Has anyone ever won a magazine competition?

[Midsommar]

Out of furlough/lockdown boredom I have been indulging in my guilty pleasure of women's magazines (think Take A Break, Love It, etc) and doing the competitions.

AIBU to ask if anyone here has actually won any of these competitions? Especially the big prizes, such as the £10000 wins and luxury holidays.

Would be interesting to know if anyone has won anything

I knew somone who won a 7 day holiday for 2 to Thailand from a comp in a newspaper.

A PlayStation and a Blu-Ray/DVD player, (separate comps!). Both when they were new out and considered extremely high tec. The PlayStation was replaced long ago, but the Blu-Ray player is still going strong, (Sony).
DD has only ever entered two competitions - both prize draws in toy shops. Little git won both of them...

I have won twice!
First big win was a set of High Value UK new issue stamps in blocks of 4, from a competition in The Royal Mail Philatelic Bulletin! It was an answers on a postcard thing.

Second big win was a "Silver Palm Leaf" dope pipe from Mix magazine, a raver techno mag. It was a technological wonder (the pipe!) single piece, cast aircraft grade aluminum, credit card sized, with a crop circle shaped smoke channel the length of which allowed the smoke to travel a cooling 32cm. Amazing Stuff! It was gorgeous and useful while I was a student!

Two quite contrasting prizes from quite different mags!

@Fladadafada I won £10 in a Bunty design competition, also about 1990. I think I came second. Did you come third?!! Or did they run it every issue. I have a copy of it somewhere....

I was a runner up in a Smash Hits competition and won a copy of a LP I already owned.

A friend and I both did every tedious competition in 'Take a Break' for a year. Not a sausage.

We even wrote some articles - all made up. One was called 'She's the Cat's Mother' about her little dog adopting a kitten. Nada!

I did learn that 'life is too short to do another word search'.

My mum once won a £1000 shopping trip.
In the end she went round the shops with the person who'd organised it but wasn't allowed to choose what she wanted - she was given what the shops had decided. Some of it was bloody awful.

Not magazines-

But newspaper- won 2 weeks full borad island hopping in the Seychelles for two
£1000
Week full board at the Celtic Manor Hotel for 4 people.

Moneysavingexpert has a whole section of free to enter competitions.

Not magazine competitions but I've recently won 3 online competitions- I've won a hoody top worth £45 from a local boutique, a framed landscape photograph from a photographer & some flavoured tea from Dorset Tea!! I don't usually win things so I had a run of luck.

As a child won a competition on Saturday Superstore.

Won a necklace and samsonite suitcases from Options magazine

My son won a football, a sports bag and some other bits and pieces from a football magazine.

This book is brilliant. www.amazon.co.uk/Prize-Winner-Defiance-Ohio/dp/0743211235?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

2 Lots of £500 from TAB
you should check IWIWIW on MSE

However do be warned, I only really win something (and more often quite small competitions) when entering hundreds a week so it’s massively time consuming and unless you are incredibly lucky, the payoff can be poor.

^This. Years and years ago, before magazines such as Take a Break were around, I started to get a similar type of magazine called, I think, "Winner".

For about a year I would enter every competition in the magazine (20 - 30), every week. My only prize in all that time was a yellow, plastic lunchbox.

I won a bottle of champagne in the "guess the brand" competition in Marketing Week in the late 90s - does that count?

My friend used to enter loads of these and won plenty of prizes over the years. Her two biggest were 10k and a family trip to Euro Disney.

In January I won £100 from chat magazine. Been doing competitions for more than 20 years. Won loads over the years but not much the last 3 years. Certainly nothing huge in the last 3 years. Still it doesn't take up much time so I carry on in hopes of a big win again.

Not from TAB, but - a year's worth of Maltesers, a garden hoe, hamper of snacks, a medlar tree, tickets to events, in the last couple of years.

Yes. Spa break, sewing machine, um... can't remember, but other stuff too. Never the BIG prizes, but good things nonetheless.

Green lipstick from shout magazine circa 1997

yes regularly
im what you call a serial comper

i enter hundreds online per week

my latest was last week and a 25 pound krispy kreme donuts gift card

i dont even do the competitions myself i find competitions websites that tell you the answers then copy and paste the answers

My mum won a holiday to St Lucia

I won a Laptop once (really decent one too).

I was really into comping at the time and would win stuff pretty regularly (that was my biggest by far though). I also did pretty well on the Walkers crisps thing where you had to pick a square in the UK and if it rained that day you won a tenner. I figured the Brecon Beacons were pretty wet and ended up about £200 up

Not just from magazines - I have also won from just entering in store, loads online incl Facebook & raffles etc. Can’t remember it all but here’s some of my prizes:-
A week’s Eurocamp holiday with ferry travel
A luxury pedicure
An expensive cosmetic purse & make up mirror
£50 lingerie voucher
4 months free chocolates from Montezuma
£50 meal voucher
Box of teabags!
Weekend at The Ickworth including travel & spa treatments
Perfume, DVD & bath spa
Rayburn Sunglasses
£25 for a cookery tip
CDs, books etc
Wine
Champagne
A cream tea voucher
Costume jewellery
Year’s National Trust Membership

Oh & some sort of watersports equipment which I wouldn’t have used so I sold it