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

£30 voucher that you can buy in the Post Office to use in loads of shops

I won a Woman's Day makeover in the '90s. It was a photo shoot with Jeannie Savage in London (she was linked to Katie Price in her heyday). All expenses trip for two from Manchester. As a poor student i had a great time and still have a copy of the magazine. I didn't tell anyone about it and it was surprising how many people read the feature and contacted me.

DD reminded me of one she kind of won when she was 8.
At the time she and her pals were into Shopkins, and she wanted a Shopkins themes birthday party, she had gone on and on for months.

Anyway about a month before her birthday, we were given notice on our rental. Totally unexpected as we had just paid to redo the contract for another year about 3 months before at a cost of £90. It was right after Christmas so we were broke. Plunged us all into financial and emotional havoc trying to find a new home near to school.
So, sadly, we said we would have to postpone the party as we literally couldn't afford it. She took it well.

About 3 weeks later, she was at school, postman knocks on the door with a big box. It's addressed to my DD.

As it was only a couple of weeks until her birthday at this point, I thought it was from my sister in law. So I called her but she didn't know anything about it.

Picked DD up from school and one of her mates mums comes over asking when DDs party is as it's back on. I told her no it isn't, and thought perhaps I was wrong to assume DD understood about postponing.
I brought it up again in the way home and she said, no it's fine, I've sorted it.

I then remembered the box and she said yes, that's what I mean, it's fine Mummy, I sorted it.

We got home and she opened the box. Inside, was literally about 50 Shopkins packets, plus posters and stickers and party stuff. There was a letter for her and one "to DDs mum and Dad".

Turned out she had found the company online and sent an email at school with her teachers help, explaining about her postponed party and how our mean landlord was selling our house and we couldn't pay for the party anymore, and she and her friends were sad.
So they sent her these to cheer her up as she was so polite in the email, saying could she have a sticker to cheer her up as her friend had a Shopkins sticker on her pencil tin.

Suffice to say, in amongst boxes for moving, she got her Shopkins party.

She was a legend for it amongst the Mum sat school, and the teacher said even when they emailed she didn't think she would get a response so had looked on eBay for stickers in case!

She's 13 now and grown out of them so donated them to charity shop but I like to think another kid will have ended up with them and spread the happiness a bit.

I once won a hamper of baby food from Hipp when DS13 was a baby, I won a months supply of Nairn Oatcakes about 3 years ago and more recently a signed copy of a new book along with a specially commissioned candle. However, the office closed down for Coronavirus before they had chance to post out so I've not received it yet, dammit!

Ive won kids toys from magazines. Anything else I’ve won is mainly via Facebook including a trip to Florida which we were meant to take last week. We. An reschedule though but kids were heartbroken. Won a few things on radio (phone, cash). Biggest tangible prize was a diamond worth £5,000 from a diamond merchant on Facebook. Good luck entering !

@BiBiBirdie I like you ds’s style! Has she kept up her “can do” approach to life?

I won a trip to the World Cup final from a newspaper. Used to enter loads of competitions and won quite a lot of things - I should do it again.

DH won a really good set of bike panniers, bar from bags etc from one of those FB “like and share” things from a mountain biking page. They took weeks to show up, but they’re great bits of kit.

I won a trike from ELC when I was 2. And recently won a Warren James bracelet that I sold because it was awful looking haha! My DP has also won a few things including track time at FordFair which was handy as we were going anyway :)

I won nike trainers, a shellsuit (they were still cool then) and t-shirt from Fast Forward magazine in the early 90s.

Also won a footspa, facial sauna and some ghds from a womens mag in the early noughties.

I won a VHS video a month for a year. I had to keep ringing to get them. Ended up with 3 copies of Peggy Sue Got Married.
Can't remember the rest

Might be outing. My dad won a Pac-Man watch from Kenny Everett in the 80s. We loved playing it

Oh and my mum won a trolley dash in Sainsbury's but couldn't go so I went. I did it for her and won the lot. I did scope out the store first though

I won an overnight stay in London in a nice hotel with meals and a lovely piece of jewelry. Even upgraded to a suite!

@BikeRunSki oh she's very good, she can talk her way out of anything that one, her Dad says she could sell ice to Eskimo

I won tickets to leeds fest from kerrang a few years ago

Well thanks OP, you inspired me to grab a few mags to do the puzzles and try to win something.

I won a word processor in a Good Housekeeping competition about 25 years ago, for the opening chapter of a novel. I was a runner up, the winner got their novel published.

It was the spur I needed to start writing 'properly' and I'm now multi published.

I won a ski holiday to Norway worth at about £5000. It was brilliant.