Does anyone actually *win* any of these newspaper competitions?

[misty]

You know the ones, 'phone by 6pm and win a luxury holiday' or 'match your gamecard to the numbers in today's paper and win £100,000'???

Reading the paper today and they've started a new 'match your number and win prizes' competition, and it got me thinking that I've never heard of anyone who has won anything from a newspaper competition of this kind.....

Id like to know the answer to this too. Im really into comps at the moment, but never know anyone who wins a thing.

I once won a Mumsnet competition!

My sister once won a holiday for 2 to Sandals Resort in Jamaica. It was a in a shopping catalogue and one of those "answer the very obvious question" comps. She had a brill time and paid for absolutely nothing.

Her syndicate at work also won £48k on the lottery a few years ago. They won it whilst sis and her dh were on holiday in India so when they got back they booked their honeymoon for the following year to Singapore and Indonesia. DH and sis work together and they were both in the syndicate.

I won a magazine comp once - a £500 experience voucher (which reminds me, I haven't used it yet! Still have a month left...)

Wow jampots - that's one lucky sister you have

Casmie - what will the 'experience' be then?

I enter all manner of comps online, never won anything nor heard of anyone that has. Never even win anything in DS1 school's raffles

Just seem to be so many competitions around at the moment, every magazine you open there is one happening, not that often you hear of success stories!

Re the gamecard/matching lucky numbers competition, well the answer is not always. In fact the mags/papers have insurance against anyone winning! It's like the lottery - sometimes there is a winner, sometimes not. It just depends if the person/people with the winning numbers bothers to call the prizeline. It's not cheating - there ARE winning numbers, but not everybody checks. BUT if the comp is, say, answer these questions and send in a slogan, than yes, someone always wins the prize and you are legally entitled to write in and ask who the winner was. I used to work on magazines and so used to organise comps.

which on-line ones do you use Misty? Ive been entering allsorts on line.....am waiting for the flood of junk mail. I saw a woman on This Morning this week who said she had won goods worth £100,000 over the past 15 years through competitions. She does do it full time though. How does she do it?

I've won £100 worth of Isabella Oliver vouchers and a Little Hoot DVD/CD/puppet thing from Mumsnet; and £167 on the pools in 1987!!!

misty: I can choose from any in the silver experiences on redletterdays.com. I wanted the personal shopper experience after ds2 was born so I could get a post-baby wardrobe but they stopped doing those Will probably pay the £20 or whatever to extend it then have a weekend away when the kids are a bit bigger and easily left with grandma for a couple of days.

I've won two tickets to a Velvet Revolver concert with the Independent - they were selling for £80 each on ebay so not bad!

Oooh I've won a mumsnet comp... unfortunately dd1 won't let me play with the dolls house that I won

I won runner-up prize in the annual Sunday Times Travel competition at Christmas. First prize was trip to the Seychelles(bummer), but I'm delighted with my prize which is a trip for 2 on Eurostar to either Paris or Brussels. Never been to either so looking forward to it. Only problem is I'm in Scotland, so will end up costing me a fortune to take up the prize! Oh, and it wasn't a lucky dip type one, it had loads of questions to answer.

My friend won the Sunday Times Travel one and had a fortnight in Florida!!

Years ago a friend of mine won a free return flight for 2 to New York with Virgin Atlantic. It was one of those 'answer the questions and complete the tiebreak' ones. She got her brother to answer the questions and me to think up the tiebreaker for her. She won, and took her brother with her. I got a Virgin Atlantic Parker Pen as a thankyou for my troubles! Still at least she had the sense to enter it in the first place. Everyone at work after that got me to do their tiebreaks, I almost felt as though I should charge them for it. No-one won anything else though...

That's interesting Aloha - i did wonder what happened when say the 'winning' card was in a newspaper that didn't sell that day... so there's not always a winner!

Pepsi - i enter myoffers.co.uk mostly - they are easy to enter online and I use a hotmail account so don't have to wade through all the junk mail.

So far though, most of the competitions won here have been ones where you enter, and either answer questions or put in a tie-breaker. No one won on a scratch card where you match the numbers with those in the paper??

If you want to hear of success stories - go to

forums.loquax.co.uk

look on the board title "The winners post" LOTS of people, winning lots of things (including me who went out at lunchtime yesterday to find a parcel just dumped on my doorstep - gate wide open) It was a silk scarf/wrap and a silk bag from www.thequintessential.co.uk (won on the New Women website).

I really wouldn't bother with myoffers - I don't know of ANYONE (even on loquax) that has won anything on there - if you enjoy entering competition can highly recommend the www.loquax.co.uk website - the forums are helpful too if youre REALLY stuck on a question.

I use loquax too, Gwenick - it's a really good site. Hadn't looked at the forums though... must do so!