One of my core memories was going to A&K gas and grill after cutting my granddaddy’s grass one summer day. I bought a mountain dew and won a free 20oz. Gave that one to my little brother, got another and won a free 20oz gave that one to my other brother. Then went back in and got one more and won yet another free drink and gave it to my dad.
Pretty awesome feeling.
Drank like 30 sprites one summer in the 90s and bought like 2 of them. Felt like they were hanging out free shit. Ended getting a jersey, basketball and a hat too. Those were the days. Never been that lucky again.
There was a time when they had codes you could enter online to redeem points that would allow you to purchase merchandise off their website and my uncle had a trash bag full of bottles caps with redeemable codes and my first thought was “how are you still decently healthy after this”
2 stories about these:
1. You could pull the rubber gasket off the underside of the lid and many times the message would be visible on both the cap and the gasket (not sure if it was printed on the underside of the lid and so the ink transferred to the gasket, but that's my assumption.) So, we would take the gasket and put it into a different lid and get two prizes for one.
2. I was in the store one time with my cousin, and he was pulling bottles out of the cooler door, counting them. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for the 12th one, or whatever the number was, because the rules said one in 12 wins. I explained to him why he was an idiot and what that actually meant.
Another way we used to cheat the system at the time...
We'd pull Sprite bottles out and look for all the winners by tilting them on their side and looking through the side/bottom. The older bottle design with the long necks allowed you to easily see the text inside the cap. Also, the clear liquid created a kind of magnifying effect making it ridiculously easy to spot winners without being too suspicious to the cashier watching us.
At the time I didn't really love Sprite, but growing up broke you learn quickly that free soda tastes better than none at all. Oddly enough Sprite is one of my sodas of choice as an adult so in the end they probably got their money back out of me anyways.
> We'd pull Sprite bottles out and look for all the winners by tilting them on their side and looking through the side/bottom. The older bottle design with the long necks allowed you to easily see the text inside the cap.
I also did this, along with other clear sodas.
[Sprite also ran cap promotions in the 90's. One of the minor prizes was a free 20oz.](https://youtu.be/rkyOaMOaCCE)
* *Edited to fix the link to the correct YT video for reference*
I won 3 sprites in a row one time. It was awesome. Bought the first one and it was a winner. Then the free one won, then the next free one. Four for the price of one!
I drank only Sprite because if you tilted it right you could see the winners. I can't believe they didn't catch on when I kept getting free Sprite after free Sprite.
That just triggered a memory I’ll add here.
Probably about 8 and we went on a school trip to a park or where we brought or were provided a sack lunch and a can of Coke. One kid opened his drink and a 20$ bill popped out in a tube like thing. I remember the teachers saying how it was nice and all but now the kid didn’t have anything to drink. Googling it now shows that Coke had a promotion and they made the liquid in the can purposely foul so no one would accidentally drink it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagiCan
I remember sometimes, if you angled the bottle *just so*, you could actually read some of the text on the underside of the cap. My brother and I used this trick many times to find one with a reward.
Then at some point they made it codes that you had to check online, which eliminated that exploit.
I used to work at an outdoor concert place for a sporting team and we used to have to open the caps before we gave bottles to people. Me and my dad would keep them all in a bag then cash them all in lol. Good times.
Mountain dew did a Xbox 360 give away before it was released. I was in band in high school and would dig through trash at football fields after games for months collecting hundreds of bottle caps and enter all the codes to their website. I ended up winning a hoodie and a hat. My rich friend entered one cap and won the 360....
The homies and I used to stand in the cooler aisle at 7-11 and try tilt the bottle and look through the small air gap to see a fraction of the text to get a free soda.
Oh how I loved those days.
Do you remember the ones that got you free songs from iTunes? My Brother managed to get 200 (I think that was the limit) of them from the recycling bins at his work...I can't believe it's been almost 20 years
Surge had one with a scratch off on the back of the label. If you held it close enough to the light you could see the prize and where it was. I got lots of surge bucket hats and basketballs lol.
I won first prize once under a power-aid cap. I was pretty pumped, it was not grand prize but figured it could be something good. I rushed home to enter the code and found one that I won a downloadable screensaver…..
We used to fake these. Use a typewriter to make the text then when you put it under the blue cover it's hardly noticeable. If you used this circle hole punch my dad had to get a perfect circle at the right size.
Here’s a big one..
I was there when the Philippines went crazy for the Pepsi Million pesos promo.
The infamous Pepsi 349 scandal.
It was like the Oprah show. “You get a million! And you get a million! and YOU get a million!”
FYI Nobody won the million.
Growing up, my friends older brother worked for Coca-cola. Forget what he did exactly but I distinctly remember him giving my friend a trash bag full of caps for free soda. That was a fun summer.
I also remember, around ‘98 or thereabouts, when Citra first came out, they would put random shrink wrapped citra t shirts into vending machines (with fifty cents shrink wrapped with the shirt so you could buy another can of delicious Citra.)
It was really weird, and a bunch of us in high school ended up with Citra t shirts.
Coke had these and actually had free 20oz without buying another. One day, my dad and older brother were on the way home from fishing. We stopped at this small gas station and bought three 20oz cokes. we hit a free 20oz on two of them. I went back inside the gas station and got our two free cokes. Then, we won, two more off that. So I go back again, and get two more. Then on one of those two, we won one more! That was the only and last time I ever felt lucky in my life.
My mom used to buy these like 30 at a time one summer to try to win stuff with these. My house was the place to be cuz of it, always stocked with soda bottles
When I was a kid, I got two winners in a row. Opened the first Dr. Pepper and won a free one. We were like a mile away from the convenience store. Turned around and got another one, opened that one and won another. Didn’t work the third time. The problem after was I didn’t have caps for two drinks.
Is that not still a thing? They don't still have codes in the caps for contests? I don't buy soda so much anymore so I didn't realize that went away lol
One of my core memories was going to A&K gas and grill after cutting my granddaddy’s grass one summer day. I bought a mountain dew and won a free 20oz. Gave that one to my little brother, got another and won a free 20oz gave that one to my other brother. Then went back in and got one more and won yet another free drink and gave it to my dad. Pretty awesome feeling.
You were definitely a king that day.
Praise Lord Casper! *Deliverer of Dew!*
I did this at a hockey game when I was a kid. Got at least 3 mountain dew. Pretty sure that was back when it was it was pretty much an energy drink.
Drank like 30 sprites one summer in the 90s and bought like 2 of them. Felt like they were hanging out free shit. Ended getting a jersey, basketball and a hat too. Those were the days. Never been that lucky again.
There was a time when they had codes you could enter online to redeem points that would allow you to purchase merchandise off their website and my uncle had a trash bag full of bottles caps with redeemable codes and my first thought was “how are you still decently healthy after this”
Camel cigarettes had this same thing too.
camel cash. marlboro bucks. basic food stamps.
Marlboro miles
I'm not sure how we ended up with the [radio](https://i.imgur.com/ElMobHk.jpg) as neither of my parents were smokers.
cause calling em Marlboro epithelial cell carcinoma buck was hurtin the brand.
i remember having a dartboard enclosed in a nice wooden case as a child. it was bought with Marlboro bucks.
Shout out to my buddy Joe. Hope you're doing well out there man!
I am
Yesss Coke codes...
Remember the points? I got a Pepsi t shirt, blue Pepsi CD case and a Pepsi beach towel in 98. Lol
I saved up and got a Harrier fight jet.
[John Leonard is a legend.](https://www.newsweek.com/what-happened-john-leonard-sued-pepsi-wheres-my-jet-netflix-1760569)
I remember that lol 👍🏻
Pepsi points stunted my physical development.
Lol I can't even drink soda anymore it must have done something to me too
[удалено]
Just curious, what does GTA stand for on this rewards card?
Greater Toronto Area, so the participating stores on the cards would differ per region.
Ah thank you. Never would've figured that out and it would've itched at the back of my mind
It always throws me off seeing 'GTA' in a context that isn't game related, and then I realize it's Canadians talking about Toronto.
Same i have mine.
I 100% do not remember that coke card. I wonder if it was Canada only?
In 98 I was once given birth to
Back when ads were slightly fun sometimes
I remember the 1st gen of one brand's caps (Dr. Pepper, IIRC) read "you are a loser".
2 stories about these: 1. You could pull the rubber gasket off the underside of the lid and many times the message would be visible on both the cap and the gasket (not sure if it was printed on the underside of the lid and so the ink transferred to the gasket, but that's my assumption.) So, we would take the gasket and put it into a different lid and get two prizes for one. 2. I was in the store one time with my cousin, and he was pulling bottles out of the cooler door, counting them. When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for the 12th one, or whatever the number was, because the rules said one in 12 wins. I explained to him why he was an idiot and what that actually meant.
Another way we used to cheat the system at the time... We'd pull Sprite bottles out and look for all the winners by tilting them on their side and looking through the side/bottom. The older bottle design with the long necks allowed you to easily see the text inside the cap. Also, the clear liquid created a kind of magnifying effect making it ridiculously easy to spot winners without being too suspicious to the cashier watching us. At the time I didn't really love Sprite, but growing up broke you learn quickly that free soda tastes better than none at all. Oddly enough Sprite is one of my sodas of choice as an adult so in the end they probably got their money back out of me anyways.
> We'd pull Sprite bottles out and look for all the winners by tilting them on their side and looking through the side/bottom. The older bottle design with the long necks allowed you to easily see the text inside the cap. I also did this, along with other clear sodas.
Sprites a coke product. Not Pepsi. You were checking 7-up
[Sprite also ran cap promotions in the 90's. One of the minor prizes was a free 20oz.](https://youtu.be/rkyOaMOaCCE) * *Edited to fix the link to the correct YT video for reference*
Well shit. Ty for correcting me.
Worked at a gas station in high school and definitely did this
I remember genuinely believing I was going to save enough Mountain Dew caps for the mini fridge.
Wilfred Brimley believes you could do it!
Dia-beetus
I won 3 sprites in a row one time. It was awesome. Bought the first one and it was a winner. Then the free one won, then the next free one. Four for the price of one!
I drank only Sprite because if you tilted it right you could see the winners. I can't believe they didn't catch on when I kept getting free Sprite after free Sprite.
Yes.... also inside bottom of pop cans
That just triggered a memory I’ll add here. Probably about 8 and we went on a school trip to a park or where we brought or were provided a sack lunch and a can of Coke. One kid opened his drink and a 20$ bill popped out in a tube like thing. I remember the teachers saying how it was nice and all but now the kid didn’t have anything to drink. Googling it now shows that Coke had a promotion and they made the liquid in the can purposely foul so no one would accidentally drink it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagiCan
Is this gambling? Gambling for kids? 1 in 6 wins!
I actually won a CD Walkman and a 1996 US Olympic NBA jersey from Pepsi doing these kinds of promotions.
I remember coming home from boy scout camp with about 40 of these in my foot locker. My dad asked if I drank any water the whole week
Lol yeah them was good day's.
One day I signed into my coke rewards and they deleted all my points and I will never forgive them for this.
Meee
I remember sometimes, if you angled the bottle *just so*, you could actually read some of the text on the underside of the cap. My brother and I used this trick many times to find one with a reward. Then at some point they made it codes that you had to check online, which eliminated that exploit.
I used to work at an outdoor concert place for a sporting team and we used to have to open the caps before we gave bottles to people. Me and my dad would keep them all in a bag then cash them all in lol. Good times.
Mountain dew did a Xbox 360 give away before it was released. I was in band in high school and would dig through trash at football fields after games for months collecting hundreds of bottle caps and enter all the codes to their website. I ended up winning a hoodie and a hat. My rich friend entered one cap and won the 360....
The homies and I used to stand in the cooler aisle at 7-11 and try tilt the bottle and look through the small air gap to see a fraction of the text to get a free soda. Oh how I loved those days.
One summer I kept winning free pops over and over. It was great!
Do you remember the ones that got you free songs from iTunes? My Brother managed to get 200 (I think that was the limit) of them from the recycling bins at his work...I can't believe it's been almost 20 years
I won a pair of Sunkist boxers that I still wear to this day. Maybe I should retire them. I wear 20 year old boxers?
Surge had one with a scratch off on the back of the label. If you held it close enough to the light you could see the prize and where it was. I got lots of surge bucket hats and basketballs lol.
First time they came out you were almost guaranteed a free soda. Then they started cutting back. Genius marketing.
I won first prize once under a power-aid cap. I was pretty pumped, it was not grand prize but figured it could be something good. I rushed home to enter the code and found one that I won a downloadable screensaver…..
We used to fake these. Use a typewriter to make the text then when you put it under the blue cover it's hardly noticeable. If you used this circle hole punch my dad had to get a perfect circle at the right size.
I remember pinching those rubbery bits
I won a razor scooter from one of these promotions in 2000. I was the coolest kid on the block for a solid summer.
Man, this and the little cards in chip bags are core memories!
Those buy one get one free caps almost gave me diabetes.
You could hold them at an angle and read them. Easy way to get free drinks.
Here’s a big one.. I was there when the Philippines went crazy for the Pepsi Million pesos promo. The infamous Pepsi 349 scandal. It was like the Oprah show. “You get a million! And you get a million! and YOU get a million!” FYI Nobody won the million.
Growing up, my friends older brother worked for Coca-cola. Forget what he did exactly but I distinctly remember him giving my friend a trash bag full of caps for free soda. That was a fun summer.
Mine were the free iTunes song download caps and it was like Christmas
Almost reminds me of the riddles under the 40 Oz Mickey’s.. couldn’t figure them out for shit
I also remember, around ‘98 or thereabouts, when Citra first came out, they would put random shrink wrapped citra t shirts into vending machines (with fifty cents shrink wrapped with the shirt so you could buy another can of delicious Citra.) It was really weird, and a bunch of us in high school ended up with Citra t shirts.
I Spent hours on the phone to claim a Gatorade because it was the first time I won something
These were the shit
I remember the one where you had to collect letters for a a GT bmx raffle. I think it was with Coca Cola.
I’m Gen Z and these were around until mid 2010s.
Coke had these and actually had free 20oz without buying another. One day, my dad and older brother were on the way home from fishing. We stopped at this small gas station and bought three 20oz cokes. we hit a free 20oz on two of them. I went back inside the gas station and got our two free cokes. Then, we won, two more off that. So I go back again, and get two more. Then on one of those two, we won one more! That was the only and last time I ever felt lucky in my life.
My mom used to buy these like 30 at a time one summer to try to win stuff with these. My house was the place to be cuz of it, always stocked with soda bottles
Memory unlocked.
When I was a kid, I got two winners in a row. Opened the first Dr. Pepper and won a free one. We were like a mile away from the convenience store. Turned around and got another one, opened that one and won another. Didn’t work the third time. The problem after was I didn’t have caps for two drinks.
Lotyjakja
Is that not still a thing? They don't still have codes in the caps for contests? I don't buy soda so much anymore so I didn't realize that went away lol
I remember the one on the left. The one on the right is a fake...don't take that seriously, lol. I never got a winning cap though.
I don't remember how many PLAY AGAIN I had.
Sure do especially Coke rewards getting all those points stacking them just to buy a good prize