I love Hawaiian Airlines.
Everybody here does because the people are just so nice and the planes make it across the ocean non-stop.
But something is taking a bit of the shine off this love affair.
I’m a Hawaiian Miles holder just like everyone in Hawaii.
Shooting into my email box today was an invitation for a little contest.
The winner gets 85,000 free miles.
Please note: nothing is ever free.
Keep that in mind as we continue.
The wife and I can always use the miles for one of our jaunts to visit our money in Las Vegas.
It’s an easy contest – enter my name and email address after ignoring the other details and guessing the answers I’m supposed to know by watching too many videos and looking at too many pictures.
Click on submit and await winning my free stuff.
What could be easier?
Guess what?
It wants access to my Facebook profile and friend’s list before my answer wings its way to the winner’s pile.
Whoa.
Stop this runaway train.
One, what if I have no friends because I’m grumpy?
Two, if I had any friends they would stop being my friends if I handed out their FB information and Hawaiian Airlines starting spamming them.
Now in Hawaii – a contest, or drawing, is considered gambling if it meets any of these three criteria:
- It costs something to enter
- It’s a game of chance, not skill
- Winning a prize worth something
We can agree 85,000 Hawaiian Miles is probably worth something to most people.
We can also agree 80-percent of the people in Hawaii want a lottery/raffle but the Legislature thinks it knows best.
Anyway, Hawaiian skipped around this dumb raffle law by making me answer some really easy questions.
That’s skill and not chance.
It’s now legal.
And those who won’t share their friend’s list – like me – can enter by following some convoluted process of mailing your name, address and so forth to a place in Michigan and wait for something to come back.
Yeah, too humbug.
I suspect most people will give Hawaiian Airlines their friend’s list because they didn’t think it through and, after all – it’s 85,000 FREE miles!
Here it is again…
Nothing is ever free.
It’s a bad idea and now I’m grumpy.