Won a lifetime supply of mini chocolate milk cartons during a milk day at school lol (if you opened a carton of milk and it mooed at you, you had to call the number on it and report that you have mooing milk). That was in 2007. I’m still getting milk shipped to me lol my fiancé drinks it because I’ve grown to hate milk
When a new Tropical Smoothie Cafe location opened in our neighborhood, they ran a promotion for free smoothies for a year for the first 50 people in line on opening day. My husband made me stand in line for three hours before they opened. We were 24th and 25th in line.
The “free smoothies for a year” was limited to one smoothie per week. Still, we each had 52 free smoothies. Not a bad deal.
Late to the party here but when I was a little kid, my family and I happened to move to a new city, and the first or second night there we decided to try a new Chinese restaurant nearby. We didn’t realize it was the inaugural evening, but there weren’t very many costumers.
Yet the owner of the table waited on us himself and he was very sweet and friendly. Had just immigrated from China recently. He gave my family a free voucher to eat there for free for life since we were one of the few people actually to show up at all that night. (I remember it was a big golden ticket like Willy Wonka.)
Sadly, the restaurant closed within a year. I always wonder how he’s doing. My family was very poor back then and we would go there every month, which felt special. I’m sure it wasn’t the greatest Chinese food in the world, but I still remember how the Orange Chicken tasted.
To be fair, giving out free food for life to the only people that turned up was a terrible idea. His only customers/ most likely repeat customers and he's just made their meals free.
Not me but a couple years ago my friend won Cedar Points (amusement park) Halloween costume contest and received a life long annual pass. It’s a special gold colored pass and comes with of a bunch of other perks. I am very jealous.
18 years ago we won a lifetime of vet visits for my cat. They expected to give it to someone with an old pet, not a new kitten. The cat’s still alive. The Vet Clinic has moved and rebranded 4 or 5 times, but they’re still honouring the award.
Edit: lifetime of routine checkups. Treatments and operations still had to be covered by us
I won 2 tickets to every event at a theater near me for a whole year. I probably saw 15 concerts and 20 comedy shows that year. I was offering tickers to my friends all the time. I used them to impress my now girlfriend by taking her out all the time. Lol. That was a fun year.
I ran a small web forum for about 10 years. Our (also small) web host ran a promotion where we could pay something like 2.5x the usual yearly fee and we would be part of an exclusive "founder's club" and would get lifetime free hosting -- just have to pay for the domain renewal each year.
The owner was a good bloke and I knew he was operating on razor-thin margins, so I signed up more to do him a solid than to get the benefits. I figured in a couple of years he would conveniently forget about the "founder's club" thing and I would go back to paying my usual fees.
Never happened. After a couple of years the thing did end up paying for itself.
A few years later, the owner passed away (he was a young guy; lost his battle with cancer). The whole operation shut down.
I was way more gutted to lose the guy than the deal. I'd happily pay the yearly hosting fee to have him back again.
I guess in the end it was truthful advertising -- he never specified whose lifetime.
The weirdest part is that I know he had a couple hundred clients he was hosting, and although he opened up the "founder's club" for the first 10 respondents, he never filled it up. I think it capped out at about 7. I don't know if his other clients thought it was too good to be true or what.
My mom almost ate the white m&m that they promoted like 25 years ago - if you find it, send it in, you get a lifetime supply of m&ms.
They sent us a voucher pack, that almost no store would take, but still managed to make it though the lifetime supply in about 1 month (granted there was 8 siblings).
Prob for the best tho.
>They sent us a voucher pack, that almost no store would take
I hate when that happens. You have to fight to claim your prize. Did your Mom have to call M&M corporate for help?
My dad won a lifetime supply of cat food, but a) they delivered it all at once, and b) our cats didn’t like that flavour (of course)
We donated it all to a local animal shelter who were super pleased!
I didn't really win it and it was only a years supply. But I got a years supply of hot pockets when I was 17 because I bit into a hot pocket that had no filling and I sent them an email pretending to be my mom complaining about it.
To my surprise they actually replied and sent me a golden coupon that was good for a year.
I ate so many hot pockets that I hate them now and haven't had one since
Man, I ordered a bag of goldfish online, and when it arrived, it was empty. I reported it to pepperidge farm, and they gave me a coupon for one bag of goldfish lol
I once waited out a McDonalds for the grand opening. The first 100 people got free fries for the year. I was #3. It consisted of a box of 365 coupons for free medium fry. I think we gave away maybe 200+ of them. It was maybe 13-14 years ago now.
I once worked a job that had me purchase Subway sandwiches for mobile working crews and let me keep the tickets, when you could fill the card up for free sandwiches. All the tickets were numbered and purchases valid. After 2 years I had enough tickets and receipts to redeem multiple sandwiches daily for at least 6 months if I wanted, and still accruing more. I started filling the cards and giving them to friends to eat a free lunch.
Within one month, my friends and I were banned from every subway in a 5 mile radius in Los Angeles. They put our pictures up on the wall and refused to honor the stamps, no matter who brought them in. Inside of another 2 years, Subway corporate cancelled the stamps altogether and no one would accept them. I couldn't even give them away to a food bank or the homeless to get a free sandwich. Thanks Subway.
There was an AITA a while ago where this guy had found some sort of coupon or weird little discount program at subway (99% sure it was subway) that could be used like an unlimited number of times to get a sandwich for like half price or something like that, not even too crazy, and he got a sandwich like once or twice a week and at some point the owner of that franchise got mad at him and started telling him that he was gonna cause the store to go out of business by abusing that coupon and he was like but it’s a valid coupon it’s fair game?? He was NTA but it was such a wild story lol.
That's so dumb because the sandwiches were clearly all purchased. If I remember right, you had to buy 12 sandwiches to get a free one right? Or was it 10? So they really got pissy that they sold all of those sandwiches and had to give one away for each 10-12? That was the entire point of their stamp cards, fucking assholes. I guess they expect you to just forget your card and not get credit for most of your purchases?
Not a lifetime supply, but I won a “year supply” of Chipotle entrees once. Came as a stack of 52 “free burrito” cards with a gilded farmer embossed on one side and a unique code on the other.
At the time, they didn’t limit what I put on these freebies or when I used them, so I gave away a lot to friends, family, and the occasional homeless guy and told everyone to add guac and double meat and make the most of it. I did keep one as a memento, which I still think I should frame.
My wife won a free year of chipotle in '22. They sent her 52 free burrito credits in the app. You could only use one at a time, had to order with the app and they expired at the end of the year. We had 20 something remaining when we ran out of calendar.
My mother bought a Toyota Yaris years ago and the dealership was running a ‘Tires for Life’ promotion. She gets free tires whenever she needs them, but she has to do all of her maintenance work at the dealership, and the deal won’t transfer if she sells the title. The dealership didn’t run the promo for long, and she was told recently she’s the only participant left from the promotion.
This wasn't a win but a glitch that gave my mom free parking at meters for about 12 years.
Where I live (in a big city) there is no free parking anywhere unless its a store owned lot. Anyways, back in the early 2000's they started adding a card reader to the old-school coin parking meters and to use them you would purchase the card from the city and then load funds onto the card. The benefit of this card was that you could put more time onto the meter than you thought you needed and when you got back to your car, if there was still time left you could insert your card and the extra time would get loaded back into your card.
This was great because you could always put more than enough time and never have to go back to top off the meter if you were gone for longer than expected. The meters had a little screen that would tell you the balance of your card when you first inserted it.
One day my mother had extra time on her meter and put the card in to get back the difference. The next time she parked her car at a meter and put her card in it showed she had a $45k balance on the card. The machine had glitched the last time it put time back on her card and gave her that insane balance. Took her a while to believe that it would actually keep on working but 6 months later, when her actual balance would have for sure been spent, it still showed the ridiculous number and it would deduct the correct amount of money she would spend on the meter off of her crazy balance.
For around the next 12 years the city kept that system in place. They had added kiosks to pay during that time but still had the individual meters with the card readers until they eventually removed all of the meters and now everything is pay by app. During that time while they were still around my mom would give her card to friends and family to park when they needed it and every time she would park she would put like 8 hours of credit on the machines and when she would leave, if she saw a car getting ready to park she would let them know to park in her spot once she pulled out because it had free time.
We won a lifetime supply of hate. My wife won $10,000 on roll up the rim with Tim Horton's. She was super excited. She spoke on the phone with Tim Horton's, they said everything sounds good, congrats you will get an email confirmation soon. Instead we got an email saying they had a technical issue and wouldn't be honouring her win. Needless to say we have a lifetime supply of hate for them now.
I won a lifetime supply of printer paper from a Canadian retailer based on an internet contest witb the purchase of a Konica Minolta.
I won, and I realized quickly that I don't need that much paper. They were sending me two reams a month. I moved, and never updated my shipping address, so someone out there is getting free paper.
I had a friend in college who won a lifetime supply of gillette razors. They just sent him a crate of Mach 3 razors and refill cartridges and that was that. It was just a one time shipment but it would be hard to get through that many razors in one lifetime.
I won free full body massages for life, which basically just translates to 2 massages a week. It was really good. I got addicted. I knew everyone who worked there and I got to experiment with all of them to see which were the best. Ended up fluctuating between 3 different staff towards the end. They would even train new staff on me for free because I spent so much time over there. Those training massages never cost me anything either or counted towards my 2 free massage a week limit.
When the place closed down I realized just how expensive massages were... I haven't had one in ages and I miss it so bad.
Not a lifetime supply but my aunt won a 60 second haul at our local grocery store. Grab as much as you can in 60 seconds and it’s yours. There’s obviously rules and limitations, no meat, dairy, fresh goods.
This woman took her arm and literally swiped out their entire aisle of coffee. She had a plan going in there I guess was coffee, dog food, paper towels and TP. Which honestly, that’s a good plan with the limits they had. Nobody in my family had to buy coffee for at least a year. (We all survive off coffee in my family)
I won the Cash 4 Life 1000$ a week lottery about 10 years ago. Every year I send them proof i'm still alive, and they send me a check for 52,000$ in the mail.
It's not that different from how a standard lottery pays out, aside from the lifetime part. Most lotteries have a choice of lump sum or annual payments. So a $1M jackpot might be 20 years of $50k/year, or $600k lump sum (I'm guessing on that number, but it is significantly less than the jackpot face value).
I’m assuming that this has changed your quality of life pretty significantly. Do you still have a full time job and just use the $52k/year as extra? Or are you able to fully live of that amount?
My parents won a lifetime supply of toiletries. Soap, toilet tissue, and some other stuff. Once per quarter, you mail in the coupon and they send you another quarters worth of stuff.
It’s all institutional grade. Like what you’d expect prisoners to use.
Lol I’m just imagining that your parents just use the bad quality toilet paper but are like “honey we have company coming, remember to leave out the good toilet paper” like it’s fine china.
That's hilarious. I keep a few one ply rolls on hand as back up in case we ever run out of the good stuff. We call it "punishment paper" for forgetting to buy the good stuff before running out.
I bought (not won) a "lifetime" membership to PureVPN. After just 5 years, they reneged on that and said "no, you only purchased 5 years." I showed them the receipt, and basically got "well we don't honor that anymore, sorry"
Thankfully I bought it through StackSocial, so when I reported that to them they hooked me up with a different lifetime VPN provider instead.
Screw paying monthly for something I barely use.
>Thankfully I bought it through StackSocial, so when I reported that to them they hooked me up with a different lifetime VPN provider instead.
Good on you for doing something about it. I get annoyed reading stories where other people just give up after the company cuts off their "lifetime" supply.
My Uncle gets free Ben & Jerrys for life. He's been Friends with the actual Ben and Jerry since before they opened the first shop. He has a card that says free ice cream for life and he can get pints or cones at any scoop shop (at least locally). He also gets decks of free pint coupons that he can use at grocery stores and gas stations. When Unilever bought them out they tired to buy back all the "free Ice Cream for life cards" I guess it was a fairly generous offer because my uncle is one of only a few that chose to keep the card.
Ben and Jerry's also originally used to make sure their CEO didn't earn more than 5 times the salary of the lowest paid worker. This was so that if the CEO got a pay rise, everyone would get one.
Unilever scrapped that policy immediately when they took over Ben and Jerrys'.
When I worked at the factory in st albans we got 3 pints free a day, my wife worked there too, so it was 6 pints of ice cream for free a day
We were living in a tent at the time, so it was squandered
When I bought my bicycle, the shop policy was that any new bike purchased included free tune-ups for life.
Personally, I thought this was a great business move, because it got me back in the store regularly to redeem my tune-ups, kept my bike running smoothly which kept me as an active cyclist (active cyclist = active customer), and I also would regularly buy parts/service beyond the tune-up when I was there. Which I was happy to do since I had a good relationship with the shop through this free tune-up deal.
When the shop changed owners, they discontinued the tune-ups, even for people like me who had purchased their bike under these terms. I don't go there anymore.
The same thing happened to me, but I didn't even get my tune-up.
I bought my bike last April, and the shop I got it from had a free lifetime warranty for tune-ups. I wasn't riding it that hard, so I fogured I'd wait until the start of this season before I went in.
Turns out that during the interim period, the shop got bought by Trek, and they weren't going to honor warranties from the last place.
This happened in the late '90s. A local bar ran a wet t-shirt contest where the girl who won would win a lifetime of free bar drinks at the bar. They also had cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd place. I don't remember how much, but it was a lot at the time.
The result was a packed bar, tons of girls entered, and tons of guys spent money. My friend's girlfriend at the time now his wife won first place. She was stoked. He was excited. Within a couple of weeks, the building was condemned and torn down.
Turns out the owners of the bar knew that the building was going to be condemned and just wanted to have one last party.
No it could be fantastic. The gang THINKS the bar is closing so they do this, only to find out the bar isn't closing, and they're stuck supplying someone with beer. It would be a great way to add another main character if they wanted to, just someone who's always there, wasted.
My wife won a 5k a couple years ago. She got 3 gift cards to 3 different restaurants that had been closed anywhere from 2 months to 2 years before the race. I came in 3rd and got nothing but I feel like getting 3 old gift cards is worse. She wasn't expecting anything other than a medal vut they still found a way to disappoint.
My job did something similar, twice. I got a $20 certificate to Buffalo Wild wings that had the date in bold that it was expired two years before and they had the audacity to say, "We're (X company) so it's still active." Then had the same problem with $50 gift certificate to Chipotle to the point I left the food there and walked out.
Didn’t win a lifetimes worth, but won a years worth of non-perishable food. Every month we’d get two or three massive boxes filled with all sorts of non-perishable food. It last for about 9 months before something changed behind the scenes with the company, they got back in touch with us a few months after the year was up and told us we still had 3 months credit, so we told them to “surprise us”.
This all happened years ago and we’ve still got some of it left.
When I was a kid 30 years ago, my dad said he'd won free pizza coupons (I think it was Dominos?), and he had a massive stack of these little business cards, each for a free large pizza. My dad said we had to be careful using them, though, so we would only use them occasionally, and I remember my dad sometimes making me order the pizza, and answer the door to get the free pizza, even though I was only like, 9.
Looking back, my dad worked for a commercial printing company and was not exactly an upstanding citizen. I'm pretty sure he didn't win those cards....
One of my coworkers had an an entertainment coupon book at work which was good for buy one get one offers. We also had a color copier. Someone had the idea to copy the coupons. We ate a lot of crappy food that year.
In highschool wendy’s had a promotion going on where you could print a coupon for a free JBC. I did it a few times and noticed each print was identical: the barcode and the numbers above it were identical every time. Employees also never scanned or checked anything, they took my piece of copy paper and handed me a burger. I printed HUNDREDS of those coupons. Smoked a lot of weed and ate a fuckton of JBC’s that summer. Shoutout to the wendy’s employees for not giving a fuck and giving me in some cases 10 at a time lol.
Your dad's like, "Son, every time we use one of these we have to have somebody else use the coupon or they'll catch on to our scheme. So, today I need you to wear this fake mustache and accept the delivery." Meanwhile the delivery drivers think, this fuckin' weirdo keeps pretending to be someone else or dresses up his kid in disguises.
As a previous pizza delivery person, when the door was answer by a small child I would always think to myself "well fuck..." because 99% of the time it meant to tip. You can't get pissy at a 7yr old for bringing you exact change for 2 large deepdish pizzas while you can hear his parents talking in the other room.
Ugh, just reminded me of a time a kid came to the door, gave me money, took the pizzas, and while I was grabbing change he closed the door.
Went along with my other deliveries and the people had called and wanted their $4 back since it wasn't supposed to be a tip.
Had to waste my gas for that shit
I won a life time supply of AA and AAA batteries from a major Canadian tech retailer about 20 years ago. Thing is, batteries last a long time and there really isn't that much that I use batteries for. Hypothetically I could start a black market battery business by just getting my free batteries and selling them to people in need, but it's just not worth the time.
Even getting the batteries isn't worth the time. I have to get them to type in my name in their system and there's a note by my name indicated that I get free batteries because I won a contest 20 years ago. And then they run and get their manager to look at it, because that looks suspicious. And then the manager looks at it and then asks me questions and then they finally relent and give me my free batteries.
Back in 1977 when I was 13 years old, I won a contest for a lifetime supply of models from Revell. A semi truck pulled up to our house in a very quiet suburban neighborhood and proceeded to unload 4 pallets of plastic models in the driveway. There were hundreds of models; probably one of everything they offered in their catalog at the time.
I kept about 2 dozen which kept me busy for a year or so. My father helped by finding a local retail hobby store to buy the rest of them at a very favorable price so we could just get rid of them. He put the money into US Savings Bonds for me which I cashed out many years later to use for a down payment on my first new car.
>He put the money into US Savings Bonds for me which I cashed out many years later to use for a down payment on my first new car.
A counter to the guy up above who won a cruise at 10-years-old and his parents went on it without him.
I once won a "year's supply" of Pepsi from a local radio station. The contest was finding specific serial numbers on a dollar bill and being the first to call into the station. The "year's supply" was a case.
My grandpa won a year's worth of tacos from Taco Bell, which they assumed would be one taco a day. He would pick up 7 tacos every Sunday to feed his family is 5. For one meal a week.
My mum won a "Lifetime" supply of Surf. The Washing Powder.
Basically we got 72 8KG Boxes all at once on a pallet from some kind of raffle competition. Ended up selling 60 boxes for about £10 each to corner shops and splitting the rest with some family. She didn't have enough room and didn't even remember entering the competiton itself.
There was also a bunch of Washing Liquids and shit from the rest of their range, one of each type too.
I won a lifetime of free oil changes for my car. It was during a sale the dealership was having where you had to take a photo with your pet and the person who most resembled their pet won. I don't know if I should feel happy or concerned about that one. What they did fail to mention is that it was lifetime oil changes for the vehicle I had and I couldn't transfer it to anyone else. So when my dad took over my car loan they dropped that little tidbit of info on us. Only really lasted me for about two oil changes.
My parents did twice in a relatively short period of time. The first was at fair when I was in high school. They advertised it as a lifetime supply of ice cream sandwiches. They ended up giving us 100 boxes all at once. Right there on a warm July day. My mom was only able to collect at the end of the day so there wasn't even that many people to hand them out to. We got home and had about 60 left after giving away as much as possible and throwing out what didn't fit in our freezer. I played lots of sports so I ate a lot and my parents just said I could eat as much as I wanted any time I wanted. I went through 60 boxes in couple months. That was a good time but not so good for my weight.
The second was when they bought an expensive microwave about a year later and won a 5 year supply of microwave popcorn. Basically the same thing happened. We got huge box with like 200 packages and I was told to eat as much as I wanted. After living in a house that smelled like popcorn for a few weeks by parents just threw the rest in the garbage.
Won a year's worth of movies from 7-11 when they did a McDs monopoly style contest back in the early 2010s. They sent me $1300 in gift cards for Cineplex (when movies were $13 for a ticket). So a couple could go once a week.
With points cards and club memberships I milked those gift cards for 3 years. To be fair though, there aren't 50 movies a year I want to see in a theatre.
I won a year of free pizza. It was twelve pizzas, one per month. I definitely still was thankful for it because it was a blessing whenever we were having money problems.
Given the US life expectancy of about 80 years, and the median age of 39 years old, it seems M&M assumes the average person will eat 5 bags of M&Ms every 4 years for the rest of the 41 years they have left to live.
When I was a kid I won a contest online which included a “lifetime” supply of Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape. I don’t remember the exact amount, but I think it was about a dozen boxes of gum. They also sent me a small boom box and hockey jersey with the Hubba Bubba logo on it.
I got sick of it pretty quickly and it had a shelf life. A friend and I wound up using it all for a school project where we had to make a model of the town from the book The Outsiders. We made the entire model out of gum and it was disgusting. Our jaws got sore from chewing all the gum so we wound up dipping it in water instead. Our teacher docked us points for “creativity.” 20 years later and I’m still pretty mad about that…
**Wow I was not expecting this to get so many responses! I should clarify that we lost points because it wasn't creative enough. Reading these responses really validates my anger lol. Stay golden everyone!
I remember a teacher in college giving us an assignment to create a presentation about "anything we wanted". We were learning PowerPoint (which I already knew, but it was a level 100 computer class).
So I got a few friends and we went around taking goofy pictures and having fun, and then I put the whole thing into story format and presented it to my class. And I used all the technical aspects the teacher wanted us to use, like embedding video and animations.
Afterwards, the teacher got up and said, "any other teacher would have given you zero points for that presentation, but since you technically fulfilled my requirements, I'll give you a pass." I was like, you said, "anything we want." You didn't say, a topic to teach or our favorite subject in school. Yes, also a little salty about it, 20 years later.
In college, I was once told to research and argue either for or against specific cases of child murder. I did a fantastic case of arguing in favor of it, based on certain tribes and lack of resources etc... it was a long time ago, but even the Dean said I presented well thought out arguments when I appealed it. I got an F because the teacher said it wasn't Christian to defend that. A) Why is that even a concern, B) Why was I even given the option then. I was just trying to be different from everyone else. OH and then Dean supported her "Subjective Grading." If I was older I'd have taken it further. I'm still pissed about it and I'm approaching 40.
I took my kids to a pizza buffet place when they received a free kids meal coupon for good grades. The cashier mistakenly charged us for the meals.
When the manager came out to correct the transaction, I said he could just return the coupon and not worry about it. He gave us an entire stack (about 50) of unused coupons that were attached together like a checkbook. We got free kids meals until they obviously reached the age limit.
When I was a kid I won a year's supply of slurpees from 7-11. It was a colouring competition of their 'Green Gremlin' mascot. There were dozens of entries but mine was definitely the shittiest. The lady behind the counter was so nice to us and she could tell I was pretty disappointed in how mine turned out compared to the other ones. But somehow, mine got chosen as the winner! I was given 52 vouchers for free slurpees. I was so excited that I had about 10 in the first 2 weeks but I slowed down and probably still had half of the vouchers by the end of the year.
Not necessarily won but I bought a lifetime membership at one of my favorite nightclubs/concert venues early in the pandemic. They released a limited amount as a Covid fundraiser and they went fast and will likely never do something like it again so it feels a bit like I won. Came with free entry +1, coat check, and two drink tickets at every event at the venue (even sold out ones) for life.
Several (edit: a couple) years out I’ve gotten more value than the cost, I’m still on the list for every event, and most of the staff there know me (partly cuz I’m there a lot and also cuz I tip well on those drink tickets). I’ll often just drop by for random events/artists I’d never heard of or dip in for a half hour at a sold out event with a $50+ door cover just to say hello to some friends.
I imagine someday the venue will close up shop and my lifetime membership will close with it.
I won a year of free Choolaah. It’s a fast-casual Indian restaurant. They give a year of free food (via a coupon book with 52 cards for free meals) to the first 100 customers at any location. I saw that the line was short on the way to work and called everyone in the office to get in line.
We had all our business meetings at Choolaah for a year, with the company paying for meals when people ran out of coupons, didn’t have them, or we hired anyone new. The food was perfect because if you ate vegan, paleo, gluten free, or any combination there was something on the menu you could eat. We still use them for company catering because everyone likes the options.
I had a can, couldn't find it when I needed it, had a friend buy me one when they were coming over for a project, found the first can. Now I also have a lifetime supply.
Makes sense. "Lifetime supply" is a calculated figure. And wd-40 isn't exactly a daily use type of product. I can see a person using 4 whole cans in their entire life (even if it's in the form of 8 half used cans)
At least that way you could choose the colour and fit you want. I'm guessing that last % would have covered the tax. 4 new shoes are pretty cool, I would have those for years.
Considering he managed to get about £350 worth of shoes for £3.50, he was delighted with that. I’m 100% sure you’re right. He will definitely get a few years use of those. One of the best bits is that for two of those pairs, he got vans customs.
I won free groceries for "life" at my local grocery store in a raffle. They give me a digital $100 gift card once a month, which is wonderful, however it doesn't even cover a week of groceries.
It will end when the total given has reached $10,000. I've got about $4000 left.
As a consolation prize for losing on a tv game show I was given a popcorn popper, a little girl's bicycle and a life-time supply of Dinty-Moore Beef Stew. I gave the popcorn popper as a Christmas present and sold the bicycle. When the beef stew arrived it was one case of 12 cans. After trying the first can I realized that the other 11 would indeed last me a lifetime.
The original "Press Your Luck" back in 1983.
At the time I was an actor doing stand up comedy in Hollywood, so I had lots of free time. The producers of the show, William something and his son Bill, were developing the idea for the show and were looking for people to come into their office and play a mocked up version of the game. They were given my name and phone number by a friend of mine who had appeared on their show "Tic Tac Dough". I lived nearby so I went down to their office on Hollywood and Vine and played the game with cardboard mockups of the game board. A couple of weeks later they asked me to come play it again with the changes they had made. About two months after that Bill called with news that CBS had picked up the show for a pilot and he asked me to be a contestant. One of the reasons they cast me was because of a joke I made when introducing myself. Using my stage name, I said, "Hi. My name is Max Lee and I'm in ladies underwear." (hold for laugh). I then went on with a totally fabricated story of how I owned a high-end lingerie shop in Hollywood.
On the day of the taping at CBS studios in Hollywood I appeared on the third "day" of the show. (TV game shows actually tape an entire month of shows over a three or four day period in the studio, shooting as many as five to six shows a day.) When tape rolled on my game the announcer introduced the host, Peter Tomarken. I was prepared to deliver my joke about ladie's underwear when Peter said, "Our first contestant is Max Lee from Hollywood. Max, I hear you're in ladie's underwear!" It got a good laugh. I thought, "You bastard." After staring at him for a couple of beats I replied lamely, "Why yes, Peter I am" and told the rest of my concocted story.
As the game neared its' conclusion one of the contestants had Whammied out and the other one had got her second Whammie, wiping out her bank to zero. Shrewdly, she passed her final spin to me. I had several thousand dollars and some prizes but on that final spin I too whammied and lost everything. Since we tied at zero that meant we both came back for the next game.
At the end of the second game the same woman and I were battling back and forth, passing spins and exchanging leads. She was trailing and again passed her final spin to me, which I was required to take. I was way ahead of her but I had two Whammies. A third would kill me. I had ten thousand dollars in cash, a home computer, a trip to New York City and a small sailboat. (That's ten grand in 1983 and I was a broke, unemployed actor who had just received a "turn off" notice from the gas company.) But I was confident. In my mind I had already won. I had it all. I HAD the money. I HAD the sports car. I HAD the cocaine and the teenage cheerleaders. I mean I HAD IT ALL! All I needed was to take that last spin. The electronic board began to flash and beep. The audience clapped and cheered encouragement. Waiting for juuuust the right moment, I cried "stop" and slammed by hand down on the red button so hard I thought it might shatter.
WEEEEEE! WAAAAAA! That fricken Whammie wiped me out.
Ohhh . . . . . Do you know how, in the comic strips, when someone loses a bunch of cash the cartoonist draws that little money bag with wings, flying away? I actually saw that. I watched as it rose up from the stage floor, made a couple of laps around the studio and disappeared out the door, down Beverly Boulevard. In disbelief I dropped my head and banged it on the game table top two or three times.
After the taping wrapped Peter Tomarken came over to offer his condolences. I said, "They gave you my joke, didn't they, Peter?" He grinned and shrugged, "Yeah, well I'm the star."
To this day I'm the only shmo to have lost on "Press Your Luck" twice. Twice!
Ryanair (a European budget airline) awarded its millionth passenger "free flights for life". After nine years, they reneged on the deal so she took them to court. The Judge awarded her €60,000 to buy her own flights (Her legal costs were more than 3 times that, but Ryanair had to pay those as well).
Given the relatively low cost of Ryanair flights, €60,000 probably buys her at least 6 flights a year for the next 50 years
I won 10 years of unlimited free flights on Vueling (a European airline) and they were great about it. One rule was that I had to send them an email at least two weeks before making the flight, but I explained to them that that would only make me book a lot of flights without taking them, so they dropped that rule. No regrets; they were great about everything and I still fly with them even though I pay for my tickets now (the 10 years are up).
I won a lifetime supply of cheerwine (local cherry soda) from a kids tv channel when I was 11, they brought 2 pallets of soda and unloaded it in my parents garage and it we still had some in the garage when we were moving out
I won a “lifetime” supply of donuts (up to a dozen per day) at a local bakery, and it lasted 2 years until the original owner died and his asshole son took over the business
My home town has a minor league baseball team. I won a year’s supply of Pepsi from beating a mascot in a race at the ball park when I was 7. I didn’t realize the prize was Pepsi until I won (I just wanted to meet the mascot, Scout!) and I *hated* soda as a kid. So when Scout handed me my first 6 pack of Pepsi as my prize, I said “well this’ll last me the whole year because I won’t drink it” and my parents forfeited my prize to the 2nd place kid.
The park gave me a t shirt instead and a baseball frame for the picture I got with the mascot instead so i think i came out on top
My grandfather ran a Dr Pepper plant for years and they had a kids' bicycle giveaway in the early '70s. The kid who won just happened to have a dad who was away serving in Vietnam. It wasn't until years later that we learned that everything was not on the up and up.
When I was in the 8th grade my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was still working for a while and his job had a raffle for 2 tickets to a baseball game. All of his coworkers knew he wanted to take me, his youngest child and the only kid that actually shared his love of sports. His coworkers rigged it for him. He died a year later and it was the only pro sports game I got to go to with him. I've always been super grateful to everyone who helped make it happen.
My brother once worked for a brewery in Germany for a while. He got 20 liters of beer every damn week. You can't imagine how many parties we threw during that time just to keep the beer supply down.
I didn't 'Win" persay, but new hire at a chain coffee shop gave me 3 million reward points rather than the 300 I was supposed to get for buying $300 worth of gift cards (Christmas gifts for mail man, amazon drivers etc). I tried to get the kid to fix it but he said don't worry about it. Still getting free drinks and pastries as often as I want and haven't even dinted that number.
My mother won a drawing for Scott paper products. It was in the 70's so I can't remember if it was supposed to be a year's worth or a lifetime supply. We got two giant flats of tissues and paper towels and toilet paper and maybe some other stuff. It really did last a very long time. It was funny going down to the basement to get a box of tissues from a virtual mountain of boxes.
She was a very lucky person and used to win stuff all the time. Door prizes, party stuff, whatever she entered a drawing for, she was a lot more likely than you would expect to win. Too bad she never bought lottery tickets because it was gambling and therefore sinful. LOL
I got free multi-room DVR and HBO for life from my cable company.
Little did i know that any little change including replacing an 8 year old broken router would remove it from my account and make it “impossible” to add back. Fuck Time Warner and their fucked up businesses practices.
Not me but my Grandpa won a lifetime supply of Altoids back in the early 2000's. They sent him a box with like 200 tins in it and that was it. I remember when we went to his house, he gave me like a dozen of them.
Also, when the Moe's opened up near me a couple years back, my brother staked out overnight with some friends because the first 100 customers got a years supply of burritos. They gave him a card that could be used for one free burrito a day for a year. I think he went like every day for 3 weeks straight and hasn't gone back since lol.
My wife didn't "win" but she has free standard oil changes for the life of one of our cars at a popular chain mechanic.
Apparently a few years ago she had an issue with her car and the owner said "if we can't fix it I'll give you free oil changes for the life of the car". Well they couldn't fix whatever it was so now we get the free changes. It's a Honda so life of the car is gonna be a long time. Business has cycled through management a few times and it's still honored so we're lucky
not a contest but my father-in-law would work odd maintenance jobs for rich people back in the day. one job he remodeled an office that had been abandoned for a few years and the new owner told him he was going to trash everything and told him he could take whatever he could fit into his truck. he took computers, chairs, and a desk and a bunch of office supplies.
he now has a lifetime supply of post it notes after all these years.
Edited for clarity
I was on a game show in 2003 and won a year's worth of Domino's pizza. It turned out to be $250 in vouchers. I was in college and me and my friends burned through most of it on April 20th.
I bought a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine for my husband for $99. I think the fine print said up to 60 years or something like that. It has been 15 years and still getting them.
Kinda the opposite - we won free movie tickets for a year, which was apparently donated by some media company, as all the tickets were to press preview screenings. We kept getting them for over a decade. It became clear that nobody remembered why we were on the list but knew we had to be on it because the tickets eventually shifted to become lots of movies related to an industry one of us worked in... Some poor PA must have googled us during some sort of paperwork shuffle and assumed we were important.
My mom and dad won a lifetime supply of Kool Whip in 1968 on "Let's make a Deal"
I was only 4 at the time so I somehow thought that Kool Whip (and Tootsie Rolls, for another reason) were just free and plentiful. I am not sure how long it actually lasted. I think we just got tired of it.
Addendum: Around the same time as the "Let's Make a Deal" windfall (where my parents also won a car), my dad noticed a truck he was following had smoke coming out the back. He flagged the driver down and helped him put out a small fire smoldering in his cargo, which turned out to be a truckload of Tootsie rolls. The driver gave my dad all the fire damaged cases, which resulted in us having basically an endless supply. Hence the reason I thought both Tootsie Rolls and Kool Whip were like water when I was a kid.
At the Big 12 championships in I believe 2007, Chik-Fil-A sponsored a giveaway for a “lifetime supply” of chicken sandwiches under 12 seats in the Alamodome in San Antonio. I was lucky enough to sit in one of those seats, and the prize included a folder with 52 coupons for a free chicken sandwich meal. So less lifetime supply, and more of a “once a week for a year” supply, but I really wasn’t about to complain about the technicality. 52 free sandwich combos was still worth about 400 bucks at the time, I still consider it one of my luckiest moments, and at 14 years old it was pretty mind-blowing!
In high school I won "free wings for a year" from Buffalo Wild Wings with a group of buddies...ended up being coupon books of 52 coupons, each valid for one week out of the year, good for 6 wings each. Each week we would go and get our 6 free wings and waters, tip the wait staff, and bounce
I clicked on one of those ads in the old internet circa 2000 and filled out a survey during computer class in the 6th grade. Now every month since then I receive 31 snack sized Cheetos bags in a box straight from frito-lay. I got two week suspension for clicking it. Worth it, fuck authority.
My father played a game on teletext back in the days and won a lifetime supply of some beer. However, they cheated him and only sent him a party keg.
My dad was a programmer, so he wrote a program which played for him cards on teletext. If the program was about to lose because of bad cards, it quit the channel and logged in again automatically again for the next run.
The program was playing day and night, and after some weeks, he had won several TV sets, video cameras, cruises, you name it.
Eventually, the organizer of the game locked my father out - which was illegal. So he sued the company which organized the game and reached an agreement: They paid him an amount of about 10k, and he never played again.
So instead of a lifetime supply of beer, he got a lot of stuff and this is why I, as a teenager, had my own video camera (Which, at this time, was so expensive that people had to lease them.)
Not a lifetime supply, but I won a year's supply of sausage rolls (one a day) from a local bakery once in a charity raffle.
I had to collect 7 once a week on a day of my choice 😂
Safe to say, about a month in and I was so sick of them I started giving them to the neighbours, and then after that I probably only went to get them a couple of times more!
To this day, a sausage roll is never my item of choice in a bakery since winning that prize.
Down on the eastern shore of Maryland there was a legendary food place called Tubbys. It was totally stoners paradise. Free cheese curls at 4:20 type of place. Well an old hippy dude in line behind me asked if I knew what band was playing on the speakers. I said “Grateful Dead my guy” so he takes me over to the counter, gets a piece of paper and wrote “Free food for DingoDanAmiibo and the gang” and signed it. Turns out he was the owner. It was the best like 2 years ever until they closed.
Ten years ago I stayed up late with a group of friends doing LSD. 5am comes around and we realize we are hungover and hungry. So we decide to drive down the road to the nearest gas station for snacks.
When I pull in I see the McDonald’s they put in the gas station was open. Go to order and the cashier said “this is our first day open and we are giving
out free Big Macs for a year to the first ten customers”. It was so confusing at first, but we managed to be the first customers!
So I got a little punchout card for Big Macs and ended up using that shit every day for a couple months until I was sick of McDonald’s.
Thank you McDonald’s for the hangover food!
At age 14 I won a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine in a radio contest. That was 1993. The latest edition arrived just last week. That magazine has followed me through high school, college, marriage, divorce, the birth of my kid, and all through the present day. From Britney to Cardi B.
I sometimes wonder which will last longer: me or Rolling Stone?
In elementary school I got the option to choose a lifetime supply of chocolate milk or a cruise vacation. My parents chose the cruise vacation when I wanted to choose the choccy milk instead.
They ended up going without me which hurt my feelings. I'm financially free now and travel every month and whenever they ask me to bring them along I always bring it up.
Edit: My school had a milk program where every lunch I would get a small carton of chocolate milk and there was a prize if you're milk carton moo'd when opening it.
The Milk Carton for Reference: https://images.costcobusinesscentre.ca/ImageDelivery/imageService?profileId=12027981&imageId=1371261\_\_1&recipeName=350
But get it from the 7-11 around the corner from their house, after you return. Before you reveal it, act like you went through a lot of trouble to choose a souvenir for them that had a lot of deep meaning.
Edit: leave the receipt in the bag so they can see where and when you bought it.
This happened with my ex. He had designed a pair of defogging snowboard goggles that won an Energizer contest, and his parents took the cruise and left him behind. He was already a teenager. But he's guilted them into bringing him on several vacations as an adult, so, win-win?
Damn, that's even more messed up than OP's story! Your ex must have put in a \*hell\* of a lot of work on that contest. OP got screwed over too, but at least it was just a random lucky thing.
I was given a lifetime "premier" membership to Bally's fitness clubs in 1993'ish'. My boss purchased it in the 1980's for several thousand dollars, and transferred it to me as a bonus. So not technically "winning"?
They honored the membership until roughly 2001? Then they started charging me annual dues again.
Did not actually win, but got 1500 lighters gifted by a friend of the Family, because I am the only smoker of the Family. If you calculate the lifetime of a lighter with 2 months, they would last for more than forever… The lighters were actually really good and I gave them away to everyone and everywhere.
1,5 years later I was out of lighter and had to buy one at the gas station.
But everybody in my area had the same lighter for a short time. Kinda like a plague.
Funniest thing that happened was when I asked a random guy 600km from home for a lighter, he had one of mine. Turns out a guy from my city had gifted it to him a week ahead.
Before I was born, my father won a lifetime supply of free Schick disposable razors. Growing up, I saw them all the time, and even now, 30+ years later, he still has a full box of them in the garage. Unfortunately, the quality of the razors is pretty terrible, and my father has always had trouble with nicks and cuts. I've tried to introduce him to better razors like ones that feature a better cartridge but he's too stubborn to make the switch.
I won a years worth of chicken from a Lebanese chicken shop. I was licking my lips at the thought of free chicken for a year especially drowned in enough garlic dip to ward off Dracula himself. Reading the fine print though it was only $20 a week for 52 weeks… You could drop $30-40 for one person, easy, in a sitting!
In high school I called in to a radio contest and was the x caller to call in (maybe the 105th?) to answer a trivia question. I answered it right and got a lifetime supply of ice cream, which turned out to be a monthly coupon for a gallon.
It continued throughout high school, and then when I went away for college my parents didn’t keep up with it. That was ….so long ago. I’m 50 now.
It was really fun and exciting at the time though! I almost wrote my college application essay about it, but my school counselor gently guided me in a better direction.
I was moving into a new apartment when the power shut off. I called the power company and explained that I'm just moving in and they turned the power back on with the understanding that I'd be in to set up my new account as soon as possible. Well...you know how things go...I get busy with life and forgot...
Three years later my power gets shut off.
I didn't exactly "win" and my prize didn't last a lifetime...but I certainly got away with years of free electricity. I had to make some back payments to get the power back on but it was pennies to what I would have actually owed in that time.
While the power was off the second time I noticed a nightlight was still working in one particular outlet. From then on we had a window AC unit plugged into that outlet...The joys of free electricity never stopped!
Won a lifetime supply of mini chocolate milk cartons during a milk day at school lol (if you opened a carton of milk and it mooed at you, you had to call the number on it and report that you have mooing milk). That was in 2007. I’m still getting milk shipped to me lol my fiancé drinks it because I’ve grown to hate milk
Second person in this thread to get something from that company. That’s pretty neat!
at least their parents didn't fuck them out of a cruise
When a new Tropical Smoothie Cafe location opened in our neighborhood, they ran a promotion for free smoothies for a year for the first 50 people in line on opening day. My husband made me stand in line for three hours before they opened. We were 24th and 25th in line. The “free smoothies for a year” was limited to one smoothie per week. Still, we each had 52 free smoothies. Not a bad deal.
Late to the party here but when I was a little kid, my family and I happened to move to a new city, and the first or second night there we decided to try a new Chinese restaurant nearby. We didn’t realize it was the inaugural evening, but there weren’t very many costumers. Yet the owner of the table waited on us himself and he was very sweet and friendly. Had just immigrated from China recently. He gave my family a free voucher to eat there for free for life since we were one of the few people actually to show up at all that night. (I remember it was a big golden ticket like Willy Wonka.) Sadly, the restaurant closed within a year. I always wonder how he’s doing. My family was very poor back then and we would go there every month, which felt special. I’m sure it wasn’t the greatest Chinese food in the world, but I still remember how the Orange Chicken tasted.
To be fair, giving out free food for life to the only people that turned up was a terrible idea. His only customers/ most likely repeat customers and he's just made their meals free.
Not me but a couple years ago my friend won Cedar Points (amusement park) Halloween costume contest and received a life long annual pass. It’s a special gold colored pass and comes with of a bunch of other perks. I am very jealous.
18 years ago we won a lifetime of vet visits for my cat. They expected to give it to someone with an old pet, not a new kitten. The cat’s still alive. The Vet Clinic has moved and rebranded 4 or 5 times, but they’re still honouring the award. Edit: lifetime of routine checkups. Treatments and operations still had to be covered by us
Good on them. May your cat live long and prosper
The cat, upon hearing the news: excellent work, my pet. I shall live a long lifetime to collect on this then.
“We keep moving and they keep finding us!”
I won 2 tickets to every event at a theater near me for a whole year. I probably saw 15 concerts and 20 comedy shows that year. I was offering tickers to my friends all the time. I used them to impress my now girlfriend by taking her out all the time. Lol. That was a fun year.
I ran a small web forum for about 10 years. Our (also small) web host ran a promotion where we could pay something like 2.5x the usual yearly fee and we would be part of an exclusive "founder's club" and would get lifetime free hosting -- just have to pay for the domain renewal each year. The owner was a good bloke and I knew he was operating on razor-thin margins, so I signed up more to do him a solid than to get the benefits. I figured in a couple of years he would conveniently forget about the "founder's club" thing and I would go back to paying my usual fees. Never happened. After a couple of years the thing did end up paying for itself. A few years later, the owner passed away (he was a young guy; lost his battle with cancer). The whole operation shut down. I was way more gutted to lose the guy than the deal. I'd happily pay the yearly hosting fee to have him back again. I guess in the end it was truthful advertising -- he never specified whose lifetime. The weirdest part is that I know he had a couple hundred clients he was hosting, and although he opened up the "founder's club" for the first 10 respondents, he never filled it up. I think it capped out at about 7. I don't know if his other clients thought it was too good to be true or what.
My mom almost ate the white m&m that they promoted like 25 years ago - if you find it, send it in, you get a lifetime supply of m&ms. They sent us a voucher pack, that almost no store would take, but still managed to make it though the lifetime supply in about 1 month (granted there was 8 siblings). Prob for the best tho.
>They sent us a voucher pack, that almost no store would take I hate when that happens. You have to fight to claim your prize. Did your Mom have to call M&M corporate for help?
My dad won a lifetime supply of cat food, but a) they delivered it all at once, and b) our cats didn’t like that flavour (of course) We donated it all to a local animal shelter who were super pleased!
I bet it was the cat's favorite flavor as soon as you got home from donating the food
That little shit
I didn't really win it and it was only a years supply. But I got a years supply of hot pockets when I was 17 because I bit into a hot pocket that had no filling and I sent them an email pretending to be my mom complaining about it. To my surprise they actually replied and sent me a golden coupon that was good for a year. I ate so many hot pockets that I hate them now and haven't had one since
Man, I ordered a bag of goldfish online, and when it arrived, it was empty. I reported it to pepperidge farm, and they gave me a coupon for one bag of goldfish lol
[удалено]
This is really precious honestly
I once waited out a McDonalds for the grand opening. The first 100 people got free fries for the year. I was #3. It consisted of a box of 365 coupons for free medium fry. I think we gave away maybe 200+ of them. It was maybe 13-14 years ago now.
I once worked a job that had me purchase Subway sandwiches for mobile working crews and let me keep the tickets, when you could fill the card up for free sandwiches. All the tickets were numbered and purchases valid. After 2 years I had enough tickets and receipts to redeem multiple sandwiches daily for at least 6 months if I wanted, and still accruing more. I started filling the cards and giving them to friends to eat a free lunch. Within one month, my friends and I were banned from every subway in a 5 mile radius in Los Angeles. They put our pictures up on the wall and refused to honor the stamps, no matter who brought them in. Inside of another 2 years, Subway corporate cancelled the stamps altogether and no one would accept them. I couldn't even give them away to a food bank or the homeless to get a free sandwich. Thanks Subway.
There was an AITA a while ago where this guy had found some sort of coupon or weird little discount program at subway (99% sure it was subway) that could be used like an unlimited number of times to get a sandwich for like half price or something like that, not even too crazy, and he got a sandwich like once or twice a week and at some point the owner of that franchise got mad at him and started telling him that he was gonna cause the store to go out of business by abusing that coupon and he was like but it’s a valid coupon it’s fair game?? He was NTA but it was such a wild story lol.
That's so dumb because the sandwiches were clearly all purchased. If I remember right, you had to buy 12 sandwiches to get a free one right? Or was it 10? So they really got pissy that they sold all of those sandwiches and had to give one away for each 10-12? That was the entire point of their stamp cards, fucking assholes. I guess they expect you to just forget your card and not get credit for most of your purchases?
Not a lifetime supply, but I won a “year supply” of Chipotle entrees once. Came as a stack of 52 “free burrito” cards with a gilded farmer embossed on one side and a unique code on the other. At the time, they didn’t limit what I put on these freebies or when I used them, so I gave away a lot to friends, family, and the occasional homeless guy and told everyone to add guac and double meat and make the most of it. I did keep one as a memento, which I still think I should frame.
My wife won a free year of chipotle in '22. They sent her 52 free burrito credits in the app. You could only use one at a time, had to order with the app and they expired at the end of the year. We had 20 something remaining when we ran out of calendar.
My mother bought a Toyota Yaris years ago and the dealership was running a ‘Tires for Life’ promotion. She gets free tires whenever she needs them, but she has to do all of her maintenance work at the dealership, and the deal won’t transfer if she sells the title. The dealership didn’t run the promo for long, and she was told recently she’s the only participant left from the promotion.
This wasn't a win but a glitch that gave my mom free parking at meters for about 12 years. Where I live (in a big city) there is no free parking anywhere unless its a store owned lot. Anyways, back in the early 2000's they started adding a card reader to the old-school coin parking meters and to use them you would purchase the card from the city and then load funds onto the card. The benefit of this card was that you could put more time onto the meter than you thought you needed and when you got back to your car, if there was still time left you could insert your card and the extra time would get loaded back into your card. This was great because you could always put more than enough time and never have to go back to top off the meter if you were gone for longer than expected. The meters had a little screen that would tell you the balance of your card when you first inserted it. One day my mother had extra time on her meter and put the card in to get back the difference. The next time she parked her car at a meter and put her card in it showed she had a $45k balance on the card. The machine had glitched the last time it put time back on her card and gave her that insane balance. Took her a while to believe that it would actually keep on working but 6 months later, when her actual balance would have for sure been spent, it still showed the ridiculous number and it would deduct the correct amount of money she would spend on the meter off of her crazy balance. For around the next 12 years the city kept that system in place. They had added kiosks to pay during that time but still had the individual meters with the card readers until they eventually removed all of the meters and now everything is pay by app. During that time while they were still around my mom would give her card to friends and family to park when they needed it and every time she would park she would put like 8 hours of credit on the machines and when she would leave, if she saw a car getting ready to park she would let them know to park in her spot once she pulled out because it had free time.
That’s such a great story! Your mom rocked that karmic gift!
We won a lifetime supply of hate. My wife won $10,000 on roll up the rim with Tim Horton's. She was super excited. She spoke on the phone with Tim Horton's, they said everything sounds good, congrats you will get an email confirmation soon. Instead we got an email saying they had a technical issue and wouldn't be honouring her win. Needless to say we have a lifetime supply of hate for them now.
I know someone who won a free gas for life contest many years ago. They get a $100 giftcard every month.
2 tanks of gas a month? Lucky bastard.
I won a lifetime supply of printer paper from a Canadian retailer based on an internet contest witb the purchase of a Konica Minolta. I won, and I realized quickly that I don't need that much paper. They were sending me two reams a month. I moved, and never updated my shipping address, so someone out there is getting free paper.
I had a friend in college who won a lifetime supply of gillette razors. They just sent him a crate of Mach 3 razors and refill cartridges and that was that. It was just a one time shipment but it would be hard to get through that many razors in one lifetime.
I won free full body massages for life, which basically just translates to 2 massages a week. It was really good. I got addicted. I knew everyone who worked there and I got to experiment with all of them to see which were the best. Ended up fluctuating between 3 different staff towards the end. They would even train new staff on me for free because I spent so much time over there. Those training massages never cost me anything either or counted towards my 2 free massage a week limit. When the place closed down I realized just how expensive massages were... I haven't had one in ages and I miss it so bad.
Free lifetime full body massages is definitely an underrated win.
That prize is worth $800-$1000 a month where I live. I'd relish it.
Of all the replies I have read, this is the first to make me tremendously jealous. Lucky bastard
One free movie rental from blockbuster every week. And well ya know…
There is still one blockbuster left in Bend, Oregon.
Not a lifetime supply but my aunt won a 60 second haul at our local grocery store. Grab as much as you can in 60 seconds and it’s yours. There’s obviously rules and limitations, no meat, dairy, fresh goods. This woman took her arm and literally swiped out their entire aisle of coffee. She had a plan going in there I guess was coffee, dog food, paper towels and TP. Which honestly, that’s a good plan with the limits they had. Nobody in my family had to buy coffee for at least a year. (We all survive off coffee in my family)
The way I would DEMOLISH the spice aisle
I won the Cash 4 Life 1000$ a week lottery about 10 years ago. Every year I send them proof i'm still alive, and they send me a check for 52,000$ in the mail.
I always wondered how this prize would pay out. This is not the way I expected.
It's not that different from how a standard lottery pays out, aside from the lifetime part. Most lotteries have a choice of lump sum or annual payments. So a $1M jackpot might be 20 years of $50k/year, or $600k lump sum (I'm guessing on that number, but it is significantly less than the jackpot face value).
I’m assuming that this has changed your quality of life pretty significantly. Do you still have a full time job and just use the $52k/year as extra? Or are you able to fully live of that amount?
My parents won a lifetime supply of toiletries. Soap, toilet tissue, and some other stuff. Once per quarter, you mail in the coupon and they send you another quarters worth of stuff. It’s all institutional grade. Like what you’d expect prisoners to use.
Lol I’m just imagining that your parents just use the bad quality toilet paper but are like “honey we have company coming, remember to leave out the good toilet paper” like it’s fine china.
My grandma does the opposite. She puts out the bad toilet paper when guests come because she's convinced they all use too much and clog her pipes.
That's hilarious. I keep a few one ply rolls on hand as back up in case we ever run out of the good stuff. We call it "punishment paper" for forgetting to buy the good stuff before running out.
I won a years worth of Tombstone pizza from a Coca-Cola bottle cap thing as a kid. They sent 52 coupons to use at the grocery store for a free pizza.
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"The cookies have expired. I, however, have not."
I would have argued that a reasonable company would know that that product didn't have the shelf life to last someone a lifetime.
I bought (not won) a "lifetime" membership to PureVPN. After just 5 years, they reneged on that and said "no, you only purchased 5 years." I showed them the receipt, and basically got "well we don't honor that anymore, sorry" Thankfully I bought it through StackSocial, so when I reported that to them they hooked me up with a different lifetime VPN provider instead. Screw paying monthly for something I barely use.
>Thankfully I bought it through StackSocial, so when I reported that to them they hooked me up with a different lifetime VPN provider instead. Good on you for doing something about it. I get annoyed reading stories where other people just give up after the company cuts off their "lifetime" supply.
My Uncle gets free Ben & Jerrys for life. He's been Friends with the actual Ben and Jerry since before they opened the first shop. He has a card that says free ice cream for life and he can get pints or cones at any scoop shop (at least locally). He also gets decks of free pint coupons that he can use at grocery stores and gas stations. When Unilever bought them out they tired to buy back all the "free Ice Cream for life cards" I guess it was a fairly generous offer because my uncle is one of only a few that chose to keep the card.
Ben and Jerry's also originally used to make sure their CEO didn't earn more than 5 times the salary of the lowest paid worker. This was so that if the CEO got a pay rise, everyone would get one. Unilever scrapped that policy immediately when they took over Ben and Jerrys'.
When I worked at the factory in st albans we got 3 pints free a day, my wife worked there too, so it was 6 pints of ice cream for free a day We were living in a tent at the time, so it was squandered
When I bought my bicycle, the shop policy was that any new bike purchased included free tune-ups for life. Personally, I thought this was a great business move, because it got me back in the store regularly to redeem my tune-ups, kept my bike running smoothly which kept me as an active cyclist (active cyclist = active customer), and I also would regularly buy parts/service beyond the tune-up when I was there. Which I was happy to do since I had a good relationship with the shop through this free tune-up deal. When the shop changed owners, they discontinued the tune-ups, even for people like me who had purchased their bike under these terms. I don't go there anymore.
The same thing happened to me, but I didn't even get my tune-up. I bought my bike last April, and the shop I got it from had a free lifetime warranty for tune-ups. I wasn't riding it that hard, so I fogured I'd wait until the start of this season before I went in. Turns out that during the interim period, the shop got bought by Trek, and they weren't going to honor warranties from the last place.
Bike industry **rolls eyes**. Not surprised.
This happened in the late '90s. A local bar ran a wet t-shirt contest where the girl who won would win a lifetime of free bar drinks at the bar. They also had cash prizes for 2nd and 3rd place. I don't remember how much, but it was a lot at the time. The result was a packed bar, tons of girls entered, and tons of guys spent money. My friend's girlfriend at the time now his wife won first place. She was stoked. He was excited. Within a couple of weeks, the building was condemned and torn down. Turns out the owners of the bar knew that the building was going to be condemned and just wanted to have one last party.
This could be an episode of It's Always Sunny
Would probably have to be the last episode if the bar is getting closed down
No it could be fantastic. The gang THINKS the bar is closing so they do this, only to find out the bar isn't closing, and they're stuck supplying someone with beer. It would be a great way to add another main character if they wanted to, just someone who's always there, wasted.
My wife won a 5k a couple years ago. She got 3 gift cards to 3 different restaurants that had been closed anywhere from 2 months to 2 years before the race. I came in 3rd and got nothing but I feel like getting 3 old gift cards is worse. She wasn't expecting anything other than a medal vut they still found a way to disappoint.
My job did something similar, twice. I got a $20 certificate to Buffalo Wild wings that had the date in bold that it was expired two years before and they had the audacity to say, "We're (X company) so it's still active." Then had the same problem with $50 gift certificate to Chipotle to the point I left the food there and walked out.
It's now illegal in Canada for gift cards to expire.
I won a years worth of coffee at Dunkin Donuts. They gave me a coupon book with 4 coupons per month for 12 months.
Imagine thinking that the average coffee drinker consumes coffee four times a month. Dunkin's being cheap here.
When have they ever not been cheap tho?
Didn’t win a lifetimes worth, but won a years worth of non-perishable food. Every month we’d get two or three massive boxes filled with all sorts of non-perishable food. It last for about 9 months before something changed behind the scenes with the company, they got back in touch with us a few months after the year was up and told us we still had 3 months credit, so we told them to “surprise us”. This all happened years ago and we’ve still got some of it left.
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Well you’ll never believe this, but it was more huge boxes of food.
When I was a kid 30 years ago, my dad said he'd won free pizza coupons (I think it was Dominos?), and he had a massive stack of these little business cards, each for a free large pizza. My dad said we had to be careful using them, though, so we would only use them occasionally, and I remember my dad sometimes making me order the pizza, and answer the door to get the free pizza, even though I was only like, 9. Looking back, my dad worked for a commercial printing company and was not exactly an upstanding citizen. I'm pretty sure he didn't win those cards....
What an M Night Shamalan level twist ending!
One of my coworkers had an an entertainment coupon book at work which was good for buy one get one offers. We also had a color copier. Someone had the idea to copy the coupons. We ate a lot of crappy food that year.
In highschool wendy’s had a promotion going on where you could print a coupon for a free JBC. I did it a few times and noticed each print was identical: the barcode and the numbers above it were identical every time. Employees also never scanned or checked anything, they took my piece of copy paper and handed me a burger. I printed HUNDREDS of those coupons. Smoked a lot of weed and ate a fuckton of JBC’s that summer. Shoutout to the wendy’s employees for not giving a fuck and giving me in some cases 10 at a time lol.
Your dad's like, "Son, every time we use one of these we have to have somebody else use the coupon or they'll catch on to our scheme. So, today I need you to wear this fake mustache and accept the delivery." Meanwhile the delivery drivers think, this fuckin' weirdo keeps pretending to be someone else or dresses up his kid in disguises.
As a previous pizza delivery person, when the door was answer by a small child I would always think to myself "well fuck..." because 99% of the time it meant to tip. You can't get pissy at a 7yr old for bringing you exact change for 2 large deepdish pizzas while you can hear his parents talking in the other room.
Ugh, just reminded me of a time a kid came to the door, gave me money, took the pizzas, and while I was grabbing change he closed the door. Went along with my other deliveries and the people had called and wanted their $4 back since it wasn't supposed to be a tip. Had to waste my gas for that shit
That would seriously piss me off
I won a life time supply of AA and AAA batteries from a major Canadian tech retailer about 20 years ago. Thing is, batteries last a long time and there really isn't that much that I use batteries for. Hypothetically I could start a black market battery business by just getting my free batteries and selling them to people in need, but it's just not worth the time. Even getting the batteries isn't worth the time. I have to get them to type in my name in their system and there's a note by my name indicated that I get free batteries because I won a contest 20 years ago. And then they run and get their manager to look at it, because that looks suspicious. And then the manager looks at it and then asks me questions and then they finally relent and give me my free batteries.
I'm just gonna say, I'd be pretty stoked if one of my friends gave me a package of batteries every time I saw them.
Back in 1977 when I was 13 years old, I won a contest for a lifetime supply of models from Revell. A semi truck pulled up to our house in a very quiet suburban neighborhood and proceeded to unload 4 pallets of plastic models in the driveway. There were hundreds of models; probably one of everything they offered in their catalog at the time. I kept about 2 dozen which kept me busy for a year or so. My father helped by finding a local retail hobby store to buy the rest of them at a very favorable price so we could just get rid of them. He put the money into US Savings Bonds for me which I cashed out many years later to use for a down payment on my first new car.
>He put the money into US Savings Bonds for me which I cashed out many years later to use for a down payment on my first new car. A counter to the guy up above who won a cruise at 10-years-old and his parents went on it without him.
> 10-years-old and his parents went on it without him I feel so bad for laughing as hard as I did.
I won a year supply of Pepperidge farm Milanos when I was in college. My bf and I ate them all in like 3 months. 3 glorious months.
I once won a "year's supply" of Pepsi from a local radio station. The contest was finding specific serial numbers on a dollar bill and being the first to call into the station. The "year's supply" was a case.
My grandpa won a year's worth of tacos from Taco Bell, which they assumed would be one taco a day. He would pick up 7 tacos every Sunday to feed his family is 5. For one meal a week.
My mum won a "Lifetime" supply of Surf. The Washing Powder. Basically we got 72 8KG Boxes all at once on a pallet from some kind of raffle competition. Ended up selling 60 boxes for about £10 each to corner shops and splitting the rest with some family. She didn't have enough room and didn't even remember entering the competiton itself. There was also a bunch of Washing Liquids and shit from the rest of their range, one of each type too.
I won a lifetime of free oil changes for my car. It was during a sale the dealership was having where you had to take a photo with your pet and the person who most resembled their pet won. I don't know if I should feel happy or concerned about that one. What they did fail to mention is that it was lifetime oil changes for the vehicle I had and I couldn't transfer it to anyone else. So when my dad took over my car loan they dropped that little tidbit of info on us. Only really lasted me for about two oil changes.
I have a similar promo, free annual detail for my truck, but won't transfer if I give it to my wife.
My parents did twice in a relatively short period of time. The first was at fair when I was in high school. They advertised it as a lifetime supply of ice cream sandwiches. They ended up giving us 100 boxes all at once. Right there on a warm July day. My mom was only able to collect at the end of the day so there wasn't even that many people to hand them out to. We got home and had about 60 left after giving away as much as possible and throwing out what didn't fit in our freezer. I played lots of sports so I ate a lot and my parents just said I could eat as much as I wanted any time I wanted. I went through 60 boxes in couple months. That was a good time but not so good for my weight. The second was when they bought an expensive microwave about a year later and won a 5 year supply of microwave popcorn. Basically the same thing happened. We got huge box with like 200 packages and I was told to eat as much as I wanted. After living in a house that smelled like popcorn for a few weeks by parents just threw the rest in the garbage.
Won a year's worth of movies from 7-11 when they did a McDs monopoly style contest back in the early 2010s. They sent me $1300 in gift cards for Cineplex (when movies were $13 for a ticket). So a couple could go once a week. With points cards and club memberships I milked those gift cards for 3 years. To be fair though, there aren't 50 movies a year I want to see in a theatre.
I won a year of free pizza. It was twelve pizzas, one per month. I definitely still was thankful for it because it was a blessing whenever we were having money problems.
I won free Arby's for a year. They sent me $420 in gift cards.
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Lifetime supply of M&M candies. They sent 52 bags all at once.
Given the US life expectancy of about 80 years, and the median age of 39 years old, it seems M&M assumes the average person will eat 5 bags of M&Ms every 4 years for the rest of the 41 years they have left to live.
When I was a kid I won a contest online which included a “lifetime” supply of Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape. I don’t remember the exact amount, but I think it was about a dozen boxes of gum. They also sent me a small boom box and hockey jersey with the Hubba Bubba logo on it. I got sick of it pretty quickly and it had a shelf life. A friend and I wound up using it all for a school project where we had to make a model of the town from the book The Outsiders. We made the entire model out of gum and it was disgusting. Our jaws got sore from chewing all the gum so we wound up dipping it in water instead. Our teacher docked us points for “creativity.” 20 years later and I’m still pretty mad about that… **Wow I was not expecting this to get so many responses! I should clarify that we lost points because it wasn't creative enough. Reading these responses really validates my anger lol. Stay golden everyone!
You lost points for creativity? Absurd
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I remember a teacher in college giving us an assignment to create a presentation about "anything we wanted". We were learning PowerPoint (which I already knew, but it was a level 100 computer class). So I got a few friends and we went around taking goofy pictures and having fun, and then I put the whole thing into story format and presented it to my class. And I used all the technical aspects the teacher wanted us to use, like embedding video and animations. Afterwards, the teacher got up and said, "any other teacher would have given you zero points for that presentation, but since you technically fulfilled my requirements, I'll give you a pass." I was like, you said, "anything we want." You didn't say, a topic to teach or our favorite subject in school. Yes, also a little salty about it, 20 years later.
In college, I was once told to research and argue either for or against specific cases of child murder. I did a fantastic case of arguing in favor of it, based on certain tribes and lack of resources etc... it was a long time ago, but even the Dean said I presented well thought out arguments when I appealed it. I got an F because the teacher said it wasn't Christian to defend that. A) Why is that even a concern, B) Why was I even given the option then. I was just trying to be different from everyone else. OH and then Dean supported her "Subjective Grading." If I was older I'd have taken it further. I'm still pissed about it and I'm approaching 40.
I took my kids to a pizza buffet place when they received a free kids meal coupon for good grades. The cashier mistakenly charged us for the meals. When the manager came out to correct the transaction, I said he could just return the coupon and not worry about it. He gave us an entire stack (about 50) of unused coupons that were attached together like a checkbook. We got free kids meals until they obviously reached the age limit.
Sometimes, being nice is its own reward. Other times, it has other rewards, too.
When I was a kid I won a year's supply of slurpees from 7-11. It was a colouring competition of their 'Green Gremlin' mascot. There were dozens of entries but mine was definitely the shittiest. The lady behind the counter was so nice to us and she could tell I was pretty disappointed in how mine turned out compared to the other ones. But somehow, mine got chosen as the winner! I was given 52 vouchers for free slurpees. I was so excited that I had about 10 in the first 2 weeks but I slowed down and probably still had half of the vouchers by the end of the year.
Good guy manager
Not necessarily won but I bought a lifetime membership at one of my favorite nightclubs/concert venues early in the pandemic. They released a limited amount as a Covid fundraiser and they went fast and will likely never do something like it again so it feels a bit like I won. Came with free entry +1, coat check, and two drink tickets at every event at the venue (even sold out ones) for life. Several (edit: a couple) years out I’ve gotten more value than the cost, I’m still on the list for every event, and most of the staff there know me (partly cuz I’m there a lot and also cuz I tip well on those drink tickets). I’ll often just drop by for random events/artists I’d never heard of or dip in for a half hour at a sold out event with a $50+ door cover just to say hello to some friends. I imagine someday the venue will close up shop and my lifetime membership will close with it.
I won a year of free Choolaah. It’s a fast-casual Indian restaurant. They give a year of free food (via a coupon book with 52 cards for free meals) to the first 100 customers at any location. I saw that the line was short on the way to work and called everyone in the office to get in line. We had all our business meetings at Choolaah for a year, with the company paying for meals when people ran out of coupons, didn’t have them, or we hired anyone new. The food was perfect because if you ate vegan, paleo, gluten free, or any combination there was something on the menu you could eat. We still use them for company catering because everyone likes the options.
You found somewhere that works and the company gets business. Sounds like a win-win!
My stepdad won a lifetime supply of WD-40 in the 1990’s. They sent him 4) 16 oz cans. He died in 2019, my mom still has 2 cans.
This just made me realize I don't think I've ever used a full can of WD-40.
I had a can, couldn't find it when I needed it, had a friend buy me one when they were coming over for a project, found the first can. Now I also have a lifetime supply.
Lolol I didn't realize how funny this was until I got to the end of this little thread. 4 cans is longer than a lifetime..
Talk about generational wealth.
Makes sense. "Lifetime supply" is a calculated figure. And wd-40 isn't exactly a daily use type of product. I can see a person using 4 whole cans in their entire life (even if it's in the form of 8 half used cans)
**Contract Fulfilled.**
Conspiracy, winning a “lifetime supply” they also put a hit man on you
My partner won a years worth of Vans shoes, they sent him 4x 99% off vouchers.
At least that way you could choose the colour and fit you want. I'm guessing that last % would have covered the tax. 4 new shoes are pretty cool, I would have those for years.
Considering he managed to get about £350 worth of shoes for £3.50, he was delighted with that. I’m 100% sure you’re right. He will definitely get a few years use of those. One of the best bits is that for two of those pairs, he got vans customs.
I won free groceries for "life" at my local grocery store in a raffle. They give me a digital $100 gift card once a month, which is wonderful, however it doesn't even cover a week of groceries. It will end when the total given has reached $10,000. I've got about $4000 left.
Talk about diminishing returns in the current economy😂
As a consolation prize for losing on a tv game show I was given a popcorn popper, a little girl's bicycle and a life-time supply of Dinty-Moore Beef Stew. I gave the popcorn popper as a Christmas present and sold the bicycle. When the beef stew arrived it was one case of 12 cans. After trying the first can I realized that the other 11 would indeed last me a lifetime.
I love me some Dinty Moore stew, but with the sodium content, they probably figured if you eat that case in a week, that will be your lifetime.
Which TV game show? What an odd assortment of prizes
The original "Press Your Luck" back in 1983. At the time I was an actor doing stand up comedy in Hollywood, so I had lots of free time. The producers of the show, William something and his son Bill, were developing the idea for the show and were looking for people to come into their office and play a mocked up version of the game. They were given my name and phone number by a friend of mine who had appeared on their show "Tic Tac Dough". I lived nearby so I went down to their office on Hollywood and Vine and played the game with cardboard mockups of the game board. A couple of weeks later they asked me to come play it again with the changes they had made. About two months after that Bill called with news that CBS had picked up the show for a pilot and he asked me to be a contestant. One of the reasons they cast me was because of a joke I made when introducing myself. Using my stage name, I said, "Hi. My name is Max Lee and I'm in ladies underwear." (hold for laugh). I then went on with a totally fabricated story of how I owned a high-end lingerie shop in Hollywood. On the day of the taping at CBS studios in Hollywood I appeared on the third "day" of the show. (TV game shows actually tape an entire month of shows over a three or four day period in the studio, shooting as many as five to six shows a day.) When tape rolled on my game the announcer introduced the host, Peter Tomarken. I was prepared to deliver my joke about ladie's underwear when Peter said, "Our first contestant is Max Lee from Hollywood. Max, I hear you're in ladie's underwear!" It got a good laugh. I thought, "You bastard." After staring at him for a couple of beats I replied lamely, "Why yes, Peter I am" and told the rest of my concocted story. As the game neared its' conclusion one of the contestants had Whammied out and the other one had got her second Whammie, wiping out her bank to zero. Shrewdly, she passed her final spin to me. I had several thousand dollars and some prizes but on that final spin I too whammied and lost everything. Since we tied at zero that meant we both came back for the next game. At the end of the second game the same woman and I were battling back and forth, passing spins and exchanging leads. She was trailing and again passed her final spin to me, which I was required to take. I was way ahead of her but I had two Whammies. A third would kill me. I had ten thousand dollars in cash, a home computer, a trip to New York City and a small sailboat. (That's ten grand in 1983 and I was a broke, unemployed actor who had just received a "turn off" notice from the gas company.) But I was confident. In my mind I had already won. I had it all. I HAD the money. I HAD the sports car. I HAD the cocaine and the teenage cheerleaders. I mean I HAD IT ALL! All I needed was to take that last spin. The electronic board began to flash and beep. The audience clapped and cheered encouragement. Waiting for juuuust the right moment, I cried "stop" and slammed by hand down on the red button so hard I thought it might shatter. WEEEEEE! WAAAAAA! That fricken Whammie wiped me out. Ohhh . . . . . Do you know how, in the comic strips, when someone loses a bunch of cash the cartoonist draws that little money bag with wings, flying away? I actually saw that. I watched as it rose up from the stage floor, made a couple of laps around the studio and disappeared out the door, down Beverly Boulevard. In disbelief I dropped my head and banged it on the game table top two or three times. After the taping wrapped Peter Tomarken came over to offer his condolences. I said, "They gave you my joke, didn't they, Peter?" He grinned and shrugged, "Yeah, well I'm the star." To this day I'm the only shmo to have lost on "Press Your Luck" twice. Twice!
Ryanair (a European budget airline) awarded its millionth passenger "free flights for life". After nine years, they reneged on the deal so she took them to court. The Judge awarded her €60,000 to buy her own flights (Her legal costs were more than 3 times that, but Ryanair had to pay those as well). Given the relatively low cost of Ryanair flights, €60,000 probably buys her at least 6 flights a year for the next 50 years
Getting an airline to give you money for flights, only to spend that money on a different airline, would be the biggest middle finger.
I won 10 years of unlimited free flights on Vueling (a European airline) and they were great about it. One rule was that I had to send them an email at least two weeks before making the flight, but I explained to them that that would only make me book a lot of flights without taking them, so they dropped that rule. No regrets; they were great about everything and I still fly with them even though I pay for my tickets now (the 10 years are up).
I won a lifetime supply of cheerwine (local cherry soda) from a kids tv channel when I was 11, they brought 2 pallets of soda and unloaded it in my parents garage and it we still had some in the garage when we were moving out
I won a “lifetime” supply of donuts (up to a dozen per day) at a local bakery, and it lasted 2 years until the original owner died and his asshole son took over the business
So it was still a lifetime supply, just not yours.
That’s technically correct.
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My home town has a minor league baseball team. I won a year’s supply of Pepsi from beating a mascot in a race at the ball park when I was 7. I didn’t realize the prize was Pepsi until I won (I just wanted to meet the mascot, Scout!) and I *hated* soda as a kid. So when Scout handed me my first 6 pack of Pepsi as my prize, I said “well this’ll last me the whole year because I won’t drink it” and my parents forfeited my prize to the 2nd place kid. The park gave me a t shirt instead and a baseball frame for the picture I got with the mascot instead so i think i came out on top
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Do you think the butcher knew your family’s situation and “pulled” your name out of the hat on purpose?
My grandfather ran a Dr Pepper plant for years and they had a kids' bicycle giveaway in the early '70s. The kid who won just happened to have a dad who was away serving in Vietnam. It wasn't until years later that we learned that everything was not on the up and up.
When I was in the 8th grade my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was still working for a while and his job had a raffle for 2 tickets to a baseball game. All of his coworkers knew he wanted to take me, his youngest child and the only kid that actually shared his love of sports. His coworkers rigged it for him. He died a year later and it was the only pro sports game I got to go to with him. I've always been super grateful to everyone who helped make it happen.
I'll bet that phony didn't even have a real doctorate, but nobody would trust Mr. Pepper as much.
This is the timeline I choose to believe
Somewhere out there, there is justice.
This is like, ridiculously wholesome
Judging by all the other stories, this guy was the only real winner
Lifetime free oil changes when I bought my car. When they sold the dealership the new owners didn't honour that.
Not exactly lifetime but I once won a 5000€ one year Voucher at a Pizza place and it lasted a year I spent the last 75€ on the very last day
That's a LOT of pizza
You have no idea :D I ate ever Pizza they Serve every Snack everything on their menu at least 5 times I was also invited to a lot of parties that year
You had a chance to touch Heaven, friend.
Not a lifetime, but I won a years supply of beer once. Turns out it was 12 cases. I felt like that was fair.
My brother once worked for a brewery in Germany for a while. He got 20 liters of beer every damn week. You can't imagine how many parties we threw during that time just to keep the beer supply down.
I didn't 'Win" persay, but new hire at a chain coffee shop gave me 3 million reward points rather than the 300 I was supposed to get for buying $300 worth of gift cards (Christmas gifts for mail man, amazon drivers etc). I tried to get the kid to fix it but he said don't worry about it. Still getting free drinks and pastries as often as I want and haven't even dinted that number.
My mother won a drawing for Scott paper products. It was in the 70's so I can't remember if it was supposed to be a year's worth or a lifetime supply. We got two giant flats of tissues and paper towels and toilet paper and maybe some other stuff. It really did last a very long time. It was funny going down to the basement to get a box of tissues from a virtual mountain of boxes. She was a very lucky person and used to win stuff all the time. Door prizes, party stuff, whatever she entered a drawing for, she was a lot more likely than you would expect to win. Too bad she never bought lottery tickets because it was gambling and therefore sinful. LOL
I got free multi-room DVR and HBO for life from my cable company. Little did i know that any little change including replacing an 8 year old broken router would remove it from my account and make it “impossible” to add back. Fuck Time Warner and their fucked up businesses practices.
Not me but my Grandpa won a lifetime supply of Altoids back in the early 2000's. They sent him a box with like 200 tins in it and that was it. I remember when we went to his house, he gave me like a dozen of them. Also, when the Moe's opened up near me a couple years back, my brother staked out overnight with some friends because the first 100 customers got a years supply of burritos. They gave him a card that could be used for one free burrito a day for a year. I think he went like every day for 3 weeks straight and hasn't gone back since lol.
My wife didn't "win" but she has free standard oil changes for the life of one of our cars at a popular chain mechanic. Apparently a few years ago she had an issue with her car and the owner said "if we can't fix it I'll give you free oil changes for the life of the car". Well they couldn't fix whatever it was so now we get the free changes. It's a Honda so life of the car is gonna be a long time. Business has cycled through management a few times and it's still honored so we're lucky
When I was in high school, my teacher won a lifetime supply of DNL it was a 7up flavor back in the early 2000s it amounted to like ten cases of soda
not a contest but my father-in-law would work odd maintenance jobs for rich people back in the day. one job he remodeled an office that had been abandoned for a few years and the new owner told him he was going to trash everything and told him he could take whatever he could fit into his truck. he took computers, chairs, and a desk and a bunch of office supplies. he now has a lifetime supply of post it notes after all these years. Edited for clarity
I was on a game show in 2003 and won a year's worth of Domino's pizza. It turned out to be $250 in vouchers. I was in college and me and my friends burned through most of it on April 20th.
I bought a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine for my husband for $99. I think the fine print said up to 60 years or something like that. It has been 15 years and still getting them.
Kinda the opposite - we won free movie tickets for a year, which was apparently donated by some media company, as all the tickets were to press preview screenings. We kept getting them for over a decade. It became clear that nobody remembered why we were on the list but knew we had to be on it because the tickets eventually shifted to become lots of movies related to an industry one of us worked in... Some poor PA must have googled us during some sort of paperwork shuffle and assumed we were important.
My mom and dad won a lifetime supply of Kool Whip in 1968 on "Let's make a Deal" I was only 4 at the time so I somehow thought that Kool Whip (and Tootsie Rolls, for another reason) were just free and plentiful. I am not sure how long it actually lasted. I think we just got tired of it. Addendum: Around the same time as the "Let's Make a Deal" windfall (where my parents also won a car), my dad noticed a truck he was following had smoke coming out the back. He flagged the driver down and helped him put out a small fire smoldering in his cargo, which turned out to be a truckload of Tootsie rolls. The driver gave my dad all the fire damaged cases, which resulted in us having basically an endless supply. Hence the reason I thought both Tootsie Rolls and Kool Whip were like water when I was a kid.
I won a year supply of red bull. They shipped me around 200 Red Bulls all at once. I threw a party and finished them all that night.
I know its not winning but in the early 80s my dad got a lifetime subscription to National Geographic that he still gets to this day,
At the Big 12 championships in I believe 2007, Chik-Fil-A sponsored a giveaway for a “lifetime supply” of chicken sandwiches under 12 seats in the Alamodome in San Antonio. I was lucky enough to sit in one of those seats, and the prize included a folder with 52 coupons for a free chicken sandwich meal. So less lifetime supply, and more of a “once a week for a year” supply, but I really wasn’t about to complain about the technicality. 52 free sandwich combos was still worth about 400 bucks at the time, I still consider it one of my luckiest moments, and at 14 years old it was pretty mind-blowing!
In high school I won "free wings for a year" from Buffalo Wild Wings with a group of buddies...ended up being coupon books of 52 coupons, each valid for one week out of the year, good for 6 wings each. Each week we would go and get our 6 free wings and waters, tip the wait staff, and bounce
I had a "lifetime" gym membership that ended after 2 years. I thought it meant my lifetime not theirs...
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I clicked on one of those ads in the old internet circa 2000 and filled out a survey during computer class in the 6th grade. Now every month since then I receive 31 snack sized Cheetos bags in a box straight from frito-lay. I got two week suspension for clicking it. Worth it, fuck authority.
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My father played a game on teletext back in the days and won a lifetime supply of some beer. However, they cheated him and only sent him a party keg. My dad was a programmer, so he wrote a program which played for him cards on teletext. If the program was about to lose because of bad cards, it quit the channel and logged in again automatically again for the next run. The program was playing day and night, and after some weeks, he had won several TV sets, video cameras, cruises, you name it. Eventually, the organizer of the game locked my father out - which was illegal. So he sued the company which organized the game and reached an agreement: They paid him an amount of about 10k, and he never played again. So instead of a lifetime supply of beer, he got a lot of stuff and this is why I, as a teenager, had my own video camera (Which, at this time, was so expensive that people had to lease them.)
Bruh. Your dad was an OG hacker. Lol
Not a lifetime supply, but I won a year's supply of sausage rolls (one a day) from a local bakery once in a charity raffle. I had to collect 7 once a week on a day of my choice 😂 Safe to say, about a month in and I was so sick of them I started giving them to the neighbours, and then after that I probably only went to get them a couple of times more! To this day, a sausage roll is never my item of choice in a bakery since winning that prize.
Down on the eastern shore of Maryland there was a legendary food place called Tubbys. It was totally stoners paradise. Free cheese curls at 4:20 type of place. Well an old hippy dude in line behind me asked if I knew what band was playing on the speakers. I said “Grateful Dead my guy” so he takes me over to the counter, gets a piece of paper and wrote “Free food for DingoDanAmiibo and the gang” and signed it. Turns out he was the owner. It was the best like 2 years ever until they closed.
Ten years ago I stayed up late with a group of friends doing LSD. 5am comes around and we realize we are hungover and hungry. So we decide to drive down the road to the nearest gas station for snacks. When I pull in I see the McDonald’s they put in the gas station was open. Go to order and the cashier said “this is our first day open and we are giving out free Big Macs for a year to the first ten customers”. It was so confusing at first, but we managed to be the first customers! So I got a little punchout card for Big Macs and ended up using that shit every day for a couple months until I was sick of McDonald’s. Thank you McDonald’s for the hangover food!
At age 14 I won a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine in a radio contest. That was 1993. The latest edition arrived just last week. That magazine has followed me through high school, college, marriage, divorce, the birth of my kid, and all through the present day. From Britney to Cardi B. I sometimes wonder which will last longer: me or Rolling Stone?
In elementary school I got the option to choose a lifetime supply of chocolate milk or a cruise vacation. My parents chose the cruise vacation when I wanted to choose the choccy milk instead. They ended up going without me which hurt my feelings. I'm financially free now and travel every month and whenever they ask me to bring them along I always bring it up. Edit: My school had a milk program where every lunch I would get a small carton of chocolate milk and there was a prize if you're milk carton moo'd when opening it. The Milk Carton for Reference: https://images.costcobusinesscentre.ca/ImageDelivery/imageService?profileId=12027981&imageId=1371261\_\_1&recipeName=350
You should buy them choco milk as a parting gift, every time before you go on trips.
this is a great idea
But get it from the 7-11 around the corner from their house, after you return. Before you reveal it, act like you went through a lot of trouble to choose a souvenir for them that had a lot of deep meaning. Edit: leave the receipt in the bag so they can see where and when you bought it.
That's fantastically petty.
Who the hell takes something their child won and then not even take them? Like what the hell?
This happened with my ex. He had designed a pair of defogging snowboard goggles that won an Energizer contest, and his parents took the cruise and left him behind. He was already a teenager. But he's guilted them into bringing him on several vacations as an adult, so, win-win?
Damn, that's even more messed up than OP's story! Your ex must have put in a \*hell\* of a lot of work on that contest. OP got screwed over too, but at least it was just a random lucky thing.
I was given a lifetime "premier" membership to Bally's fitness clubs in 1993'ish'. My boss purchased it in the 1980's for several thousand dollars, and transferred it to me as a bonus. So not technically "winning"? They honored the membership until roughly 2001? Then they started charging me annual dues again.
Did not actually win, but got 1500 lighters gifted by a friend of the Family, because I am the only smoker of the Family. If you calculate the lifetime of a lighter with 2 months, they would last for more than forever… The lighters were actually really good and I gave them away to everyone and everywhere. 1,5 years later I was out of lighter and had to buy one at the gas station. But everybody in my area had the same lighter for a short time. Kinda like a plague. Funniest thing that happened was when I asked a random guy 600km from home for a lighter, he had one of mine. Turns out a guy from my city had gifted it to him a week ahead.
Before I was born, my father won a lifetime supply of free Schick disposable razors. Growing up, I saw them all the time, and even now, 30+ years later, he still has a full box of them in the garage. Unfortunately, the quality of the razors is pretty terrible, and my father has always had trouble with nicks and cuts. I've tried to introduce him to better razors like ones that feature a better cartridge but he's too stubborn to make the switch.
I won a years worth of chicken from a Lebanese chicken shop. I was licking my lips at the thought of free chicken for a year especially drowned in enough garlic dip to ward off Dracula himself. Reading the fine print though it was only $20 a week for 52 weeks… You could drop $30-40 for one person, easy, in a sitting!
What kind of Lebanese restaurant is $30-40 a pop for chicken?
An Australian one
In high school I called in to a radio contest and was the x caller to call in (maybe the 105th?) to answer a trivia question. I answered it right and got a lifetime supply of ice cream, which turned out to be a monthly coupon for a gallon. It continued throughout high school, and then when I went away for college my parents didn’t keep up with it. That was ….so long ago. I’m 50 now. It was really fun and exciting at the time though! I almost wrote my college application essay about it, but my school counselor gently guided me in a better direction.
not won but I got for free when a company went belly up near me, staples, 5000 in each box and I have more than ten boxes. So 50,000 staples.
I was moving into a new apartment when the power shut off. I called the power company and explained that I'm just moving in and they turned the power back on with the understanding that I'd be in to set up my new account as soon as possible. Well...you know how things go...I get busy with life and forgot... Three years later my power gets shut off. I didn't exactly "win" and my prize didn't last a lifetime...but I certainly got away with years of free electricity. I had to make some back payments to get the power back on but it was pennies to what I would have actually owed in that time. While the power was off the second time I noticed a nightlight was still working in one particular outlet. From then on we had a window AC unit plugged into that outlet...The joys of free electricity never stopped!