• deafboy@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Someone already tried.

    A television commercial for the loyalty program displayed the commercial’s protagonist flying to school in a McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II vertical take off jet aircraft, valued at $37.4 million at the time, which could be redeemed for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. The plaintiff, John Leonard, discovered these could be directly purchased from Pepsi at 10¢ per point. Leonard delivered a check for $700,008.50 to PepsiCo, attempting to purchase the jet.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico%2C_Inc.

    • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      And one funny addendum to that story is that someone COULD reasonably think that Pepsi had an actual Harrier to give away. After all, Pepsi once owned an actual navy.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PepsiCo

      In 1989, amidst declining vodka sales, PepsiCo bartered for 2 new Soviet oil tankers, 17 decommissioned submarines (for $150,000 each), a frigate, a cruiser and a destroyer, which they could in turn sell for non-Soviet currency. The oil tankers were leased out through a Norwegian company, while the other ships were immediately sold for scrap.

      The Harrier commercial aired in 1996. The Harrier jet was introduced in 1978. It wasn’t too unreasonable to think that an 18 year old jet aircraft would be decommissioned and sold, especially after Soviet tensions eased. And if ‘they’ let Pepsi own actual submarines and a destroyer, doesn’t that seem more far fetched than owning a single old jet aircraft?

      Guy should’ve gotten his Harrier.