Are lifetime supply contests still a thing? While it's not a popular marketing technique today, it definitely was back in the day. If you have entered a lifetime supply contest or at least have heard of it, you were probably fascinated with the idea of getting something for free for the rest of your life. However, you probably also wondered, are these lifetime supply contests legit? Or is it just a marketing trick to get people to purchase more of your stuff in the hope of winning?
A user on AskReddit probably wondered the same thing when they asked, "Anyone who won a 'lifetime supply' of something, what did you win, and are they still supplying it to you?" Luckily, thousands of people jumped on the thread to reveal their (or an acquaintance’s) lifetime supply stories. These stories of winning a lifetime supply tell what it's like to win such contests and share whether the companies keep their word and deliver their promise. Spoiler alert — most don't.
Below, we've compiled some of the most interesting answers from the thread, wherein lifetime supply winners share their story and experience. Be sure to upvote the answers you found to be the most interesting or unexpected. Also, let us know what you think about lifetime supply contests. Have you ever entered one? Perhaps even won one? Let us know in the comments!
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"My great-grandfather was a farmer, and won a contest for plowing the straightest row in the county fair. This was about 1910 in Saskatchewan, Canada. He won a lifetime supply of seed. Each weekend he would go pick up about 20+ bags of seed and, with his horse and buggy, take them to the train station where new families were exiting the train. In 1910, Saskatchewan was giving away land to new immigrants, and for years and years he would give each family bags of seed to start their new farm."
"My father was in the Army, and was stationed in Germany during Vietnam as a helicopter repairman, eventually making crew chief. During his time there, the town's local Volkswagen dealership held a stunt driving contest where the winner received lifetime maintenance on their car. My father won, and when he explained to the company that he would be leaving Germany after the war ended so it wouldn't have to be forever, they politely replied that a deal was a deal, and that they would ensure that as long as he drove a Volkswagen, he would receive on-the-house maintenance for it. He's never driven a different make, and the local Volkswagen dealership in Kansas City knows him by name and treats him like a VIP."
"I won $4,000 a week from the "Michigan" lottery. So kinda like a lifetime supply of money. I just get a check once a month."
"My cousin won a lifetime supply of meat from the local butcher. He gets up to 5kg a month and he chooses the meat. I thought he would be getting bad quality stuff but the butcher keeps providing. It’s been 5 years now and my cousin got venison, beef, pork and wild boar."
If small local businesses can honor their word big companies should too
"About 4 years ago I won a cinema premier card, which entitled me to two free movies a week for the duration of a year. The cinema chain dragged their feet when it came to delivering the prize but I persisted and eventually received the card a few months later. Turns out the card has lasted for longer than a year, still currently in use and set to expire in 2116."
Wow 90 something years, holy moly ur grandkids r all set for movies in the future
"Won a year’s supply of "Chick-Fil-A" for being their first customer of the year (early work on January 2nd). Delivered in the form of 52 meal cards. Ended up giving most of them out to friends or homeless guys around the block."
"I won a lifetime supply of coffee beans in a contest. Each month they mail 4 lbs. of excellent quality coffee beans of my choice. Sometimes I give them away as gifts as I can't use them all."
"I won a lifetime supply of hot dogs at a hot dog festival once. It came with a nice grill, except when I went to pick up my hot dogs, the company gave them to me all at once. I was 30 at the time, and their figures all worked off an 80 yr lifespan. 3 Hot dogs a day for 50 years works out to be 54,750 hot dogs. That's 5,475 packs of 10. 228 cases of 24 packs, 23 boxes with 10 cases each. I had to buy an extra freezer just to hold them. I gave away what I could not store. Churches, homeless shelters, food banks. We ate them for years."
"I am not sure if this counts. But a family friend did the original art for "Ben and Jerry's" ice cream. At the time they didn't have money to pay her so they said if the business was successful she could have free "Ben and Jerry's" for life. She can walk into any "Ben and Jerry's" show them her card and walk out with as much ice cream as she wants. We also invite her to parties. But we also always joke she should have just asked for stock options."
"Not a lifetime supply but when I was 12 I won a free year of video game rentals from "Blockbuster". The only catch was I could only have 1 game out at a time. Infinite number of rentals for a whole year. As a 12 year old this was a dream come true. Shout out to my older brother who couldn't care less about video games but would chauffeur me to blockbuster multiple times a week to get a new game. Man that was a good year."
"Back in the 60's, my grandmother (who was rich then) had purchased a health insurance policy with no deductible or co-pay for $116/mo. The premium was lifetime, and would never go up. And it was absolutely carte blanche. Pay for nothing, ever. Over the years, that insurance company would be bought and sold, and there was always some scam they would try to get her to 'upgrade' or change policies. Some would even try to bully her. She had a lawyer (whom she outlived) that said, no matter what, don't do anything. Any company that buys them out has to honor your policy. It is lifetime. Just don't miss a payment. She outlived a number of insurance companies (and her money). She lived until age 90, and had excellent health insurance until the day she died of old age. She said her friends said she was crazy all those years ago when she bought it. Her husband had just died, and left her a couple of warehouses in the Minneapolis area. She said she didn't want to worry about health insurance so she bought it. She told me this story about ten years before she died when she asked me for help with fixing the transmission of her 1983 Cadillac. She was about broke then, but kept up appearances as much as a healthy 80 year old can. I do remember when I was young, that she always had great parties at her lake home. She said she blew her money the right way, and in good fun, just didn't expect to live so long (no kidding). Health insurance worked a bit too well, I guess."
"The free coke products were a little weirder--basically when I was attending university I noticed that the "Coca-Cola" I bought near the school just sucked. Like it didn't taste like "Coca-Cola" at all, more like an "RC" mixed with "Pepsi". I commented on this to all my friends and they had no clue what I was talking about but I could blind test cokes from home versus "university cokes" and get it right every time. Eventually I sent an e-mail to "Coca-Cola" basically just asking why the cokes in cookeville sucked so much and if could they fix it. They (quite surprisingly) took it really seriously and asked for numbers off of the affected cans tracked it down to the bottler (canner?) and had it fixed within 6 weeks. Sent me a stack of just hundreds of silver "free 12 pack of any coke product" coupons and thanked me for my time. Worked out great. Still had over a hundred of them left at the end of the year."
That's way more manageable than the dude with all the hot dogs at once!
"One time "Chipotle" ran a deal where if you bought a $30 gift card you got a free burrito. They did it for a few months, and throughout that period my brother and I bought a $30 gift card with our previous $30 gift card every day(sometimes 2 or 3 times a day) and ate free "Chipotle" for like 4 months straight."
"When I was a kid, Crayola was running a create a new color contest. If you won, your color went in one of their big boxes of crayons and you got a lifetime supply of crayons when they retire colors and make new ones. I made Swamp Green and won. They send me a new big box of crayons 1-2 times a year and have been doing it for 20+ years."
I can smell this picture… I swear there is nothing better than the smell of a new box of Crayola crayons.
"My grandparents bought my dad a lifetime subscription to national geographic as a kid. We have mountains of those yellow pages. When he had no fixed address they would save all the issues and then ship out the bundle when they found him again."
"My aunt won a lifetime deal with a portrait studio. The same studio locally that does everyone's yearbook photos etc. So every year we would get these beautifully shot family pictures from her. I think her prize was for one studio time and processing every year? These days, with her kids all grown up and moved out she's been struggling for subject matter. So.... we've got a few glamor shots of her cats. It's been... entertaining. I think she won it in 1985 or so? They still respect the prize they gave, which is pretty impressive."
"My mother used to do sweepstakes. She also used my name and address for them too. Well, I won a year's supply of "Purina" dog food. They sent 52 coupons for up to 25lb bags. My dog at the time, Doobie, was a squat 35 lb beagle/yellow lab mix and he was just fine with the small bags per week. So, we donated the vast majority of them to a local animal shelter."
Purina is incredibly generous with free coupons. I emailed them once just asking if they sold their dry dog food (ProPlan) in sample sizes and they mailed me a coupon for a free bag of food up to $50. For my 15lb dog, it was an incredible offer. She loved it and we have fed our dogs the same food ever since.
"Not a lifetime supply, but I once won a year of free "Grubhub". It wasn't a full calendar year, but it was ~$1k in free food, and their system kept track of how much was left each time I ordered. Pretty sweet deal, especially since I was in college at that time."
"I won a lifetime hunting and fishing license from "Texas Parks" and "Wildlife". I never have to pay that $65+ a year again. I am pretty excited about that."
"American Airlines used to let people buy a lifetime unlimited first class pass for $250K + $150K for a companion (1980s money). The most prolific users booked over 10,000 flights, (using only about a quarter of flights booked) and flew over a million miles a year. Three purchasers had their passes revoked for alleged cheating (selling flights) but 25 users still have their passes, including Mark Cuban, who calls it "one of the best purchases I've ever made."
"My friend won a "lifetime supply" of pringles. She got something like 300 cans of pringles and they were gone in a few months, but she lives on."
Vastly underestimating the number of pringles a person can eat in 1 setting. Even if you only eat 1 serving a day, that's still only 13 years of pringles.
"I won a lifetime supply of camera film from the publisher’s clearing house. I had to send it into them to get developed and they would send me back a new roll with my pictures. Their prices for development was actually really good so I did for a good decade or so until digital cameras took over.
This was back in the late 80s and I was just a kid, but as best as I can remember it was 35mm and I have no idea if they would still honor it today. My grandpa was an avid photographer and he would help teach me basic tips and tricks like the rule of thirds and whatnot. He has been gone for years now, but those memories still make me smile."
"Our local "Krispy Kreme" burned down one day, and about a year later it reopened. The first 100 people in the door were given free donuts for a year and #1 got them for life. A friend and I camped out overnight with over 100 other people, the first guy in line was there for an entire week. We ended up getting our year of donuts, and it was a punch card which let us each come back once a month for a free dozen donuts."
"I won a month of free bagels from "Panera", limit one per day. Jokes on them, I was taking paternity leave at the time. I went there every single day that month. What a month."
It’s hard to find good bagels these days. There used to be a company I liked to go to when I was younger called “The Great Canadian Bagel Company.”
"My parents won “a lifetime supply” of diapers for me when I was about 3 months old. It was a contest where I apparently had won on a cute picture. They received 3 years' worth of diapers and figured I wouldn’t need more after that. They were right... so far"
"When I was a kid, the Australian brand Arnott's was running a competition where if you bought their "Shapes" biscuits you could win all sorts of prizes. After begging my mum for "Shapes" every time she went to the supermarket, I finally won a prize, which was a lifetime supply of "Shapes". Little me was over the moon. But, when my mum took my winning card to be redeemed, the supermarket said they would have to contact the Arnott's company. Well, after waiting months, we finally hear back from Arnott's via a letter saying that they apologize but they cannot honor the competition but instead have sent a $3 cheque reimbursing my mum for the packet of "Shapes"."
"My wife won a years free supply of any product made by a really beloved bakery in our local area. They ended up giving us a massive book of vouchers with an amount that "should cover us for a year". I gotta say that was one year of awesome breads!"
"Back in the mid 80's we "won" a lifetime supply of tin foil for hearing about aluminum siding. When they offered us 4 rolls I laughed, and said we go through that in a couple of months. They finally agreed to a case of tin foil, it lasted almost a year. But we have been out since the mid 80's and we are still alive..."
Lifetime supply means they dont think ur gonna last a lifetime but b***h im here
"Rolling Stone always was enjoyable in doctor's offices, at the airport, etc. So when they ran a lifetime subscription offer for $100 I signed up (yes I bought, not won my lifetime here). I am still getting it almost twenty years later. The frightening part is there's an expiration date (around 2040 if memory serves). Jokes on them though because I know I'll outlive printed magazines!!"
"Colleague of mine won a "year's supply of beer" from a craft brewery in an office raffle. They sent her one bottle of beer a month. 12 beers total."
"I had a coworker who won a lifetime supply of pies from a local pie bakery on Pi Day. He got one free one a month as long as he shows the card he got. It's been 4 years (I think? Whatever year was the correct continuation of Pi) and he brings them into work sometimes. He doesn't bother getting one every month though since he's single and lives alone, plus the calories are insane. He even gets the super fancy "call ahead for specialty order" type of pies for free. They're delicious."
"I didn't "win" it, but I helped a guildie in WoW learn how to play his class over the course of a couple of days and he told me he worked for Blizz and gave me a code to redeem on my account in thanks. Was a lifetime subscription code. Apparently employees get a few that they're allowed to give out to people. Technically, it subscribed me to the game until 2035 (this was back in 2015, so 20 years). After a few months, said guildie disappeared and so did the subscription. From Googling, the code staying active is dependent on the person staying employed at Blizzard."
Ah, Blizzard. You were a reputable company once. I used to enjoy going to BlizzCon. I still play a lot of their games, but the company has gotten a bit weird. I live about 15 miles from Blizzard headquarters and I wanted to get a job at Blizzard so bad when I was younger XD
"My mom once told me that when she was growing up, her sister won a "lifetime supply" of ("Ronzoni" brand) macaroni in a poetry contest. "Lifetime supply" in this case just meant "an amount of macaroni, delivered all at once, that no family could reasonably consume before it expires." But hers was a poor Catholic family with seven children and a great depression ethic, so they were up to the challenge. For over a year they ate macaroni every day, at every meal. Her parents made them put macaroni on their ice cream. I might be misremembering any other part of that story, but my mom was very emphatic that she had to eat macaroni on ice cream."
"My mother won lifetime free tickets for 2 to "Disney" world in 1993 and lost the certificate to prove it. I've never been."
"It's not quite the same but I have a lifetime membership to my gym. I pay maybe a few dollars a year for some taxes and hats it. I have to pay those few dollars to keep it alive but even if I go once a year it's worth it and I go probably 3-4 times a month. I've had this for about 18 years now."
"Back in 2004 there was a local car wash (the kind that you do it all. Vacuums and the power washing bay, etc.) that was hosting a contest in conjunction with a local radio station. The winner got one free car wash a week for life. I won but it took a long time to get my "special card". It finally arrived and I went that day and washed my car. The place closed the very next week. There was a much newer car wash that had gone in not too far from this one (that had attendants to do the work) and they hoped that the promotion would help them and keep the car wash open. It didn't and I won a single car wash. I also think it rained a day or two later."
"I won a year's worth of free dinners at "Texas Roadhouse". You only got one dinner a month for the year, so 12 dinners. I went every month and it was awesome."
"I won a year's supply of milkshakes from "Chick-Fil-A". They gave me 52 coupons for 1 free milkshake (large). And it was not limited to one per transaction."
"I won a year's supply of razors from "Bic's" 100 days of summer contest on FB. I got the "Bic Soleil". I thought they would cheap out but I got a large flat-rate box full of multi-packs. I think there were 18 packs of 4 razors? It was very awesome because it came at a time where I still gave a damn, lol."
"My mum came officially last in a large well-known city marathon. She was awarded a lifetimes supply of "Duck Brand" duct tape for 'stickability'. They posted her a box of 12 rolls, which she gave to me."
"My sister also won a year supply of pistachios after finding a roach in one of their "No Shell" bags. If you have wondered if it is possible to own too many pistachios, it is."
The no shell ones just don't taste the same as the ones you have to pry open.
"Lifetime supply of "Burger King", won it at my high school raffle a couple years back. Everybody put in like 60-100 dollars but I just put in enough to get 2 raffle ticket. They still supply is the good thing, so when I need to pick up some quick food I know where I’m going."
"While it wasn't a lifetime supply, I did win 'a year of free cupcakes!' from a local store in a radio contest once. It ended up being just a dozen cupcakes per month."
"Lifetime supply of Redhots, I legit fu****g hate Redhots and they just sent me another supply this last weekend."
"My brother went on the Jokers Wild in the early 80's when he was in California in the Navy. The prize he got was "Rice-a-Roni", he got a crate till he passed away. He would get 32 boxes 3 times a year IIRC. Assorted flavors."
Checked Reddit... OP states their brother passed from pancreatic cancer. :( That's a rough one.
"I got a year of free wings from "Buffalo Wild Wings" when I was in jr high for camping out overnight and being one of the first through the doors. 52 coupons for 6 traditional wings. It was great me and my buddies would go all the time and get free wings we tried all the flavors it was a good year."
"My friends and I camped outside of a "Costa Vida" restaurant to get a year supply of free meals. They actually gave the first 50 people a card that entitled the user to 52 free meals, and the first 100 people a card for 12 free meals; we got the 52 meal card. My friend and I would go every day before a math test to eat and study, and on the last week that I could use the card (it expired in a year), I brought 8 of my friends and treated them all to free food. Free food tastes good."
"I won VIP tickets to "Coachella" for the rest of my life. It's a contest the festival put together called "Carpoolchella" that still happens every year. I won in 2009 and have attended every "Coachella" since."
"When we moved into our current house, every year around Christmas we'd get this massive box full of assorted "Keebler" crackers always addressed to the previous owner. This went on for about 10 years before they finally stopped coming. To this day, we have no idea what kind of deal the previous owner had with "Keebler", but lemme tell you we always looked forward to that cracker box every year."
"Not me but one of my buddy's family won a lifetime supply of bread, they delivered on the bread but the catch is that it came yearly on a big truck. Every kind you could imagine but way too much bread for one family to handle. So they ended giving most of it away to people who live in our small town before it molded."
It’s like these companies are doing malicious compliance on their own promises.🤔
"I won a one-year supply of corn dogs once. I was working for a radio station, and we wanted to have a screening for a movie about the white stripes. Well, the promotion company that the white stripes went through accidentally (or maybe on purpose) sent us a box full of promotional stuff for national Corn Dog Day along with all the white stripes promotional stuff. In the corn dog day promotional box there were tickets for a year’s supply of corn dogs. I took a ticket to a grocery store to redeem it and apparently a years worth of corn dogs is actually 48 corn dogs. I ate all the corn dogs over about two weeks, and I will never eat another corn dog again."
"Back in the late 80s, I won a free long distance phone calls for life at a Mall raffle. I was just a kid. I gave it to my Dad (owned his own business) for a father's day gift or something. He used up the alloted minutes allowed each month within a few days, stored it away until the next month. Pacific - Bell (phone carrier) got bought out at some point and the card became null and void. My dad never argued, got more than enough use out of it and eventually lost it. (Years later we realized that would could have taken them to court for compensation. But it's moot at this point)."
"As a young kid I entered a drawing contest and won a lifetime membership to some minor city science and nature museum which was a few bucks to get in each time, so when my mom had to work late she'd tell me to go after school and hang out anywhere at the museum so I would not be unattended at home. I left town for college and haven't been back to that city since, so the membership card is in the bottom of a drawer somewhere. I guess this isn't much different than parents who park their kids at the local library late afternoons after school till a parent gets home from work. From 3-6 p.m. on weekdays my local library looks like an elementary school cafeteria."
"My cousin won a lifetime supply of "Keebler" cookies and a "Keebler" inflatable raft. The irony that he wasn't allowed sweets was not lost on 6 y.o. me. I was a fat kid and dripping with jealousy."
"After some issues of "YM Magazine" didn’t make it to my mailbox, they gave me a lifetime subscription. 5 months later, they ceased publication."
"Very recently I won a lifetime supply of "Red Bull" and it is absolutely bonkers to go and receive it cause I have to go to a grocery retail store in my area to claim my "Red Bull" in different flavors, so I just go in there and am like “can I get 4 12 packs of regular and sugar-free” and that’s pretty much it. It’s a pain to receive cause the store doesn’t believe I won a lifetime supply so they always hold the ones I come up and claim because they say it’s just too fishy, until the manager gets there and has to verify me. Also a lifetime supply they said is until roughly 25-30 years for me. (I’m 24 for what it’s worth)."
Lifetime supply may be much shorter than 25 to 30 years if you keep drinking all that Red Bull
"My sister won a lifetime supply of sour warhead candies... but they stopped sending them after a few years too. I think it was a blessing that they stopped actually."
"Not lifetime, but my family won a year's supply of "M&Ms" from one of those 1lb bags. They sent us a box of 365 manufacturer's coupons, each redeemable for one snack size bag, which expired after one year. Unfortunately, the stores we went to didn't really know how to deal with non-store coupons, so it was always a hassle to try to use them. And we still had to pay sales tax, so it was kinda awkward picking up 20 bags and still needing to have $0.60 on you. We ended up giving most of the coupons away. This was in the mid-90s, when only regular and peanut "M&Ms" existed, and there's only so many of those you can eat in a year."
"I got the free internet through an Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL) program for middle school students in 1994 (Sacam). I used it consistently for something like 10 years but at that point dial-up was so far behind Cable or DSL that I just kind of stopped using it. I honestly don't know if it would even work anymore as I've had no reason to try it."
"My Brother won a lifetime supply of "Twinkies". he would get a couple of large boxes a month. Then the company went bankrupt. The new company does not honor the lifetime supply agreement."
Woah, I'd totally forgotten about the Twinkies fiasco where we almost lost Twinkies forever before Hostess got bought out of bankruptcy. I don't eat Twinkies that often, but I'm still glad they didn't disappear forever!
"As a teenager, I won a year of free "Blockbuster" movies off of some "Wendy's" chicken nuggets. It was a movie rental a week. Not a bad deal, but the nearest Blockbuster was far enough away that I probably only collected 6 or 8 of them."
All of the unnecessary quotation marks are making me think this isn't true. "Blockbuster?" sure... "Wendy's?" hmmm....
"About fifteen years ago LEGO did a thing where there were gold tabs on the corners of instruction manuals. If you collected enough and mailed them in you'd get a lifetime subscription to the magazine. My brother and I spent all our allowance on sets during that time and got enough to send in! We got the magazine for probably about five years after that, we even moved and got the address changed a few times. They stopped after a while though and would restart for a few months after we called, but eventually, we never heard back."
"I won a year supply of French fries from a burger joint called "Mooyah" when they opened up their 100th store. However, within the month the store closest to me closed down and the nearest one was 200 miles away so I never actually got any free fries."
"When I was about 11, I won a years supply of "Fruit Roll-Ups" for a joke I submitted. All I had to do was go on their website to customize my Roll-Ups and then put an order in every month and they’d send me a few boxes (which was amazing, since we were never allowed to have them in my house). Unfortunately, the website never worked to complete an order and I never got a single box."
"When I was in middle school my mom won and a lifetime supply of "Tempo", which are these packets of thick tissue that you can hang in the visor in your car. Kind of dumb but super convenient. She gave me and my brother our own share for Christmas one year and I’m still working through my supply."
My dad won a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine back in the '80s, and every month I'm the one who reads it because he doesn't ever know what musical artists it's about...but sometimes I don't either!
I remember when we were kids, friends of our parents who worked at the company gave them coupons for free jars of Ragu spaghetti sauce, which was our favourite and was considered “fancy,” so we were excited. Now it’s sadly not available in Canada anymore.
My dad won a lifetime subscription to Rolling Stone magazine back in the '80s, and every month I'm the one who reads it because he doesn't ever know what musical artists it's about...but sometimes I don't either!
I remember when we were kids, friends of our parents who worked at the company gave them coupons for free jars of Ragu spaghetti sauce, which was our favourite and was considered “fancy,” so we were excited. Now it’s sadly not available in Canada anymore.
