If you have a look the next time you’re in the supermarket, you’ll notice there’s a lot of competitions being advertised on various products (at least, there are here in Australia)- many of which offer prizes including Plasma Screen TVs, new cars, and holidays.
Now, if you win a Plasma Screen TV or a car and you already own one, you can flog the one you’ve got to get some cash- but let’s say you win an all-expenses paid trip to Disneyland (including airfares from your nearest airport, accommodation, rental car, etc etc)- but you happen to live in Los Angeles or Orlando?
Do they simply say “Here’s your theme park tickets, tough bikkies on the rest of it”, or do they offer you the chance to go to Hawaii or something instead?
I know the simple answer is to say “Don’t enter in the first place”, but often these competitions are draws- you’re just as likely to win a Home Theatre System or a speedboat as you are to win A Holiday To Somewhere Exotic.
Generally, these sorts of prizes have a cash equivalence and the winner can choose the cash or the prize. From what I understand, most winners take the cash, because they get taxed on the winnings. Would you rather win plane tickets and theme park tickets, and a hotel stay totaling $2000 and then pay $800 in tax, or just take the $2000, pay the $800 tax, and clear $1200?
Lottery, competition, and gambling winnings are not taxed in Australia, AFAIK, but it’s an interesting consideration for the US that I hadn’t thought of…
Yes, they nearly always offer the cash equivelent. The actual prizes are just window dressing to make the contest look more interesting. They don’t really particularly want to book plane tickets and hotels for you and they don’t really care if you go to Disneyland or not. Cash is much easier and more sensible to both give an recieve.
Back when I was doing sweepstakes, an all-expense paid trip to the Indy 500 was won by someone who lived nearby. The winner was given everything except the air tix, and a check instead of that.
However, the rules are written by the sponsor, and there’s no guarantee that your sweeps will be so accomodating. If you don’t want or can’t use the prize, don’t enter.
This happened to me. When I was on Jeopardy, I won a week at a resort in Monterey - 60 miles from home. I don’t think I had the option to take cash, and I certainly didn’t have the option to switch with the Hawaiian vacation offered the show before. IIRC, they didn’t even reduce the value of the prize for tax purposes.
Still, being able to drive had some advantages. It decreased the stress level, made packing easier, and we were able to give our neighbor the round of golf that came with the stay by claiming he was my uncle.
I went on ‘Who wants to be a millionaire’. It is filmed in Melbourne. They had people from Perth,Sydney,Adelaide,Christchurch(NZ) and other places. All those people got paid airfares to Melbourne with a paid 3 night stay in a 6 Star hotel with limousine transport from the hotel to the TV studio.
I went there on a bus. No hotel, no limousine, no paid airfare anywhere. I made up for it by winning money on the show.
When I worked in Florida our management staff won a few “national” contests that were held against competing stores across the country. We won trips to Disneyworld and cruises out of Port Canaveral. Needless to say the company did save money by not having to pay for our airfare however we did not get any reimbursement for their savings. Just hotels and park tickets.
IIRC, they didn’t even reduce the value of the prize for tax purposes.