A couple of months ago I stumbled on this competition and, since I had been in the market for a wine fridge, I took notice. I was planning on taking advantage of this deal since I didn't want to take a gamble and wanted to guarantee a fridge; turns out I didn't need to.
What a lot of people probably didn't realise, is that there were actually 2 competitions going on. One for BWS purchases only and another for independent liquor store purchases. They both started on the same date but the BWS comp finished over a month earlier. The other major difference between the comps is that there were over 500 types of wine listed as "qualifying purchases" for the independent comp and only a few brands for the BWS comp.
When the BWS comp finished and the winners published, I was very surprised to find that only 3 people out of a possible 8 in the ACT had won a fridge. You see, each state/territory was allocated a certain number of fridges and these fridges were on display at the liquor outlets. This suggested to me that 5 fridges were either unclaimed due to no entries or had been given to other states, again due to no entries. This prompted me into action.
I allocated a Saturday to do the following:
- Convert the list of over 500 Wines of Distinction to a spreadsheet on my phone
- Make a list of the closest 5 eligible liquor stores near me in the ACT, these were found by going to the entry screen and typing in random postcodes
- Go to each store and inspect every single bottle of red wine on sale and compare them to the list
- Find the cheapest bottles of qualifying wine available and purchase 2 bottles.
Understandably this took me an entire day and I learnt a lot about the TWE Global wine selection by the end of it (these guys own half the bloody wine racks!). By the 4th and 5th stores I knew the list by memory and could just browse the wine racks for good prices. I had a couple of store owners approach me and accuse me of price inspecting; we all had a laugh when I explained my plan.
So I ended up purchasing 10 bottles of wine at an average price of $11 each. This is far below their expected spend as the vast majority of wines on the qualifying wine list were $30+. I got some good deals as a lot of the wines required an older year which were found tucked away at the liquor stores due to lazy stocking. I'm pretty sure they put the older years there to make most of the list redundant.
I then asked 4 family/friends if I could use their details to enter 5 times, and waited.
A few days after the competition ended, I got an email congratulating me and then got word from 2 others that they also got emails. I went and picked up the fridges and had a glass of cheap red to celebrate. Note: all I needed to do was flash the emails on my phone and I was able to walk out the door with a $650 wine fridge! You should try it if your local still has their fridge on display!
Anyway, here's proof and I hope this inspires someone else to spend too much time on a silly comp!
PS, does anyone want to buy a wine fridge? ;)
congrats!!