It would be nice to win a lifetime supply of groceries, fuel, or round-trip tickets to Hawaii. However, these giveaways don’t always turn out exactly as advertised.
To get a firsthand account of what it’s like to win these promos, we’ve collected these responses to a Reddit thread from a while back. A user asked, “Anyone who won a ‘lifetime supply’ of something, what did you win, and are they still supplying it to you?”
Many expressed disappointment, while there were a handful of satisfied customers. Either way, these answers should make you reevaluate your decisions about participating in such promos in the future.
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My friend won a year supply of gourmet wood fired pizza, one per week for a year. She's a mom with 8 kids (5 bio, 3 step) and so she made it a weekly outing for just herself or sometimes her and a friend to just sit in the restaurant and have free pizza in silence :).
I won a computer in 1985 when I was 8 years old.
I've been programming ever since, so I won a lifetime's supply of being a complete f*****g geek.
Had a customer when I worked at a Toyota dealership who had won a “new Toyota for life” promotion years earlier. They had tried to buy her out several times but she refused and showed up faithfully every 2 years for her new base model Toyota. I did the paperwork for her 2-year $0.00/month lease on a 5-speed Yaris with no AC.
My sister once subscribed to the magazine ‘seventeen’. She canceled after a year... she’s still getting them. We’ve moved out of state twice and different cities countless times. They find her EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It’s been 20 years.
I have had various magazines show up unsolicited for months. I figured that it is a marketing tool.
When I bought my car, they threw in the "free oil changes and car washes for life" option for free. Cool. Now, every 3 months, I take the car in, get a free oil change, get it vacuumed and washed and usually they "recommend" certain extra services which I end up doing myself for a fraction of the cost.
It's been a pretty good deal for the past 5 years. Nice clean car, fresh oil and free diagnosis'.
It's a good customer retention program for them. When OP is looking for a replacement of this car, the dealer's name and location will be very fresh in his mind.
I have a “lifetime” supply to amazon prime...but have no idea why. A couple years ago everyone was telling me to get amazon prime. I finally decided to go ahead and get it, only to find out I already had it. I have never signed up, and no one else has access to my email. Ever since then I’ve been using it and it keeps renewing without me doing anything or paying anything. It’s weird, but I’m not complaining to amazon!
Not me, but a story from a long time friend who was an attorney. A famous Ft Worth oil and gas law attorney defended a startup BBQ restaurant owner from a nuisance lawsuit for no cost because the young entrepreneur had limited funds. (My friend worked for the law firm in question here.) They were able to get the suit dismissed and the young man asked what was the fee? The attorney said he wanted a BBQ dinner delivered every Friday at his office for life. The last I heard this had continued for over 35 years...
My dad bought a lifetime subscription to the New England Journal of Medicine in 1977 at age 30. It's issued weekly. He's still receiving it (and he still practices medicine). I don't know how much it cost him at the time but it's currently priced at $189 / year for physicians. They've asked him several times if he'd be willing to switch to an online subscription but he's refused. He does actually still read a lot of it and tears out articles of interest and sticks them in other textbooks on related issues. My mother wants to choke him because he will often have a dozen or two piled up around the kitchen.
I always preferred my journals to be in print because I would write on them a lot.
A friend of my dad won a lifetime subscription to a magazine. He was quick to point out that "lifetime" referred to the lifetime of the magazine, not him. He's outlived the publication by a few decades and counting.
My mom won a year supply of free burritos from chipotle. They did a promotion where they hid these large fake burritos around local parks and such and my mom found one while walking in the park. Those who found the burrito were entered into a photo contest, where they had to go around town and take pictures with the burrito on their adventures. My mom won, and she got the burritos. They gave us 52 cards for free burritos. Since we had them as a family, we used multiple cards each visit. It still lasted us about a year though because we didn't visit every week.
Screw getting free Chipotle. I just want to go on an adventure with a large burrito.
Not a lifetime supply, but when I was about twenty I won a whole esky (cooler for you non-Australians) of iced coffee. It was supposed to be a month’s supply and contained 30 litres!
The problem was, being milk and being issued all at once it only had an expiry date about 14 days out so I had to either live on the stuff or waste it.
So me and my friends lived on baileys and iced coffee for a couple of weeks, any time of the day.
It was a rough few weeks.
It's not food or fuel or any of that outrageous stuff but I won a lifetime VPN. Still getting the service after 2 years.
Not a lifetime supply, but my wife won a year's supply of Pringles. She had 3 or 4 cases delivered in one go. The problem was that 75% was Chicken...
EDIT: since people were asking, they were Roast Chicken flavour.
EDIT 2: I am an Aussie and Chicken is a common flavour of chips/Pringles/crisps here. Possible unpopular opinion but they are only sorta ok if you have nothing else, but they are pretty terrible in comparison to Sour Cream and Chives, Salt and Vinegar and normal.
A friend of mine won free haircuts from sportsclips by making a half-court shot at the halftime of a basketball game, underrated prize for sure as haircuts there are $20-$25.
I used to work at a Sport Clips. I can guarantee you they still charged him for shampoo service but in the grand scheme of things, that's a pretty nifty prize to win!
My girlfriend won a lifetime supply of fruit roll ups back when she was young and they delivered them all in one lump sum. She said that she went through the "lifetime supply" in about a month and they never gave her anymore fruit roll ups. Needless to say, her "lifetime supply" of fruit roll ups isn't doing much for her today.
I have a lifetime VIP membership to Zappos which gives me free next day shipping. Normally I get my order in less than 24 hours. They gave it to me because I had to call in after using the app to change the size shoe I ordered because I neglected to change it from the default option.
I’ve had it for about 9 years I think.
Edit: also when I log in on the app a bunch of VIP icons come raining down the screen.
Not a good deal. All items on Zappos are available at a lower price from other retailers.
My dad bought a price guaranteed phone contract back when the network was new and very few people had smart phones. He pays £8 per month for unlimited texts, unlimited calls, and 50GB of data.
They have called him relentlessly trying to get him to switch deals.
Edit: so I text my dad and he said it was for unlimited data, but it was 3G. He eventually switched to 4G and got a really good deal still because they had to give him incentive to switch from the amazing one.
Ha, my phone company is trying to do this to me now. I bought my phone around 2018 with unlimited call, texts and data. I've really looked after the phone (because I'd had enough of the whole 'switching to a new model each year' nonsense) so even now it still looks brand new. When the contract ended I switched to a cheaper SIM only deal with the same unlimited stuff. Every quarter since about 2020 I get an email from the provider asking me to switch to another bundle because "they don't know how much longer they can offer me my current package". I just ignored them and I'm still going strong in 2025. They'll find some way to get me eventually but until then I'm digging in.
Not a lifetime supply but when I was young my family went on a trip to the east coast. Tropicana Twist had some sort of contest going on so my parents bought me and my brother one each. We both won’t free drink. So at our next stop we cashed in on our free drink, and won a free drink. In total me and my brother won 57 free drinks which lasted the whole three week trip.
In 1995 I won a life-time supply of Kentucky fried chicken. Every month I'm able to get a 20 piece bucket two large fries two large salad two large gravy and two 2 l bottles of pop/soda for free. And it's still going.
How about a Christmas present from my to-be-wife of a case of toothpicks.
48 boxes of 250 toothpicks = 12,000 toothpicks
I just checked and there are 6 unopened boxes left. We've been married 27 years so ruffly 4 years left. So not quite a life time.
Mate got a lifetime blackcard for kfc. I dont know where He won it. Every weekend squad gathers and get some hot wings for free.
Not a lifetime supply, but knew a family that won a year supply of soda (I think it was Dr. Pepper). They got a 24 pack a week for a year but it was delivered in a few shipments. IIRC, they grumbled because they ran out between shipments. This was over 20 years ago, but I think that's what happened. I was 9 or 10.
My mum won a year supply of McDonalds when I was about 10. We got a book filled with 365 medium combo vouchers, all of which expired in a year. We had McDonalds for everything - birthday parties, sports team celebrations, family dinners. It was actually hard to get through them all. If I remember correctly, we still had a couple of pages to go by the end of the year. Sometimes my mum would get tipsy and just hand a full page of vouchers to whoever was near by.
I had purchased a membership at a local brewery/tavern in 2014 for $350 (Was half of the original price cause black Friday) this entitled me to a free beer a day for life. 40oz beer. The brewery closed late last year. In a way I'm kinda glad. Although I did get my money's worth within the first few months. My liver rejoices.
A loooong time ago, I won a lifetime subscription to an online dating website (I was hoping to win some money prize at the original free subscription). It became popular and expensive with the years, I used it intermitently with mediocre success until 6 years ago, when I decided to see if my account was still alive. It was, I did a search, found that guy, decided he was the one, sent him a message... and married the sh*t out of him.
I tried to check my account again a few years ago to check on a friend's date that she found on the same website, and my account has turned on me and is now asking me to pay.
I would say it served perfectly well!
I won a lifetime supply of essential oils so ofc I get high every night (by sniffing them) after my 9-to-5 and chill in the bath tub with some bath salts and a Chardonnay bc that’s just the typical 29 year old that I am.
Not a lifetime supply, but my best friend and I won “free burgers for a year”.
What that actually ended up being was 1 burger per week for a year, excluding the week leading up to Christmas Day.
And we didn’t even get the good burgers - this place had hand made patties, cheese stuffed, bacon stuffed... but we got thin a*s shingles.
We were so excited at first because we were broke a*s college kids... but by mid-year, we were going out of spite, not because we wanted it.
It's really a shítty move from a place. If you can't afford it, don't make it happen.
I won a Big Mac card that gave me 1 free Big Mac a week for a full year. Used it 52 times and it was electric.
Not sure if this counts, but a number of years ago I won a lifetime membership to my local golf course. It's probably been the worst thing to happen to my game.
Not a life time supply, but a years supply of cookie time cookies. They called out my raffle number, but me being a drunk idiot, I read it upside down so decided to eat my ticket instead of claiming the prize.
Poll Question
What product would you most want a lifetime supply of?
Food
Drinks
Some kind of membership
Other
I won an Eddy's Ice Cream contest. A year's supply of ice cream via coupons. Some for gallons and some of them were for half gallons. I still had a few left when they expired. I can blame them for an extra 20 lbs that I still have to this day. I also got a trip to San Fransciso out of it
Not win but many years ago when I bought my first mobile phone I managed to get a really good deal. This was in the late nineties so after the brick type phones but just before the ultra small ones (essentially I could fit it in my pocket....just). The contract was something like £10 per month but with that I got unlimited free texts and 5 numbers I could nominate where calls to them would always be free. So I put in my parents, girlfriend and a couple of mates numbers as they were the only people I ever called regularly anyway. Other than the contract charge for all the years I kept that phone I don't think I spent more than a few pence a month on calls and the provider really didn't like it. I'd probably still be using it now if it had managed to survive all those drunken nights out (and the eventual grief I got for carrying around a phone that was about 5 years out of date).
My dad has a lifelong update of Tomtom, his navigation software, but after 10 years or so his hardware is too old, so that updates won't run on it anymore. He could buy new hardware to continue the membership, but he is now too old to drive anyway.
I won an Eddy's Ice Cream contest. A year's supply of ice cream via coupons. Some for gallons and some of them were for half gallons. I still had a few left when they expired. I can blame them for an extra 20 lbs that I still have to this day. I also got a trip to San Fransciso out of it
Not win but many years ago when I bought my first mobile phone I managed to get a really good deal. This was in the late nineties so after the brick type phones but just before the ultra small ones (essentially I could fit it in my pocket....just). The contract was something like £10 per month but with that I got unlimited free texts and 5 numbers I could nominate where calls to them would always be free. So I put in my parents, girlfriend and a couple of mates numbers as they were the only people I ever called regularly anyway. Other than the contract charge for all the years I kept that phone I don't think I spent more than a few pence a month on calls and the provider really didn't like it. I'd probably still be using it now if it had managed to survive all those drunken nights out (and the eventual grief I got for carrying around a phone that was about 5 years out of date).
My dad has a lifelong update of Tomtom, his navigation software, but after 10 years or so his hardware is too old, so that updates won't run on it anymore. He could buy new hardware to continue the membership, but he is now too old to drive anyway.