1-800-Flowers denies a year’s worth of dog food to animal rescue winner

[haele]

76. Allowing cash equivalent used to be standard in contests back before the 2000's -

It cost the contest runners less to send a check for "the amount" of the trip or item than it did to pay to book the trip or ship the item. And you could always fudge the cost of the new item or the trip without most winners knowing the difference. My Uncle won a
Hawaiian week "cruise vacation" in the early 1990's from a mail order company and chose the money instead; the company running the contest probably saved a good $5000 establishing up front an "off season" value for the trip and were happy to just send him a check instead of waiting and potentially paying more to book the cruise and overnight hotel depending on when he'd choose to take the vacation. Not to mention the cost of the time and efforts their employees would have to spend dealing with both him and wherever logistics they'd have to go through to deliver his prize.

Of course, now with the internet, it's much harder to low-ball the cost and both shipping and travel has gotten comparatively cheaper, so the cost savings to give out money is not as profitable as it was back in the day. It's not much harder to send the prize winners the prize than it is to send them a check.

Haele