Originally Posted by
IAN-UK
Well that's nice
!
But wasn't there a recent competition/prize/raffle where any trip was rendered largely unattractive by the conditions surrounding it and the costs of redeeming? One of those FT nuggets that drifted past me a few months' back..
Speaking to the tax laws in the USA, depending on your marginal tax bracket and the calculation of the value of the ticket, it is quite possible that the increase in tax liability can be greater than cost of simply buying a similar ticket, perhaps with fewer restrictions.
There was a fairly famous case not so long ago with AA and their "we know why you fly" promotion where someone won round-the-world travel and then declined to accept because it was possible to actually buy the tickets less expensively than the tax costs (hmmm...sound familiar--the "free" one actually costs more?)..