What is the best freebie you ever got?

[anddeepbreathandsigh]

Someone I knew got a giant size Chanel bottle of perfume from a promotion!

I’ve had nothing of note

During the first lockdown I went to buy bread flour from my usual indie grocery store and they’d sold out of the regular bags - but the owner gave me two of the 25kg sacks he usually sent out to commercial buyers, free. It was great, the whole street was coming around for socially-distanced flour sharing.

I got a free Xbox, it was free with the purchase of something else. The other thing didn't arrive but the Xbox did. I contacted the shop and they said just keep it and I got all my money back.

My Grandad got a Jaguar, he worked on the docks and someone was emigrating, they drove their family to the ship in the car and then he just gave my Grandad the keys and told him to keep it as they weren't coming back.

A week’s all-inclusive in Antigua. 😀

I really hated it when they started making you put your reg on the ticket so you couldn't do this. If I've paid for a spot for 4 hours I should be able to give the last 2 to someone else if I want, I paid for them!

4-day cruise from Virgin Voyages.

DP works in the booze industry so we've had some excellent freebies over the years. The one that springs to mind was an advent calendar with miniatures of spirts - that was fun!

I recently also got my weekly shop at Tesco for free. It was a C&C, and collected with no issue, then got an email saying "sorry we had to cancel your order" and then a full refund a couple of days later. I contacted them to let them know and ask what I should do and they said keep it. I wish I'd done a bigger shop now!

Through Mumsnet, years ago, I got to take Dc for free to Harry Potter World, with free butter beer and lunch thrown in and transit from the station in a Harry Potter double decker.

It was fantastic.

5 nights at The Wynn in Vegas. Best week of my life.

Prince tickets. I had already got tickets to the same gig so gifted them to a family member.

A tumble dryer. DP had his old secondhand one in a lock up which he was emptying before he moved in with me. He tried to sell it for a few quid on eBay only to find it was subject to a safety recall. Rang up and was offered a brand new free replacement.

My husband works for a company that had offices right bang in the city centre, with an unusually large amount of secure, private parking (smaller overground car park, but quite vast underground level as well).
At weekends all staff could use the car park for free. It was within sight of both the main shopping area and the concert arena. Saved so much money, time and hassle on any trip into town.

I was devastated when they moved to a new building out of town, but I did get a decade of use from of it, especially handy during the ‘prams and toddlers’ stage of life.

The old building and car park now still stands there, empty and unused.

Loads of stuff through work, including ski trips, clothes, IT stuff etc.

I often find money, sometimes quite decent amounts. If I hand it in to the police, they always give it back to me a few weeks later when nobody has claimed it.

One of my dogs, and one of my old horses who has now sadly departed - better than any other freebie I could ask for ❤️

In my old job (private company, noughties) we used to get Fortnum hampers etc at xmas and share them out.

When we had bad snow in 2009 I was given someone else's sainsburys delivery, plus mine, and as it was a blizzard they said I could keep it when I phoned them. There was champagne in there too.

My husband used to work for a very well known online games company, our attic is stuffed to the brim with the freebies he received over the years. There's everything up there from beach balls to swords!

I got loads through the Mumsnet product tests through the years

Free clothes (got loads from Uniqlo), a Google Home, a kids Alexa and Fire tablet, trip to Lego discovery centre, use of a peloton for 3 months (and got to keep shoes, a yoga mat and weights). Most recently a week in Cornwall over Feb half term.

A free upgrade to Business on a 14-hour overnight flight - both directions!!! It would have cost me £1000s more if I had paid.

I was also extremely chuffed with the feee chocolate eggs I got from Waitrose a few days ago - tbey coat £5.

Laptop

Free balloon ascent (on a long tether, not full flight). At a UK holiday destination and you had to have 3 products from the same company on you...(think it was nivea). I had the 1st ascent to myself with the staff - never forgotten it.

£800 mulberry handbag won in raffle. Was donated by Mulberry who are local to us so know genuine.

Recently DH became a member of the local posh cinema and we saw Wuthering Heights for free with unlimited proper champagne. Was fab!

Our cat, I found her in a drain when she was a kitten.

My ex had a job with lots of travel, so lots of flights in suites, private jets and very fancy hotels for free. My current husband is unable to provide this service.

I used to work for a luxury 5 star London hotel as a department manager and the freebies were great - free nights in sister hotels ( or discounted to ridiculous amounts like £9 per night for a suite) so we would get an easy jet to eg Rome and stay at the fanciest hotel for a week for under £50. Free spa / meals at other local ( London) hotels like the Grosvenor and the Dorchester or the Metropolitan. Free tickets to west end shows, stuff left behind by rich people/ celebs which would just get handed out once we knew they weren’t going to want them back. Endless free bottles of champagne.

I also used to enter a lot of competitions, back in the days when the prizes were worth it. If you entered ones where you had to do some actual work like write a poem, or think of a slogan, the odds were immediately better because most people can’t be arsed. So I won a few holidays off the back of that - Barcelona, San Francisco, week in Devon.

I also had great success for a few months being ‘ letter of the week’ in Grazia magazine by the same token - no- one used to write in so there was a reduced pool of contenders - I won things like perfume, a spa trip, cosmetics etc. Good times!

This is potentially outing, but I won an Expedition Cruise to the Arctic this year!

Wow

I'm literally counting down the days!