David Phillips (entrepreneur)

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David Phillips, also called The Pudding Guy,[1] is an American civil engineer best known for receiving many frequent flyer miles by taking advantage of a promotion by Healthy Choice Foods in 1999.

Phillips, who teaches at the University of California, Davis, calculated while grocery shopping that a mail-in promotion for frequent flyer points exceeded the cost of the entree on which it is offered. In May 1999, Phillips received 1,253,000 frequent flyer miles, enough for thirty-one round trips from his home in California, to Europe.

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[edit] Process

Phillips calculated that the return on a mail-in food promotion outweighed the price of the Healthy Choice frozen entrees. He later discovered the same promotion also included individual pudding packages at 25 cents a piece. He subsequently visited ten grocery stores in the Sacramento area, buying every case of pudding available, in the end, totaling 12,150 individual servings of pudding,[2] for $3,140[3] In order to divert attention, he claimed he was stocking up for Y2K.[4] The details of the promotion included a bonus if the packages were mailed during the month of May 1999; Phillips, unable to remove all the UPC codes himself in such a short time, recruited members of the Salvation Army to help peel the UPC codes off the puddings in exchange for the donation of the pudding.

[edit] Outcome

At first Healthy Choice Foods did not react on time and then after being contacted claimed they sent a form letter, saying they had no record of the order. However, after proving that Phillips did indeed mail the certificates Healthy Choice Foods awarded Phillips 1,253,000 frequent flyer miles.[5] Since he gave most of the pudding to charity, Phillips also received a $815 tax write-off.[4]

It is also speculated that neither Healthy Choice Foods nor the airlines were seriously disadvantaged by the outcome.[2] Since 2000, Phillips continues taking advantage of frequent flyer promotions, and is earning points five times faster than he is spending them.[6]

Phillips' pudding story incurred international attention from news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and The Times. The story was re-created in the 2002 Paul Thomas Anderson feature film Punch-Drunk Love.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Holder, Kathleen. "Engineer finds sweet travel deal in cups of pudding", Dateline UC Davis, 2000-02-04. Retrieved on 2007-06-12. 
  2. ^ a b Mikkelson, Barbara (2007-01-03). Pudding on the Ritz. Snopes. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
  3. ^ Phillips, David. The Proof is in the Pudding. FlyerTalk. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
  4. ^ a b What would you do with over 12,000 cups of pudding?. Useless Information. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
  5. ^ Sloane, Martin. The Proof is in the Pudding!. Classic Columns. Archived from the original on 2005-03-08. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
  6. ^ The Pudding Guy Q & A. Johnny Jet. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.

[edit] External links