Founder & Author
Chris Simmons
The guy who turns an entire birthday month into an itinerary — and built this site so you can too.
Bio
I'm Chris — a millennial, an IT Systems Administrator, and a Los Angeles local who takes birthdays very seriously. I'm also a Leo, which in my case means I don't celebrate my birthday for a day; I celebrate it for the entire month of August, with friends, food, and as many free treats as I can reasonably claim before the calendar flips to September.
I've always loved a good deal. Long before this site existed, I was the friend who knew which coffee app loaded a birthday reward, which dessert chain gave you a free scoop, and which restaurants quietly honored walk-in freebies if you showed your ID. I've also always had a passion for creating websites, writing, and trying new things — so building a place where all of that comes together was probably inevitable.
Today I maintain the Birthday Perks Near Me rewards database, write the guides, personally test the claims, and update everything as programs change. When I'm not working on the site, I'm planning my next August itinerary.
Experience
Birthday rewards researcher & tester
Years of personally claiming birthday rewards at restaurants, cafés, dessert shops, and retailers across Los Angeles and beyond — including a year spent testing 50 rewards in real life and documenting which ones worked, which were denied, and why.
Database curator & writer
Maintains the site's birthday rewards database and writes every guide, city page, and brand deep-dive — with the fine print (ID, app, purchase, and redemption windows) documented for every offer.
IT Systems Administrator
My day job. I run IT systems for a living, which is where the habit of documenting, verifying, and re-checking everything comes from — the same discipline I apply to every offer that makes it onto this site.
Veteran birthday-month celebrator
A decade of full-month August celebrations has produced more real-world birthday itineraries than anyone should admit to — and a firsthand understanding of how these programs actually behave at the counter.
Why I created Birthday Perks Near Me
Because I'm a Leo that loves freebies. Every year on my own birthday, I'd spend hours browsing individual restaurant and retailer websites trying to piece together an itinerary that actually worked — checking which programs needed an app, which needed a signup a week in advance, which were birthday-only versus month-long. It was the same tedious research, every single August.
So I built the site I wished existed: one place that features the best birthday offers in one spot — verified, mapped, with the fine print spelled out — plus birthday celebration ideas for the parts of the day that aren't about free food. For me, the answer was never one dinner; I celebrate my birthday the entire month of August. Whatever your celebration looks like, the goal of this site is to make planning it take minutes instead of hours.
Research methodology
Every offer on this site goes through the same process before it earns a place in a guide:
1. Go to the source
I review official reward program pages, loyalty app terms, and published program conditions directly — never secondhand roundups or outdated blog posts.
2. Verify the details others skip
Eligibility requirements, signup lead time, purchase requirements, ID rules, expiration windows, and whether the treat is honored on your birthday only or all birthday month.
3. Test it in real life
Wherever possible, I claim the offers myself — the same way a reader would, ID in hand — and document what actually happens at the counter, denials included.
4. Update on a rolling schedule
Birthday programs change constantly. City guides and brand deep-dives are revisited on a rolling schedule, and reader reports through the contact page help catch changes faster than any scheduled review.
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