From Chicago Sun Times….
When John Fox found out Wendy’s was selling drinks in cups with coupons good for free airfare, he did what made sense at the time: He started rummaging through Dumpsters all around the city to collect discarded cups.
Two months and approximately 8,000 cups later, the 29-year-old Ukrainian Village resident is $2,000 richer — thanks to brisk sales of his cleaned-up cups on Craigslist and Yahoo.
Wendy’s is running a promotion with AirTran Airways in which customers who buy a 20-ounce or 32-ounce Coca-Cola beverage get a coupon from the airline. Sixty-four coupons are good for a round trip ticket anywhere AirTran flies, while 32 coupons are redeemable for a one-way ticket.
Wendy’s stopped selling the cups at most locations on Dec. 31, but the coupons are redeemable through Feb. 13, 2006, an AirTran press release said.
The first week of November 2005, Fox — sometimes with a little help from his friends — began spelunking in about a dozen Dumpsters at Wendy’s restaurants in the city and suburbs, collecting as many as 450 cups in one trip.
He usually went at night wearing rubber gloves, a smock or coverall and the same shirt.
Fox isn’t the only one peddling the coupons online, either. On Tuesday, there were about a dozen posts on Chicago’s Craigslist site, offering a round trip’s-worth of coupons for anywhere from $60 to $100.
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