I love Coca-Cola. I know some people just can’t see the big deal between Pepsi and Coke but as a seasoned drinker, I know. Pepsi just isn’t as good – it’s more sugary with a more sickeningly sweet flavour. Coke has a more complex taste. Ironically, I’ve only started collecting iCoke points recently, shortly after I eased off on my weekly intake to remove some extra bulk that appeared right around Christmas *glares in the general direction of the Robotics lab*. Yes it’s a shame, the countless bottles I’ve consumed since high school, with all those points lost.

Anyway, iCoke points can be used to purchase items and enter raffles on the iCoke website. I’m currently saving up for a nice Beijing 2008 Olympic Games jacket. I went to the website today to enter the PIN and noticed this on the front page.

Now this doesn’t sound too bad, a bottle of Coke (yes the PINS only come on bottles) costs between $1.50 and $2, with a $1.75 average cost. And guess what? Lucky me, it happened to be my tenth PIN. I enter the PIN, and up pops the special offer (it’s not in the regular catalogue). Curious, I follow the link and end up at the “purchase” page but there is something wrong…

What’s this? I need to spend 5000 points to claim my “free” Coke? Turns out that the promotion was to be literally taken – 10 PINS will give you 5000 iCoke points (unless there are special promotions at the time that generate bonus points). I’m usually skeptical when it comes to this kind of marketing but I didn’t think that my beloved red giant company would resort to such dirty tricks, insinuating free goodness but never logically implying it. Seeing that I had to actually spend my hard-earned points, I didn’t feel that it wasn’t worth it – putting the points into apparel or raffles seemed to be the better choice. Did I make a good choice? 11 Cokes for the price of 10 is just over a 9% discount, but buying Coke in bulk from a vending machine is kinda dumb at that steep  price – I can do much better than $1.60/bottle at any local grocer or food mart.