Olive Garden is offering a 'crazy' new bonus with this year's never-ending pasta passes - here's how to get one
For $100, the pasta passes provide eight weeks of unlimited pasta, soup or salad, and breadsticks. That's one week longer than last year's seven-week endless pasta extravaganza.
Plus, this year, 50 customers will also have the chance to buy a "Pasta Passport to Italy." For $200, the recipients of the pasta passport will receive an eight-day, seven-night, all-inclusive trip to Italy for two - plus their eight-week pasta pass.
"We wanted to do something crazy this year to capitalize on our guests' love for the Never Ending Pasta Bowl and pasta pass," Mary Kate Rosack, Olive Garden's director of marketing, told Business Insider.
The Italian vacation will feature stops in cities including Siena, Florence, Assisi, and Rome. Airfare, ground transportation, hotels, meals, and excursions will all be included in the $200 cost.
The 22,000 pasta passes and 50 pasta passports both go on sale at PastaPass.com on Thursday, September 14, at 2 p.m. ET.
Passes will only be available for 30 minutes, and they will likely sell out even more quickly. Last year, all 21,000 pasta passes sold out in one second, according to Olive Garden. So, the chance to purchase the 50 pasta passports will be won by whoever is lucky enough to hit refresh on PastaPass.com at exactly the right moment.
The pasta passes will give recipients access to the "Never Ending Pasta Bowl" from September 25 to November 19.