Airlines Cleaned Up on This Miscue

The final bill has been tallied for the Hoover vacuum cleaner company’s disastrous free-flights promotion--and it’s a whopper. Hoover, overwhelmed by the response to an offer of free international tickets to English and Irish purchasers of appliances, spent $72 million.

When the promotion ends, Hoover will have flown more than 220,000 people for free. Consumers realized the obvious: that vacuum cleaners are cheaper than international air fares. So they bought Hoovers by the thousands and demanded tickets.