STRANGE MARKETING FOR MAGAZINES

Reader's Digest Thailand is widely regarded as one of the top-selling consumer magazines, however I am slightly mystified by their latest single copy marketing. Buy the October edition and get the August edition free.
The two magazines come shrink-wrapped together with the marketing collateral, but given the August magazine seems to focus heavily on the Olympics I can't really see people buying the magazine (who wouldn't normally buy it) just to get an edition that's basically almost three months old.
Yes, the content of Reader's Digest is less time-sensitive than many magazines but I can't imagine a huge number of additional sales from this marketing campaign. And the magazine is no stranger to slightly off-beat marketing. Earlier this year when the price of rice was soaring the magazine offered a small bag of rice with every copy of the magazine purchased.
Would you buy a magazine just because it was giving you a free copy of an edition from two or three months previously?