Three decades after suing Pepsi for refusing to give him a fighter jet, John Leonard finally got a reward that may be even better, according to a post at Supercarblondie.
Leonard became the center of one of advertising’s most famous legal battles after taking a 1996 Pepsi commercial at face value. The ad, promoting the company’s Pepsi Points loyalty program, jokingly claimed customers could redeem seven million Pepsi Points for a military Harrier jet.
Rather than laugh it off, the Seattle college student raised enough money to buy the required points and submitted a claim for the aircraft. Pepsi rejected it, insisting the jet was never a real prize.
The article says that the case went to court, where a judge ruled that no reasonable person would believe Pepsi was seriously offering a fighter jet in a soft drink promotion.
Although Leonard lost the lawsuit, the bizarre dispute became legendary and was later chronicled in the Netflix documentary Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?.
Now, nearly 30 years later, Frontier Airlines gave the story a happy ending. As part of a Super Bowl campaign called “The Big Redemption,” the airline converted Leonard’s original seven million Pepsi Points into seven million Frontier Miles, effectively giving him free flights for life.
The airline even featured Leonard in a tongue-in-cheek commercial, handing him the keys to an Airbus A320neo as a nod to the decades-old saga.
Now in his 50s with a wife and children, Leonard joked that unlimited airline miles are far more practical than owning and maintaining a military fighter jet. After waiting three decades, he never got the Harrier, but he may have received an even better prize.