Three Free Days

Before I tell this story, I will admit that I knowingly took advantage of an employee’s mistake, in the form of a loophole I found completely by accident.

I pre-ordered tickets for a four-day-long outdoor festival, and naturally, I printed the receipt at home, with barcodes for all four days of the festival. These tickets were non-refundable if any day of the festival was cancelled due to poor weather. The pre-order tickets cost exactly the same as if you bought tickets at the gate on all four days of the festival, with the only difference being that the single-day tickets purchased at the gates could be refunded if that day of the festival was cancelled.

The first day of the festival ended up being cancelled about thirty minutes after the festivities started. Despite knowing that the pre-order tickets were non-refundable, I decided to ask a cashier for a refund since I had paid exactly the same price for my day-one ticket as everyone who had purchased their ticket at the gate that day. The cashier ended up agreeing with me and agreed to refund the cost of my day-one ticket.

When I looked at my bank account that night to see if the refund had actually gone through, I realized that I had been refunded the entire cost of my tickets for all four days of the festival. I tried calling the festival organizers the next morning to point out their mistake, but nobody answered the phone.

Day two, the weather was perfect. I went to the festival and decided to bring my pre-printed tickets along just to see what would happen if I tried to show them at the gate. To my surprise, the barcode still worked! The barcodes for days three and four also worked!

In the end, I got to go to all three remaining days of the festival for free by showing the pre-printed tickets that had been refunded but not invalidated. I do feel slightly guilty about it, but not enough to do anything more than write this story.