It may seem like it’s easy to play life by the rules without worrying about getting in trouble for stepping over your bounds, but there are some loopholes around that could score you free food, more TV channels and even better service when you’re on the move. After all, these tips aren’t against the rules, they’re just a hidden advantage.
Keep Your Wits About You
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that people must be tried for crimes in, and have a jury drawn from, the state and district in which the crime occurred.
Now, when it comes to Federal Court districts, generally that’s a non-issue; all states have at least one federal district, and the borders of that district are usually coterminous with the borders of the state.
Usually.
However, for convenience, Yellowstone National Park, which is mostly in the state of Wyoming but spills over slightly into Idaho and Montana, was placed entirely within the Federal Court district of Wyoming. NBD, right? Wrong.
The tiny sliver of Idaho covered by Yellowstone (and therefore in the District of Wyoming) has no inhabitants whatsoever. Therefore, no federal jury could be chosen from there. Nevertheless, any federal crime committed in that area must be tried there, with a jury drawn from there. A jury from any other area of Wyoming or Idaho would be a violation of the Sixth Amendment.
Therefore you could technically get away with murder in this “Zone of Death,” because you could not be constitutionally convicted by due process of law.
Federal judges have said that as a practical matter the law would never allow such an outrage to stand, but do you really want to depend on that?
No one has shifted the district borders even though this lacuna in the law was discovered several years ago, so if you find yourself hiking with your worst enemy in a certain remote tract of Idaho, well… make sure you keep your wits about you.
Story credit: Reddit / Wrkncacnter112
Way Over My Head
A loophole in my Physics class kept me from failing the class and having my college acceptance rescinded.
Long story short: it was senior year, last semester of high school. My final finals week of high school. I ended up taking a physics class that was WAY over my head. I wasn’t a bad student, just could not wrap my head around physics.
Went into our final assignment with an F. The assignment was on buoyancy and we needed to make a boat out of cardboard that could support you and your partner in a pool.
My buddy and I built our boat and the day came for everyone to test the quality of their boats in my buddy’s pool (bad idea in hindsight. Pool cloudy with glue by the end.)
To get full credit, you needed to go back and fourth once across the pool without sinking. Then my teach made a big mistake. She offered 40 extra credit points for each additional length paddled before sinking.
A bunch of groups went and most people made it across once before sinking. One team made it ten times. Amazing! Then it was our turn. We were the final group. My buddy and I get in and paddle back and fourth. Nice! Then another length. And another. And another. And another…
We went back and fourth SIXTY TIMES. Finally our teacher made us stop. We weren’t even close to sinking. I got 2400 extra credit points on my last final in high school and went from an F to an A-. Greatest redemption story of my life. Our teacher was awesome and totally honored what she said. Good times!
Story credit: Reddit / byfuryattheheart
Ticket Scam
We used to run a ticket scam operation at the local Chuck E Cheese.
We started small time, we used to cheat at the games like SkiBall while traffic was low and it was off times. After a few times of pulling that heist we decided to cool it because we thought it might be suspicious that we’d earn the mega bonus ticket payout regularly.
We did similar things with other games but nothing paid out like SkiBall. That’s when my buddy found out the big one.
I’m not sure if it’s like this now. Back then they used to weigh the tickets at the front in a bowl on a scale, but then they replaced them with these new machines. These machines you would feed tickets into; it would count the tickets and then present you with a slip listing how many tickets it was worth that you could redeem.
Turns out if you were delicate and had enough finesse, you could pull the strip of tickets out and then feed them back in, it would count the tickets over and over again, even though they had unique serial numbers.
Boom, infinite tickets.
The ticket counters were in the corner of place by the front, near the registers. But a few were kind of hidden away from plain sight. We would have 2 people stand guard while my buddy worked his magic. If staff came by we’d signal him and he’d feed the tickets in like normal.
Instead of having a bunch of really large tickets. We’d make some moderately sized ones mixed with some big ones and spread them out a bit, I think they had dates printed on them.
We got it all, the glowing disco ball, the special edition Barbie for my friend’s girl, candy, spray foam; the sticky hands. We never got the crazy big items like the bike because we thought it’d be too suspicious. I think we could even redeem them for Pizza which we would do when we were hungry.
We never got found out. But we eventually cooled it because it was only a matter of time. It was like Oceans’s Eleven but instead it was like Chuckee’s Four.
More of a straight up hustle than a loophole. Good memories.
Story credit: Reddit / LoveHerMore
Straight A's
This is a good one. I found, and exploited, a loophole that let me get straight As without attending class at all.
So at my high school we had a packet system in place as a kind of safety net for failing students. If you failed a class, they’d let you do a packet to earn a better grade, with a final test at the end. Pretty simple, right? I discovered this by accident, when I saw another student working on a packet, and asked a few questions.
Turns out, the packets were easy. It was a safety net, after all. To a failing student, they’d pose a serious challenge, but to a clever kid like me who was always bored with the level of my classes, it was a breeze. I discovered I could finish an entire packet, with the essay at the end included, in under 2 hours.
And the packets were never graded. Your final grade depended on your score on the last test, which you could take any time. The test was an absolute joke. 20 questions, super straightforward, and you were actually allowed to use the packet for reference. Naturally getting a perfect score was easy.
Here’s the best part though. It wasn’t just a system to give you a credit, it actually replaced your failing grade on the records to an A. Indistinguishable from any other hardworking honor student.
I stopped attending classes that bored me, except for tests and review days. (I could learn the material quickly, so just the reviews were as valuable to me as an entire term of slow, boring learning speeds.) For two years, I only attended classes I enjoyed, like ceramics and creative writing, failed most of my classes, and then “fixed” the grades within a single week. Straight As, practically zero effort. Thanks to review days, I still had a solid grasp of each subject by the end. And my school never fixed the loophole.
Story credit: Reddit / LittleMissFirebright
First-Class Meal
A man in China purchased a first-class plane ticket — and used it to eat a year’s worth of free meals at the VIP lounge at Xi’an International Airport. The frequent diner purchased a first-class, fully refundable ticket aboard Eastern China Airline.
He used the ticket to gain access to the airport’s VIP lounge, where high-rolling travelers dine for free, according to a report last week in the Chinese-language newspaper Kwong Wah Yit Poh in Malaysia. The man re-booked his first-class ticket over and over again and kept the gravy train rolling. Eastern China Airlines officials only recently figured out the man’s scheme after noticing his single ticket being re-booked 300 times over one year, according to the newspaper report. Airline officials admitted there was nothing they could do to stop the frequent diner.
A spokeswoman for the carrier called the man’s free-meal scheme a “rare act.” Still, Eastern China Airlines officials confronted him, and the human meal ticket stopped chowing down. The freeloader ended up cashing in his fully refundable ticket and getting back all his money.
Story credit: Reddit
Compare the Market
If you’re in the UK, there’s an insurance comparison company called Compare the Market. The way they set themselves apart — because really, they’re all basically the same — is by having an actually-really-kind-of-good set of rewards schemes called Meerkat Movies and Meerkat Meals respectively. For the former, you can get two for one cinema tickets on Tuesdays or Wednesdays; for the latter, you can get two for one food at a fair number of restaurants, Sunday to Thursday. You get a year’s worth of access to both programs whenever you buy insurance through them.
Fortunately, it’s any kind of insurance that works. One day’s worth of travel insurance for a UK-based trip will set you back about £1.50, which means that you’re almost certainly going to save money by getting it as long as you use the program once in that year. I’m pretty sure it’s not how they intended it to be used, but I’ve saved a fortune (and still ended up getting my actual insurance with someone else).
Pro-tip: you don’t even have to buy the insurance. If you click to purchase it, it will register on your Compare The Market account that you’ve gone to the affiliated link. Then go back to CTM, click get rewards, type in the name of the company you “purchased” from, you’ll recieve the reward. No purchase is actually necessary, you just have to click it.
Hope this made sense.
Story credit: Reddit / Portarossa
It's All Luck
There’s an arcade near me where games give out tickets and then you exchange the tickets for prizes. Most of the games give out between 5 and 30 tickets, because they’re based mostly on luck. But there’s one that gives out between 0 and 100 tickets, because it’s based on skill (supposedly).
The game works like this. There’s a giant oval with a light that travels around it. The light represents a skip rope. When the light gets to the bottom, you’re supposed to jump to avoid it. The longer you play, the faster it goes, until it’s literally too fast to avoid. Average win is 20 tickets or so.
I did it once and failed miserably, but then I wondered, “How does it know I jumped?” I look around and see no lasers, so I assume it’s a pressure plate on the game pad. I do some testing and that’s it.
Well, there’s no way for that pressure plate to distinguish between a “jump” and a “tap”. So I’d start up the game, kneel down, and just slap the pressure plate with my hand whenever the light got close. THAT is a lot easier to do than jumping. I was able to rack up a thousand tickets in no time and bought some baller stuff for my friend’s birthday. (We were there for her party).
Story credit: Reddit / shaidyn
Betting It All
Some cruises will reward you for booking with onboard credit, sometimes easily $100/person. Being a family of four, that’s $400 that you can only apply to purchases onboard in the overpriced stores, restaurant upsells (premium steaks etc). The kicker also was the places limited you to how much you can buy with credit, for example in order to apply $40 onboard credit, you had to purchase something at least $120. This pretty much means you’re still paying the cost of the item.
The loophole occurs because the credit is on your cabin’s spending account. Onboard, everything is charged to your cabin, including… casino loans/markers!
I went to the onboard casino, asked for a $400 marker (which is charged to your room and deducted from the credit), played a few $10 hands and cashed out. The bonus was I didn’t lose many hands and had a win streak at the blackjack table. Ended turning my $400 onboard credit into $750 cash. Do not attempt if you’re susceptible to gambling addiction haha. While I actually stayed to play a few hands, you can definitely just play one and get up and cash out your $400.
Voila!
Story credit: Reddit / djmistral
Put It On a Gift Card
The one I use at Coles when I do my shopping is:
Before you go in buy gift cards to the value you are expecting to spend. You will then receive FlyBuy points for that purchase. Then when you go through the checkout you will receive FlyBuy points again on your shopping as the payment method is not taken into consideration.
Doubling your FlyBuy points over the course of an entire year can mean you have saved up several hundred $$ by Christmas.
For an additional bonus, you can then cash your FlyBuy points in occasionally by turning them into Velocity points when they offer a 2 for 1 point exchange or whatever. When I used my Velocity points I bought 2 plane tickets for my daughter and my grandson for 1/4 of the price I would have paid booking them through traditional routes.
You can also claim Ps4’s Cinema tickets and the like from the Velocity store but that isn’t particularly great value, but if you have amassed the points for free, then I guess they are great value.
Story credit: Reddit / fuzzlor
We Eat Free
A few summers ago, I was working on a construction site near a McDonalds and we would go there semi-regularly for lunch. This was the same year that Mcdonalds started mobile ordering, and it started while we were working there. I figured the ability to order on site and then just drive over in the truck and pick up curbside would be convenient so I downloaded the app and gave it a shot.
Now, the owner of the local franchise is cheap and never participates in any promotional pricing. At the time he was abstaining from the 2 for $2 and 2 for $5 menus. Unfortunately for him, whoever set up the mobile ordering menu didn’t properly turn off the promotional items for this particular restaurant. Rather than removing them from the menu, they set the price to $0.
This meant that you could get mcdoubles, mcchickens, big mac, large fries, and QPC all for free, and get as many as you want. The only catch was that you couldn’t actually make a $0 order, the app wouldn’t allow it, so you had to buy a $1 drink or something. The whole crew ate for almost free for nearly a month before they noticed.
Story credit: Reddit / beerigation
I Have Paid Enough Already
When I was in college, a parking sticker to park your car on campus was something like $250 a semester.
Senior year, we were sick of this, so I bought one, stuck it on my car, (it was front facing and stuck to the inside of your window facing out) and then we took a high resolution photo of it. We edited the photo on a laptop and sent it to a sticker making company. They printed a sheet of those for like 8 bucks. We got a couple pages of stickers and gave them out to our trusted friends.
As long as no one parked illegally or next to each other on campus, there was no reason parking police would notice we had the same parking number. Never got caught and saved a ton of money because we split the price of the original sticker.
10/10 would do it again. But you best believe I came out of that place with 45k in student loans, but that’s a separate issue.
Story credit: Reddit / Ticonderoga10-11
Drink and Ditch
This guy I knew went out to a downtown type club where they swipe your card once and then keep it til you come back to get it when you want to leave. The goal here is obviously to have them keep coming up and buying more drinking and you just rack up a large bill until you cash out and you get your final check.
Well he bought a Visa cards from Walmart and put 10$ on it. Ordered one drink and the card didn’t get declined cause it was under 10$ then started coming back and back, eventually racking up a bill over 200$. The guy just left the club and they never heard from him again. The club had no way of finding him either cause they’re is no name on those cards. They did however get a video of him and will be looking for him next time he goes down town
Story credit: Reddit / squishysharkmaster
Child's Play
Some kids in town came up with a pretty impressive hustle.
Canada was a year or two from retiring the penny and there was a shortage so banks had a deal saying if you brought in $10 worth of rolled pennies, they would give you $12 cash. These guys (they were around 10 years old) took in all their pennies and made the $2 per $10. Then went to another bank and bought $12 worth of pennies, went to the next bank and sold them back. Rinse and repeat, making 20% per transaction until bank staff (we only have half a dozen banks in town) figured out the hustle.
Story credit: Reddit / Norse_of_60
Two Weeks' Notice
I submitted my resignation two weeks prior to accepting another gig. The GM told me I could also cash in my accumulated sick leave. A few days before I was supposed to leave, he came back and told me that I couldn’t cash in the sick leave he had promised. Needless to say, I was seething. I immediately requested to cancel my resignation.
The next day I called in sick and stayed in that status until my sick leave was exhausted. Meanwhile, I used my spare time wisely to prepare for my new gig which was much better with plenty of room for advancement. I went back to the old gig just about when the sick leave expired to pick up my check and resigned once again.
I kept that next gig for 35 years through several promotions and retired nearly 5 years ago to the day.
There are times when you just cannot do the right thing by an employer and you just gotta fight fire with fire.
Story credit: Reddit / eman282828
The Library is Cheaper Than the Book Store
In college in the mid-Aughts, I probably saved a few thousand by checking older editions and books out from the library instead of buying them. Couldn’t really do it with science books, but I was a history major and almost an English minor (dropped it the last semester cause I didn’t want another paper to write, and I figured an English minor would be useless anyway).
Other than differences in page numbers, the previous editions were pretty much exactly the same (who would’ve thought little to no additional information would come out on the Gilded Age or Victorian England between the 3 years between the 2003 6th editions of those textbooks and the 2006 7th editions).
At that time, the campus library would let you continuously renew the book if no one had requested it in the meantime, so I could hang on to most of them throughout the semester.
Story credit: Reddit / Legion213
Points For Purchases
A local restaurant chain near me ran a special where every purchase gains you points, and every 100 points you get a $10 discount on your next purchase. It turns out to do this, they would just credit $10 to your account, which was usable when you used their rewards card.
So I purchased a $100 gift card, and got $110 in value. Then I used the $100 gift card to buy another $100 gift card, and now had $120.
I stopped there once I confirmed the loophole, and the staff was laughing pretty hard about it. The rules quickly changed.
Story credit: Reddit / Schwerlin
Validated Parking
There is a department store downtown in my city. Parking downtown is a scarce, and expensive, so the dept store offers free parking to customers.
The trick is to park at the dept store, quickly buy a belt or something, do whatever you wanted to do downtown, then at a later date (or later that day even) go back and return the item.
If you frequently/regularly did this, you could return an item and buy a new one in a single trip each time you do this. All while getting free parking downtown for spending a few minutes in the store.
Story credit: Reddit / hydra3a
Skip a Step to a Master's Degree
There are some graduate schools that don’t require a Bachelors to apply, just a fulfillment of pre-reqs. We paid $6k for my husband to take the prereqs he needed, then applied to all the graduate schools that didn’t require a BA. My husband’s first and only degree is a Doctorate. Also, some schools will consider work experience as fulfillment of prereqs. My bro just finished his Masters and never did undergrad.
Story credit: Reddit / leechladyland
Inventory Tracking
I worked in a music shop when I was 17. It was the satellite store of the main store a town over. All inventory was tracked and shipped at the main store. The items shipped to the satellite store were pulled out of inventory after a short amount of time. They didn’t require inventory tracking at the satellite store.
There was a pretty disorganized back room that actually had a ton of product in it. We saw the potential for huge amounts of theft but resisted for the most part. We did grab some discontinued cymbals and microphones but we could’ve really put a dent in it. My buddy got a whole guitar that fell off the rack from our boss before the satellite store closed. Wish a guitar would’ve fell off the shelf when I was there that day!
Story credit: Reddit / lambofgun
Head Start on College
Back in the 90’s/early 00’s my high school had a policy that they would pay for any classes they didn’t offer that a student wished to take at the local community college – and it would count for high school and college credits.
I took scuba diving, philosophy, sociology, ethics, MS Office 1 & 2, and a whole bunch of other “easy” classes. 1st year of college done before I graduated. My BS overall cost way less, I was able to work full time while at university – plus the perk of a college schedule being much shorter then high school so several weeks I didn’t have to go to either.
Smart people take AP classes, smarter people do this instead.
Story credit: Reddit / michuru809
Play Without Ads
When you’re playing a phone game that wants to charge you extra to play without ads. These are between levels and sometimes during play.
As the game is loading (before you start playing) turn on airplane mode and the game now runs ad free. The trick is to let it load THEN turn off your connection. You can’t save your progress online, but it’s a small price to pay for preventing full-screen ads with no timer or x.
Some of these games will actually tell you that you’re playing the ad-free version when you do this.
Story credit: Reddit / snub999
Always Skip Cancellation Fees
Hotels/events/pre booked things that charge you to cancel at short notice.
A lot of places charge you to cancel at short notice, but is free to rearrange. If you call up and rebook for a few weeks time, then a day or so later (so you don’t sound cheeky!) call back and cancel for free. Rather than paying an expensive cancellation fee for not cancelling in advance!
Story credit: Reddit / Agh-Bee
Big Uproar
There was once a big uproar at some sporting event where the venue had an exclusive deal with Aquafina or Dasani, and they HAD to sell only that water. Any vendor on premise was forbidden from selling any other bottled water.
So the vendors started doing this: They posted signs saying, “Single peanut for sale, $1, free water bottle included with every peanut purchase.” Genius.
Story credit: Reddit / CaptainReginaldLong
Free College Applications
Applying for graduate schools, all the apps cost money to submit ($50+ each usually) but you can often get them waived if you’re a member of certain organizations/groups (stuff like honors societies, career development orgs for underrepresented minorities, etc.). I found out that just being an APPLICANT (which was free) for one of those groups counted for the fee waiver, and got application fees waived for over half of the schools I applied to, even after being rejected from that program.
Story credit: Reddit / turq8
One Scholarship At a Time
At my university you could only hold one bursary (it’s like a financial aid award, not really a scholarship) at a time.
However, there was a bursary that apparently would match the value of all other bursaries you qualified for up to a certain amount. I can’t remember the rules now and it had a cap. It was something like 10k a term which was way more than the others or most scholarships.
Anyways, we discovered it, it was only available for two terms, but it was a godsend while it was there.
Story credit: Reddit / billbapapa
Collect Them All
When I was 10-11ish, I really loved my little pony. And there was an app on the app store for equestria girls (an MLP spinoff), where you did quests and stuff. Well, to complete the quests you often needed help from MLP characters. The way that you got their help was either by scanning a doll, or using gems. You had to pay for gems, and only got them for free rarely.
I had no Equestria Girls dolls, so this really sucked for me. Until I thought, “Hang on, what’s stopping people from just going to the store and scanning dolls?” which then led me to realizing that I could just look up pictures online and scan them. It ended up working, and I was so proud I bragged to my mom about it for ages.
Story credit: Reddit / samsdhmgb
Digital Submissions
While I was at university, my department at one point switched from requiring students to hand in physical copies of assignments to digital submissions. Apparently a few people on another course had some problems with the procedure on deadline day, so the department sent us a note round saying that to cover for that, anyone who submitted incorrectly on deadline day would have their individual deadline extended by 12 hours.
Cue a load of students deliberately submitting unfinished assignments incorrectly so they could get the extra time.
Story credit: Reddit / JFVarlet
Skipping Class for Credit
The high school I went to and some other high schools had ways of giving students credit if they didn’t pass a class. My school had a program where students would have to stay after school and finish an online course. As soon as you finish the course, you are guaranteed the missing credit.
The online courses are web-based so you can Google pretty much all the answers. Since it’s web-based, you are allowed to do it at home too. My junior year, I hated this one class so I barely went to it and purposely failed. They enrolled me in the program the following year. I finished the program in a week and got the same credit I would have for going to the class.
Story credit: Reddit / MinntyFr3sh
Get a Note
In the shipyard, you gotta have safety glasses. If you lose them, our safety department makes you talk to your boss’s boss and have him write a note saying that he talked to you so you can have another pair of glasses. Well, I walked in to the safety office without safety glasses and asked for another pair.
They said to go get a note. I then asked if they were going to let me walk out without any safety glasses. They knew that wasn’t allowed, so they gave me a scratched up pair. Well, the reason they had those on hand is because you can trade your scratched ones for new ones. So I took the scratched ones, dealt with them for a day, and then went in the next day and traded them in for new ones. Never had to talk to my boss’s boss and get a note.
Story credit: Reddit / joes-shoes
Playing Dumb
Here’s a good one. I’m prescribed a medication which is expensive so the drug company provides this coupon card. Guess what? It applies money spent as if paid for it myself. So insurance says I reach my deductible and out of pocket maximum. My out of pocket max is reached with my insurance company very quickly.
This means everything is covered from doctor visits, labs, procedures, not just the drug that is covered by the coupon card.Drug company doesn’t really check to see if you qualify for coupon card or not. Am I supposed to say something to my insurance company? I’ll play dumb for now. That’s healthcare in America. I’m pretty sure this is what’s keeping medication cost high.
Story credit: Reddit / enuin
Not Until the Skate Touches the Ice
Torvill and Dean’s bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics lasted 4 minutes and 18 seconds, but Olympic rules state that performances can’t be longer than 4 minutes.
However, the timer doesn’t begin until the skates touch the ice, so they did the first 20ish seconds of their performance on their knees.
Story credit: Reddit / ugoogli
Exchanged For A New One
Most stores have a policy against returning air mattresses because people often buy them for a weekend and return them when they don’t need them anymore. I was one of these people. At the service counter I was told all of this and that they would not refund my money because the box was open. The most they could do is exchange it for a new one, which I did. After a quick 360 at the counter I returned my unopened air mattress and got my money back.
Story credit: Reddit / randyjacksonsarmpits
No Skill Required
One time the local mall was having a Guitar Hero contest back when those games were super popular. Whoever got the most points on a song throughout the whole day won tickets to see Stone Temple Pilots. What they didn’t know was their contest was fatally flawed to anyone that actually knew the game.
If you play a song on expert like cherub rock and hit most of the notes, you will naturally get a higher scorer than if you hit every note in a song like Mississippi queen just because there are way more notes in the song, so that’s what I did, played cherub rock and got a score of a couple hundred thousand, and no one beat it the rest of the day, and I won the tickets.
Story credit: Reddit / Joed112784
I Still Miss That Place
Little community center/arcade where I used to live as a kid had an air hockey table in the back room. Somebody figured out that if you jimmy the coin slot in just the right way, you could get an extra 3-4 games out of one quarter until the thing was fully pressed in and you’d have to put in a new one. None of us had much money, so this was a lifesaver. The employees didn’t really care because what money we did have was typically spent at the snack bar, so they made money off us anyway.
I kind of miss that place. They always had fresh watermelon for free for kids who had absolutely no money so nobody would feel left out.
Story credit: Reddit / Greyzun
Always Check the Law
Here’s the one that saved me $100.
For some reason, my car got towed from a Taco Bell parking lot while I was at a store next door for only a few minutes. $100, cash only, to get it back, because typical towing company.
I looked up the state law, and to request a private tow at a business, the owner of the establishment must be present. A manager is not good enough. Since they probably don’t even know who owns that particular place, obviously, that didn’t happen. Got my car back, no charge.
Story credit: Reddit / Hardcore_EHS
Backstage Pass
There was a band I really liked playing a sold out show in my town years ago. Not a huge band, but still pretty popular. I looked up their stage manager’s name online, grabbed an old lead cable and crossed my fingers. Knocked on the back door, told security “Pete told me to go grab this for him, said they were short”. They let me in and I got to watch the show from the side of the stage.
Story credit: Reddit / Blownupicus
Always Read the Fine Print
When I was young (~12yo) I received a free chicken sandwich coupon for Chik-fil-a that I got from a contest at school. There was no fine print on it. No exp date, no “one per customer”, no nothing. So I used my dad’s photocopier at home and made a ton of copies, talking like 100 copies. Every week my mom would drive me to Chik-fil-a, wait in the car (I think she was embarrassed but didn’t want to suppress my enthusiasm), I’d go inside, and walk out with a couple free sandwiches.
Did it for like a year before we moved away. Pretty sure the high school employees just took pity on a 12yo and honestly didn’t care enough to say no. I work in marketing now and fine print is one of the things I proofread 3 times before approving.
Story credit: Reddit / jshah500
I Let Her Get Away With It
I had a lady find one at the gas station I worked at. Our gift cards were like 5 bucks off (so you buy a 25 dollar card and only pay 20).
So she’d get free money on top of her points. Then she’d spend the points on a gift card, like 100 bucks worth. When she’d buy a card with points, she’d still get the free 5 bucks per 25 spent. Sometimes the store would have a promotion where you’d get a discount on your points. Like if this X costs 20pts normally, today it’s 15. She’d stack that with her other stuff.
I think we weren’t supposed to let her do that but whatever. I hate that company so I let her get every thing she could.
Story credit: Reddit / FelisHorriblis
No Other Applicants
I am the lucky beneficiary of a loophole:
Back in the 1960s, a school district in my hometown was broken up and absorbed into the surrounding districts.
Fast forward to 2003. I’m applying to colleges. I discovered that there was a scholarship fund for people living in that old district’s area (like me). The district is gone, but the scholarship still exists! I applied, and got the scholarship. I don’t think there were any other applicants.
Story credit: Reddit / kms2547
Public Transportation
In Sydney, Australia, we have the Opal card system for public transport. You load up the card with money, and tap it when you get on and off public transport. Now these days, per week you get a discount on all your trips after your 8th. Well. That was brought in after people exploited the previous rule.
After 8 trips, all trips were free. So people would ride the buses to and from stops, tap tap tapping away, leaving enough time between each tap for it to register as an individual trip, and after a few hours of venturing the city and tapping, they then had the rest of their weekly travel FOR FREE. The news did a piece of everyone doing it, and soon after the new rule came in.
Story credit: Reddit / wolverine-claws
A Worthwhile Promotion
There was a promotion a bunch of years back where Hoover included a plane ticket to select destinations around the world (from Europe) with any purchase of one of their products over $100. People could buy a vacuum that was like $109 and get a $600 plane ticket for it. Hoover ended up having to have people work crazy overtime to fulfill the demand for the cheapest model, and eventually they stopped honoring the promotion, which caused the people who hadn’t collected on it yet to sue them.
The company made 30 million from the promotion and lost 50 million in plane tickets and legal fees.
Story credit: Reddit / UYScutiPuffJr
Useful Information
I struggled with upper-level mathematics in high school. In my junior year, I was barely passing pre-calculus, so I was looking for a way to get out of taking calculus, while still making it look like I took four years of math, which my advisor insisted was something I needed to do for college.
So I went through the course-list and found out accounting was technically classified as a math class, rather than an elective. I took accounting 1 as my math my senior year, and actually learned things I would use, like how to write a check and balance a budget.
Unfortunately, my high school caught on to the trick, and the advisors made them change accounting to an elective. My poor little brother had the loophole closed on him.
Story credit: Reddit / SingProud28
Dress Code Violation
I went to a private school where the teachers were real power hungry jerks, you could get in trouble for having your shirt untucked, and some would be really mean about it, literally crouched down and scooting along the benches at lunch time, ie even at lunch if it popped out while sitting you could get in trouble.
I ran through the school hand book and it said sweaters with the school emblem can be worn at any time, so I bought one 3 sizes too big and wore it constantly, it went down to almost my knees and I would happily announced that i wasn’t even wearing the uniform shirt let alone tucking it in. The teachers got miffed off and took it to the school dean but I was right and it was allowed, like half the school switched to sweaters after that.
Story credit: Reddit / demonardvark
Working the System
My microwave stopped turning on, so I went to Best Buy to get a new one. I tried the old one in another outlet and it came back to life so I reinstalled it. Returned new microwave to Best Buy. Went back home to see that the old microwave had now died again once more (for good) and then just drove right back to Best Buy where I bought the brand new microwave I just returned as an “open box item” for half price.
Probably a fluke, but it was a rare instance of “the system” working in my favor.
Story credit: Reddit / Ghostfeeder
Two Halves Don't Make a Whole
Company cafeteria had an option to order a half burrito. However, the cost of two half burritos was less than the cost of one full burrito. On top of that, the chef would make a half burrito by cutting a new tortilla in “half” and generally gave a healthier portion than just a half. Thus, ordering 2 half burritos was equivalent to about one and a half full burritos and cost less than a full burrito.
Story credit: Reddit / skulltvhat
Plead Guilty
NY State had a glitch in their Motor Vehicle system for a while. If you got a moving violation, you would plead guilty, and overpay it by $5. They would send you back a check for $5, but you don’t cash it. They would not apply points to your license until the case was fully adjudicated. If you waited until a year passed, and then cashed it, those points would roll off, so you would never actually have any points showing on your license.
Story credit: Reddit / cad908
Tax Free
In West Virginia there was a law that waived taxes for automobile title transfers between parents and children. A friend wanted to buy a car from his uncle. So the uncle sold the car to his father who then sold it to his other son who sold it to his own son, my friend. Three transactions. Zero taxes.
Story credit: Reddit / AprilGalleons
Spite the System
Not very impressive but at my high school we had to wear a buttondown and a tie to class every day. One of the kids realized that they never specified what kind of buttondown it had to be so he wore a hawaiian shirt to class with a tie. Technically it met the dress code so it stuck.
Pretty soon most of the school started wearing hawaiian shirts with ties to class. We looked like a bunch of ridiculous Jimmy-Buffet-goes-Mormon types but it was worth it to spite the system. They changed the rule to ban hawaiian shirts a week later.
Story credit: Reddit / alagsa
Tech Support
I used to work in a call center doing tech support for a dial-up ISP. The 10 hour plan was $9.99 and then there were various tiers including an unlimited plan for $50 or something like that.
I ended up moving to a different city and called up the call center to set up internet and I asked for the 10 hour plan. The guy (who didn’t know I used to work there) tried to talk me into a bigger plan, but I stuck with the 10 hour plan.
Why? Because the company had no system for monitoring usage. You could use as much data as you wanted and it was all the same to them. There was no tracking system in place.
Story credit: Reddit / OccasionallyWright
Frequent Flier Miles
When the U.S. government issued the Sacajawea dollar coin, they wanted to get them into circulation as quickly as possible so they’d catch on (they didn’t), so they had a thing where you could order them and have them shipped to you for free.
People realized you could pay for the coins using one of those credit cards that gives you frequent flier miles as a reward. So you order $1000 of coins, put it on the card, get the coins, deposit them into your bank, pay off the credit card. You’ve just gotten 100% free frequent flier miles.
Story credit: Reddit / kernco
Good Try
A good shot but not eventually a real loophole was the “drink Pepsi, get a Harrier jet” guy.
In 1996, Pepsi ran a promotion where you could collect points by buying Pepsi products. The more points you got, the more stuff you could get, such as t-shirts, free Pepsi, sunglasses, etc. They also had a commercial where they advertised a Harrier jet for 7 million points.
One guy read the rules of the promotion and found that you could buy points for $0.10. That means to get 7 million points you’d have to pay $700,000. The going cost for a Harrier at the time was about $20 million or so.
So, one guy raised the money, bought the points and demanded the jet. When Pepsi refused he sued them.
He lost, but it was a good try.
Story credit: Reddit
Store Credit
I work in retail and if the item is outside of the return policy (but still resellable) we will let you exchange it for an item of equal or greater value. What some smart customers do instead of complain about it, is say “okay”, exchange it for random items that equal around that price, come back the next day, return them, and get their money back.
Story credit: Reddit / chynapowder
Late to Class
A kid from my high school was about 30 seconds late to class and the teacher refused to mark him “present” and made him go sign in as “late” at the office. In protest, he went and ate a sit down breakfast and showed back up with about 5 minutes left of class with his late slip. Teacher threw a fit that he skipped class, but since he never signed in, he didn’t face any consequences.
Story credit: Reddit / brass_buoy
The Ingredients Are Cheaper Than the Drink
Was at a bar. They ran a $2 shot special for any of the house stuff. I like vodka tonics though. However, those are $6.
Me, having taken Algebra I twice, knew $2<$6. I ask the bartender how much she’ll charge me for tonic water. She replies, “nothing.”
I proceed to order a $2 shot of vodka and a free glass of tonic water.
Story credit: Reddit / ATLL2112
Collecting Cups
In music festival or venue that use reusable cups, you usually pay like 1$ for the cup refundable when you bring it . There’s always cups left everywhere that people are to trashed to bring back. Collect a couple, cash the refund and there you go: free drink.
Drank all day long for 5$ at Osheaga the last time I went.
Story credit: Reddit / sunforrest
3 Months Free Parking
Parked in Oklahoma City Airport short term parking for 3 months when I traveled overseas…… parking bill was like $1800…. car rental used that same parking garage so I rented a car, drove out, drove back in, took the new parking ticket, dropped off the car, and used the new ticket to get my car out for free (under 30 mins free.)
Story credit: Reddit
It's Cheaper to Get a Ticket
When I was in grad school, it cost me about 400 dollars a year to park.
Alternatively, I could park at a meter right next to the university parking lot, not pay, and get an 11 dollar ticket from the metro police. Pretty sure I got ticketed about 4-5 times total.
Saved me hundreds of dollars that year.
Story credit: Reddit / excel958
Cheap Cable TV
Years ago we had a cable company called Media One. When you ordered cable from them, then changed to basic cable, they didn’t have the ability to remove all the extra channels. So for years we had really cheap cable. They would send out letters regularly telling us if we wanted to maintain the cable package we had, we would have to start paying more. We always opted not to. They eventually got bought out by Comcast, whom had no trouble shutting off cable.
Story credit: Reddit / AintThatWill