The early bird will catch the worm at Dunkin’ Donuts stores across Lee, Charlotte and Collier counties on Thursday with a special promotion to thank customers and to celebrate several grand openings and a store remodeling in the area.

Beginning at 5 a.m., all 26 Dunkin’ Donuts locations in the tri-county area will each offer their first 50 customers a free travel mug, which comes with 52 Be My Guest gift cards.

“This is the first time that Dunkin’ Donuts has ever done anything like this and it’s exclusive to these three counties,” said Toby Srebnik, spokesperson for Dunkin’ Donuts. “Due to the recent grand openings we have had at several Fort Myers locations and a wonderful new remodel at the Cape Coral location on Cape Coral Parkway, we wanted to celebrate these locations as well as reward our loyal hardworking customers.”

Each Be My Guest gift card pack is valued at approximately $120 and the cards are redeemable through March 31, 2009. Each pack includes: 10 hot coffee gift cards, 10 iced coffee gift cards, eight iced latte gift cards, eight hot latte gift cards, eight iced tea gift cards and eight Coolatta gift cards.

Dunkin’ Donuts has three locations in the Cape and each is participating in the promotion. The locations are at 904 Cape Coral Parkway E., 2221 Santa Barbara Blvd. and 3336 Del Prado Blvd. S.

According to Jeannie Graff, field marketing manager for Southwest Florida, between all 26 participating locations, Dunkin’ Donuts will give away approximately $6,000 worth of coffee. That would add up to $156,000 marketwide, she said.

“We would love to invite everyone in the community to come and check out our new products like the all-day oven toasted menu and also to see what we are doing in the area,” said Srebnik. “We are very excited abut being able to offer this exclusive promotion to the people of the Lee, Charlotte and Collier counties.”