DailyDirt: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Nov 7th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

TANSTAAFL is usually true, especially if you're counting opportunity costs. However, some deals are too attractive for some people to pass up -- especially offers of free food. Occasionally, folks even get the better end of the deal by exploiting loopholes, and the "free lunch" turns out to really favor the eater. Here are just a few examples of getting some free food (with an asterisk).

Some airlines offer free meals to their first-class customers, and one man from China ate for free in the VIP lounge of China Eastern Airlines for an entire year. Nice. But not quite as crafty as David Philips scheme that got him free airline miles for buying pudding. [url]
Taco Bell ran a contest called "Eleven Everlasting Dollars" that offered free food for life (at Taco Bell). The fine print defined free food for life as $10,000 in gift cards -- which apparently was based on an average consumption of $216 per year for 46 years. [url]
Alan Marin from North Carolina bought a "Never Ending Pasta Pass" from Olive Garden, and he's eaten over a hundred meals with it. It's a limited time pass, but he's already saved himself several hundred bucks (but on the other hand, he's had to eat nothing but pasta for over a month). [url]
If you want to try getting as much free food as you can in a year, mark your calendars for all of the annual free food promotions from Ben & Jerry's and other retailers. Not too many free lunches, but you'll be eating a lot of desserts and donuts. [url]

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Filed Under: alan marin, contests, food, free meal, pasta, promotions
Companies: ben and jerry, china eastern airlines, olive garden, taco bell

8 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2014 @ 10:31pm

nickel and dime
Do companies in Silicon Valley still follow the tradition of providing employees with free drinks and snacks?

Because these days, employees in some places are even forbidden to organize their own office "coffee pool" -- in order to force everyone to buy their coffee from the company snack bar.

I was finally able to kick my caffeine addiction, as I refused to pay Starbucks prices for gas station quality coffee.

But does the generous and laid-back work environment that Silicon Valley was known for still exist at most tech companies?
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- Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2014 @ 9:28am
  
  Re: nickel and dime
  Tech companies still offer free meals to employees -- but I think various govt entities are trying to tax these meals as benefits. So we'll see how long the free food at [google] lasts
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  - Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2014 @ 10:34am
    
    Re: Re: nickel and dime
    Only little people pay taxes
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- John Fenderson (profile), 8 Nov 2014 @ 11:03am
  
  Re: nickel and dime
  I don't work in silicon valley, but I do work for a major tech company. They provide free (bad) coffee and sodas.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2014 @ 8:35am

Not sure I would classify those as "food".
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Rekrul, 9 Nov 2014 @ 2:10am

Here in Connecticut, Bruger King, McDonalds, Arbys (the few that are left) and Subway all print survey offers on the receipts which reward you with free food for filling them out. Burger King and McDonalds offer free sandwiches with the purchase of something else while the Arbys and Subway ones offer no purchase necessary desert items.

All of them are supposed to be limited to one survey per IP address per month, however they all use cookies to tell if you've already taken the survey, so clearing your cookies between surveys allows you to fill out as many as you want.

I've also started a tradition: When there are fast food coupons in the paper, I raid my neighbors' recycling bins on garbage night and collect several sheets of them. My friends and I use what we want and as the expiration date approaches, I start handing them out to other people who are going to the same fast food restaurant. Many people give me funny looks when I say "Excuse me" and start offering them coupons, but several have been quite grateful for them. Ifigure, why should they go to waste if others can use them.

Not exactly free food, but usually a pretty good savings over the non-coupon prices. :)
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- Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2014 @ 5:09am
  
  Re:
  Not exactly food either.
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  - Rekrul, 11 Nov 2014 @ 1:51pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Not everyone can afford to go eat at 4-star restaurants and pay $50-60 for a meal.
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