in the early 2000's Disney got hit with 2 hurricanes on 2 years running.
so next year no one was in the parks in Sept.
so they came up with free dinning.
free dinning is a great success - but unless Disney gets hits with a hurricane in the next couple of years - don't count on it.
it is to bring in people when they were not coming. now that people are coming back in Sept - don't know.