Welcome Wednesday: What’s the best deal you’ve ever scored?!
👋 Hello Atlassian community and fellow bargain hunters! In this week’s Welcome Wednesday discussion, I’d love to hear about the best deal you’ve ever gotten.
Was it a freebie on vacation? Finding a designer brand at a thrift store? Something free you found in your neighborhood? Won an awesome prize contest? Struck gold at a garage sale? Brag about it in the comments😆, and be sure to tell us the story of how it happened!
A few years ago, I entered a contest on LinkedIn by commenting on a company’s post and ended up winning a work from home package, which included a brand new pair of Airpod Max headphones! I’m still amazed to this day.
(If you’re new to Welcome Wednesdays, it's a fun and easy way to jump into discussions that aren't necessarily work-related and get to know fellow Atlassian Community members! Check out previous posts here.)
17 comments
My most recent score was a signed and numbered Paul Ravelle lithograph (that's hanging in the worst possible spot to photograph)
It was marked $25 at Goodwill, and I got it on a half off day for $12.50 😄
I left a recommendation on LinkedIn . Still makes her laugh.
Waaaay back 2000, our local newspaper posted an article describing a $400 discount at Best Buy if you sign up for 3 years of Microsoft MSN Internet access, at $21.95/mo.
That's not much of a deal (36 * $21.95 = $790.2), except the article mentioned:
In most of the rest of the country, if you cancel the $21.95-a-monthplan before the three years are up, you'll have to repay MSN the full $400.
But Californians can cancel any time and never have to pay the company back.
That's because Microsoft is actually lending the customers the $400 ``purchase credit.'' The company said that triggers a state law that says people cannot be forced to purchase anything in connection with taking out a loan. The 5-year-old California law was intended to protect consumers from being forced to buy property insurance when they get mortgages, or having to buy car insurance through a car dealer that financed their vehicle.
``It's weird,'' said a Best Buy sales representative in Milpitas, who declined to give his name. ``MSN eats that $400.''
My friends and I (and countless others, judging from the crowds we saw at Best Buy) took full advantage of this generous after-Christmas gift from our "Uncle Bill" (Gates).
We bought DVD players, Surround Sound systems, TVs, graphic cards, Palm Pilots... it was glorious. Then we went and cancelled our MSN subscriptions and waited to see if Microsoft would send a team of lawyers after us. (They never did.)
People lined up outside of Best Buys throughout the Bay Area to get in, and then they got cleaned out. Some stores closed early at 7PM, until they got more stock.
Within a few days of the story being reported (and then spread by word of mouth and the Internet), the deal got suspended.
The LA Times reported about online debates over the morality of taking advantage of the deal:
``Guys, you can try to justify this all you want to, but you know good and well that you are taking advantage of a loophole to purposefully screw over someone,'' wrote one person on the DVD Talk Web site.
``I would be screwing a company that is worth billions,'' responded another member. ``Plus, it will make them learn to close the loopholes.''Microsoft's [spokesperson Tom] Pilla declined to discuss what would happen to consumers who have already received the discount and canceled their service, saying only, ``We're going to honor our agreements with people.''
Pilla said most people never intended to take advantage of Microsoft. ``We believe consumers understand the intent of the program and are satisfied with the MSN service they receive,'' he said. ``We're confident those consumers will stay with MSN.''
I think Tom was trying to spin this hard. They must've taken a huge loss. My friend was convinced that somebody's head would roll up in Seattle.
But yeah, that's probably the best deal I've gotten.
I've got another story about the best prize(s) I've won. But that's another post.
I once won an iPad mini from a Facebook contest....back in the olden days (in 2013) - haha. I definitely thought it may have been a scam, but it was the real deal and I used it for many years! I won it from submitting this adorable craft we made with my Kindergarten students at the time. This is the test one I made from my own kiddo's art and shared on their Facebook post/contest. Students drew a snowman and wrote their name and we then printed them on tea towels!
So I don't consider winning a contest a "deal" exactly, but uh, yeah, I'm a serial contest winner. Or well, I used to be.
https://darryl.com/fivewhoa.html
From about 2010 to 2015, when I think Twitter and Facebook weren't as popular with businesses, or probably more importantly before the advent of all of the Sweepstakes websites making it easy to find contests to enter...
I won:
- A trip to Orlando (flight and hotel) (photo above is how I won that)
- A ski trip to Vail, CO
- Southwest tickets and a EPIC (Vail) season pass
- A nice bike
- An iPad 1
- An iPad 2
- Another iPad 2
- iPod Nano
- Kindle Fire HD
- Kindle Fire tablet
- A few Kindle keyboards
- An Canon point-and-shoot digital camera
- Mr. Coffee Smart Coffee Maker
- A copy of Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium
- A year of textbook rentals from Chegg
- Lots of concert tickets (mainly festivals)
- A towel from Code 42 Software for Towel Day
- Tortillas
- Various t-shirts/promo things/phone/table styluses/cases/etc.
And well, you can view the whole gallery here: https://darryl.com/winning
(By the way, the secret was Google Alerts I still have several set up, but it's been quite a while since I've won anything. The hammock from a monthly travel email newsletter contest is nice though. I also won a watch from the same newsletter.)
Eagle-eyed readers will note that the photo above is NOT in Orlando.
Funny story behind that photo, which I submitted as an entry to a contest that Virgin America (RIP) was running through the fine folks at Awkward Family Photos:
That picture is of me and my family in Waikiki, where the Polynesian Cultural Center had a stage with performances.
We had been at the center the day before, but tragically, my dad's film camera must've had the film threaded incorrectly (missed a tooth or something), and the entire day's worth of photos were lost.
My parents told the sob story to the performers, and they insisted my parents put on Hawaiian garb and my middle brother and I were draped in leis, and they got a shot to remember.
After I won a contest with the said photo (which Virgin America blew up and mounted to posterboard, which is still at my parents house), my mom reminded me that the Hawaii trip was the result of their contest win.
[Us with the blown-up photo at the Orlando reception for the inaugural Virgin America flight from California. We were encouraged to dress awkwardly, and since my wife had a severe fall on a scooter the week prior, we had a very awkward crutch.]
Sometime in the early 80s the soft drink Rondo ran a contest to win a trip to Mexico. My mom thinks they had some kind of entry form and box at the supermarket or something.
Anyways, they won, but it was a trip for two, and they had three kids. They told the company this, and they graciously gave them the cash equivalent, which my parents used to take us to Hawaii.
