In 1999, civil engineer David Phillips was grocery shopping when he noticed something peculiar. Healthy Choice Foods was offering frequent flyer miles to customers who bought its products. A 25-cent pudding would bring 100 miles — the reward was worth more than the product itself.

Recognizing a good thing, David visited 15 grocery stores in the Sacramento area buying 12,150 servings of pudding for $3,140, claiming he was stocking up for Y2K.

Then he enlisted the Salvation Army to help him peel off the UPC codes, in exchange for donating the pudding, so he could take advantage of a bonus the promotion included if the packages were mailed before May 1999.

He mailed his submission to Healthy Choice, and to their credit they awarded him 1.25 million frequent flyer miles.

The rest of the story . . .