When running promotions, companies have a responsibility to thoroughly inform ALL of the stores that might be affected by those promotions of their full details and how they might be impacted by them. There really needs to be some sort of mass internal memo sent out each time a new promotion is run so that everyone involved knows exactly what's going on and what's to be expected.
A number of companies clearly aren't doing this, as highlighted by the significant number of people who find themselves in awkward situations when attempting to take advantage of promotions, where the store either isn't aware of the promotion, refuses to participate or makes their dissatisfaction known to the customer in some way.
Further, if there is a stipulation that the promotion is to be available at "participating stores only" then these stores need to be specified. Vague and ambiguous terms and conditions serve no real purpose.
It may be worth keeping in mind that rather than have the desired effect of increasing a company's profile and improving public relations, poorly run promotions tend to have the reverse effect of fostering ill-will and resentment.
I've found if its not in the catalogue then they won't know about it.
The ones that do know about it probably only know from the 10 customers before you.
I would say nearly nobody receives memos about promotions.