Phillips’ pudding story received international attention from news outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and The Times. The story was the inspiration for a sub-plot in the 2002 Paul Thomas Anderson feature film Punch-Drunk Love.

Since 2000, Phillips continues to take advantage of frequent flyer promotions, and is earning points five times faster than he is spending them, now having reached lifetime Platinum status on his AAdvantage account.

Phillips, who works as the Associate Vice President of Energy and Sustainability at University of California Office of the President, calculated while grocery shopping that the value of a mail-in promotion for frequent flyer points exceeded the sale price of the pudding on which it was offered. In May 1999, Phillips received 1,253,000 frequent flyer miles.

The promotion included an early-bird bonus if the packages were mailed during the month of May 1999 (the mileage earned would double from 500 miles to 1,000 miles for every 10 UPCs submitted). Phillips, unable to remove all the UPCs himself in such a short time, recruited members of a local Salvation Army branch to help peel the UPCs off the pudding containers; in exchange, Phillips donated the puddings. This donation allowed him to receive $815 in tax write-offs further increasing his return on investment.