireless headphones (1,000 instant wins, 1,000 collect to win prizes)
• £50 gift card for JD sports
• £30 voucher for Boohoo
• Medium Mcdonald’s meals
• £800 to spend on a City BReak
• £10 Cash
• Razor Hoverboard
• £250 voucher at Redletterdays
• £200 cash
• Now TV Smart stick and a 1 year pass
• Cinema tickets

Plus literally millions of Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets, McFlurries etc.

Each ‘game piece’ sticker can comprise of the following types of game piece.

McDonald’s Monopoly Instant Win Game Pieces

These pieces Pieces each have an instant-win message. These are the dream. Like, if you manage to win £10k from peeling off one sticker – that’s pretty good going.

That said, you’re more likely to win some chips.

McDonald’s Monopoly Collect to Win Pieces

These McDonald’s Monopoly stickers each feature a street or station, a colour or train icon from of the nine Monoply themed property sets and propety reference prefaced with the M shaped Golden Arches logo.

Property Game Pieces can be collected for the Collect To Win Game, requiring the collection of a Property Set comprising the 2,3 or 4 different Properties from the same Property Set.

Basically, you’ll need to collect all the blues, browns, greens etc.

McDonald’s Monopoly Online Game Pieces

Each of these stickers has a unique 10 character-long code which can be entered online. Be really careful about sharing these on social media because people do steal them and there’s nothing you can do. It’s frustrating if it’s for a free drink, but devastating if it’s for thousands of pounds.

McDonald’s Monopoly Rare Pieces

Ah, McDonald’s Monopoly Rare Pieces… the drama they cause! I have a McDonald’s Monooly Facebook group to swap stickers and the same ones get asked for every year.

Long story short – if you manage to get Mayfair, Strand and Bond Street (but mostly Mayfair), you’re onto a winner. Even if you don’t want to bother getting the set, you’ll find people who are willing to split the grand prize with you, or pay you handsomely for it.

If you do go into Facebook groups to try and hunt down one of these, expect to be greeted by ‘YOU’RE THE MILLIONTH PERSON TO ASK TODAY, OBVIOUSLY NO-ONE IS SELLING ONE’ or trolls pretending they have it. I’m warning you now, those groups are harsh!

McDonald’s Monopoly Winners

According to the McDonalds Monopoly website over 12 million prizes were one last year.

Prizes redeemed included six mini coopers, 3 people claimed 100k cash and literally millions of people claimed food prizes.

McDonald’s will be keeping a tally of what has been won already on this page, so you can keep an eye on the odds of you winning the big prizes.

McDonald’s Monopoly Qualifying menu items

If you want to participate, annoyingly, you’re going to have to ditch your Big Mac meal or chicken nuggets and start eating the less popular items such as the Chicken Legend or Big Tasty.

Again, the sizes don’t matter anymore, so don’t feel like you have to get large meals to get triple stickers.

Triple label

• Chicken and bacon salad or chicken salad
• Chicken selects
• Chicken Legend
• Chicken Big Tasty
• Big Tasty with Bacon
• Big Tasty without Bacon
• Any Big Flavour Wrap
• Any item from The Signiute Collection
• Medium fizzy drink
• Large fizzy drink
• Reguar Iced Frappe/Iced Fruit Smoothie
• Large Iced Frappe/Iced Fruite Smoothie

Double Lable

• Medium Fries
• Large Fries
• Mozzarella Dippers
• Cadbury Creme Egg or Cadbury Caramel McFlurry
• Any Meal (medium or large)

McDonald’s Monopoly Rules

• you’ve got to be over 16 years old and can’t work at McDonald’s.
• You’ve got to keep your game pieces safe and undamaged. Make sure you don’t let the code slip to anyone else, especially if you’re bragging on social media!
• Don’t bother trying to use old stickers from past years. McDonald’s is onto it.

There’s a whole list of rules (not just the above) you’re going to want to win, especially if you think you’ve won big. You don’t want to blow it because of a technicality when you go to claim your prize.

McDonald’s Monopoly tips and tricks

Here we go, here’s where we get serious (also, add your tips and tricks in the comments if I’ve missed some out!).

• Get involved with Facebook swaps – Just sayin’, totally set up one last year. Join it and switch to fill up your ‘sets’ quickly.
• Keep an eye out on Gumtree and eBay – People will be flogging ones they don’t want. Might be worth it if you’re close to getting a set. Oh, learn how to negotiate on Gumtree here.
• Ask for a cup of water – Look for the kindest looking staff member, put on your sweetest smile and ask for an extra cup, or a cup of tap water. I happily used to give them out when I worked there (especially to the good looking boys! haha) – I don’t lose out, and it helped someone else.
• Get wombling – When working at McDonald’s, I couldn’t help but notice people are messy sods. They’ll leave their rubbish everywhere. The good news – the rubbish now has stickers and prizes on them. If you’re OK with nabbing them, why not? There LITERALLY could be a free car in it. It’s so weird to think that the top prizes could just be in the bin.
• Get a discount – There are free McDonald’s vouchers everywhere – the back of receipts, bus tickets and newspapers. Keep an eye out for discounts and freebies to keep the cost low.
• Get free McDonald’s Monopoly vouchers – It says in its T&Cs that Mcdonald’s may give you free codes to those people who have signed up to its newsletters. They’ll be awarded digitally, so check your emails.
• Ditch your favourites – As long as you’re happy to eat it, try and order food with the most stickers. Big Macs and Chicken Nuggets won’t get you sod all!
• Don’t forget to check the online sticker – It’s too easy to stick it in your wallet and forget about it. It would be worth as much as any of the other ones.
• The time you enter the code matters – Don’t do it at peak times where there is a lot of competition. Enter first thing in the morning or late at night for your best chance of a big prize.
• Keep the rubbish stickers – Another Old Kent Road? Don’t worry because you can swap any 10 stickers for a NOW TV pass, which is worth about £10 – so not too shabby!
• Keep an eye on the expiration of prizes – Small items like food will have a smaller window for claiming the prize, while bigger prizes may expire after several months.

Have you won anything this year? Let me know!