Popeyes takes aim at McDonald's new chicken sandwich with its own free sandwich giveaway

• Popeyes is giving away 500 codes for free chicken sandwiches.
• McDonald's just dropped $5 passes to be the first to taste its new chicken sandwiches.
• Popeyes bought URLs close to McDonald's drop to find customers who misspelled.

Popeyes is offering free chicken sandwiches to fans who missed out on McDonald's sneaker-like sandwich drop.

McDonald's sold limited-edition capsules online on February 18 at noon. Customers who made the cut could buy the chance to taste the brand's new chicken sandwich early, along with a limited-edition capsule of other McDonald's merch at CHKNDrop.com. Buyers will get the chance to try any of the three new sandwiches one day earlier than the rest of the world, on February 23.

While McDonald's did not publicly say how many capsules it sold, they were all gone by 12:01 pm. Fans on social media complained, and one person said it was "harder than copping Yeezys."

Popeyes, which is maybe considered the reigning king of fast-food chicken sandwiches, stepped in. The chain bought domains for the 50 most likely misspellings of CHKNDrop, which redirected to Popeyes' website. There, the first 500 to misspell the URL got a code for a free Popeyes chicken sandwich.

"If you're a chronic misspeller, you have some guarantee that you won't get a 404 not found message if you misspell their [website] when trying to type in your search bar. You may just find a free Popeyes Chicken Sandwich instead," Popeyes said in a statement.

McDonald's is releasing three new chicken sandwiches on February 24, into the already-crowded fast-food chicken sandwich market.

Insider has reported on several chains gearing up to introduce competitors to Chick-fil-A and Popeyes, which both sell crispy chicken sandwiches with pickles. In January, KFC introduced a crispy chicken sandwich at nine locations, available across the country by the end of February, and Jimmy John's dropped its own version of the chicken sandwich in a Super Bowl ad. Most recently, Burger King announced a new chicken sandwich coming later this year.