To wonder if anyone actually ever wins magazine competitions?

[cricketmum84]

I'm always doing the puzzles in Take a break, chat etc and have done for years and never won anything :(

Aibu to think that Marie H from Chorley who won £500 and Annie W from London and suchlike are made up people???

Has anyone ever won from completing the puzzles and submitting their answers?

My former work colleague won a conservatory! However she lived in second floor flat

Loving these comments! Especially the people who worked for the magazines :)

I will keep entering for now, maybe I'm just not a very lucky person. The only thing I've ever won was a noddy VHS when I was 10.

I won £50 on That's Life! magazine's spot the difference competition a few years ago so people do win!
Got to be in it to win it, that's what I say.

My mum won a trip to Florida around 35 years ago!

I used to regularly win cinema tickets from the Big Issue Cymru. I bought every issue (can't remember if it was weekly or fortnightly) and entered the competition every time. I think I won about 9 or10 times over the course of one academic year. It's not even like it took any great skill really - it was just a simple wordsearch.

It probably helped that, although the magazine was sold all throughout Wales, there were only three participating cinemas - one each in Cardiff and Swansea and a third where I was up north.

Where I was, it was just a small local cinema with two screens and they didn't change the films very often - and the freebies were only valid for the second smaller screen (which would keep the same film on for as long as people still kept coming to see it), not the bigger one that showed the (relatively) new films; so I ended up either seeing the same film twice (free tickets expired before the film would change) or giving them away to friends. Nevertheless, that was a fantastic cinema - it had history, individuality and soul of the kind that you never get at the big identikit multiplexes. There's an Aldi there now instead.

It starts to get ridiculous when sending off a competition entry feels like posting off a standard order for something and you actually get surprised when a prize doesn't arrive within the week

I entered a series of competitions from the Evening Standard at the same time, one to win a flat in London, the other to win an iPod. I won the iPod, felt a bit guilty to be disappointed that I didn't win the flat!

It wasn't a magazine, but I was bored waiting in our local chemist's shop whilst my Mum took aaaages (well, it seemed that way to a young-ish child) and I found a Tommy Tippee competition and idly filled in an entry just to pass the time, not knowing what the prize was. I popped it in the box and promptly forgot about it as soon as Mum finally finished at the counter.

A few weeks later, I was sent in on an errand (it was only across the road) and they said "Oooh, have you come in for your prize?!" My parents knew but had kept it a secret.

They brought out the first prize - a massive teddy bear - and bundled him into the arms of a perplexed but absolutely delighted me. He was nearly as big as I was!

He is beautiful and now lives on my own young son's bed, giving big bear hugs on demand

I won a very fancy pants leather bag in 2017 when I signing up for a newsletter on a website. It's a lovely bag but it immediately felt like I'd scuppered any chance of ever winning the lottery.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll aww that's lovely!!

My daughter once one first prize on the teddy raffle, she was only about 4 maybe and the teddy was twice the size of her! She could sit on its knee and snuggle up, her little face when she realised she had won 😍

*won not one

For anyone who commented to say they have won on the magazine puzzles - did you check the next issue for your names printed??

My friend does comping, she wins all kinds of stuff, uses some herself, saves some for family Xmas and bday presents, sells some, gives some away to people who could do with whatever. It's always worth entering things.

I won the iPod, felt a bit guilty to be disappointed that I didn't win the flat!

Conversely, I've entered more than a few competitions where I haven't really fancied the top prize, but quite hoped that, should I win (spoiler: I didn't), I would win a less major prize.

Quite often, the big headline prize is an amazing exotic foreign holiday which, although clearly a fabulous prize - and most people's dream - really isn't my thing at all. British seaside for me, thanks. Invariably, it will be worth thousands of pounds, be non-transferable/exchangeable and come with the barrage of publicity and attention that an introvert hates.

Pretty much the same for the gleaming new second-prize BMW. Lovely, yes, but I'd feel so strange driving it and would also lose the great sense of freedom that only ever having old bangers brings, where you couldn't care less about another scratch, stain or scuff mark.

However, one of the 10 relatively small-fry new tellies or £500 supermarket vouchers would do me juuust fine, thanks - and likely be simply posted out to me with no fanfare or media circus.

Not a magazine but I won a £5 voucher for subscribing to a newsletter

I recently won the Ladygram Challenge in The Lady magazine. The first I knew was when I read my name as the winner in the next edition. I gave a little shriek and startled DH.

The prize was actually a bit of a let down. It used to be a hamper from Fortnum & Mason or Bettys. I got, something else. Still it was quite a thrill to win.

@cricketmum84 - That's really sweet too - there's very little that's cuter than a tiny child being swamped by a huge teddy!

For anyone who commented to say they have won on the magazine puzzles - did you check the next issue for your names printed??

I did, but they never printed them. I suppose there wasn't a desperate urge for other readers to know who'd won the relatively minor prizes to see a free film on the B-screen.

Probably as well, though, as it might well have looked highly dodgy if people kept noticing the same name there most weeks!

My nan won one of the star prizes from Take a Break last year- a trip for 2 to San Francisco with £500 spending money. She couldn't face the flight so my aunt and uncle took the trip and she kept the £500. She does take a break, that's life and chat every week by post, and she's won a fair few bits over the years but that's the biggest- probably worth about £2500 as they had the choice of dates and hotels up to a certain price.

There are professional "compers" who enter dozens of things every week and make a pretty tidy packet, I believe!

I’ve won tickets to a small festival via a Facebook ‘like and comment’ competition.

I know someone who has won a trip to New Zealand to watch the rugby, also via a FB comp to get as many likes as possible.

Like this woman

Ive won a stuffed chicken that had the chicken pox.
Also won a blue tooth speaker they valued it high in price, i valued it low. Very low.

@Koalablue

Ive won a stuffed chicken that had the chicken pox

You need to explain this

When I was at university, a small cafe opened up and they had a gimmick promotion whereby each visit would gain you an entry into a competition to win a computer right at the end of the term - the final term of the academic year.

I really wanted it (of course I did!) and went there loads (it was a very nice, reasonably-priced cafe regardless, to be fair), but I wasn't successful. One of my friends, on the other hand, ate in there once and - you've guessed it - he DID win it. I wouldn't say he gloated, but he didn't hold back in reminding me of his big win for a few days.

The thing was, though, it was a standard big old late-90s desktop PC and he was from NI. He lived very minimally and had planned to go back home on the ferry with a rucksack on a cheap foot passenger fare. This wasn't possible now, so his Dad had to pay for a much more expensive return vehicle ticket and then drive all the way there and back as well to fetch him, his tiny bag of essentials and his massive new still-boxed-up computer.

To top it all off, he discovered when he got home and unpacked it that it didn't have ANY software or operating system on it at all. Back then, whilst the Internet was only just starting to gain widespread popularity and general basic PC knowledge was much less ubiquitous than it is now, even finding the compatible software was no easy task - and the price was about the same as the actual computer again.

I didn't feel quite so bad for not winning it after that....

I'd like to know who wins the competitions at the end of the X factor. Who is the person who now owns Simon Cowell's car etc??