Everything tastes twice as good when it’s FREE!

Di Dilly from Southampton has just come back from a fantastic prize holiday in St Lucia. It was the hottest, most luxurious holiday she has ever been on.

In her 13 years of comping Di has won three big holidays: her fabulous trip to St Lucia, a holiday in Thailand and a family sailing holiday in Greece. She has also won a steady stream of prizes such as weekend breaks, televisions, cameras, a mountain bike, washing machines, hampers, tickets… you name it. On average she gets a prize through the door every month!

 “I am a bit of an addict, she confesses “ I probably enter about 50 competitions a week”.  

 

This year Di has been concentrating on prize draws; postcard, plain paper and text entries. In fact it was from a text competition that she won her the wonderful all-inclusive week’s holiday to St Lucia!  Lucozade ran a competition from 17 January to 15 February this year giving away a holiday to St Lucia every day – that’s 31 holidays! Di saw the competition in her Simply Prizes magazine and entered it straight away, simply sending the code (printed in Simply Prizes) in to the text number. The very next day she got a text message to say she had won!

 “ I just couldn’t believe it” Di tells me as she scrolls through her old mobile phone text messages, “here, I still have the message”.  

Lucozade Sport Hydroactive. Congratulations you’ve won the 30/01/2005 draw. Call 08714341515 to claim your and quote HYDRO1405. You must call within 7 days

 She assumed she had won a runner-up prize,  “I thought I’d end up with a garage full of Lucozade or something. I was stunned when they confirmed I had won an all-inclusive holiday to St Lucia”. 

Di decided to take the holiday – worth £3,000 – at the start of September, with her 19 year-old daughter, Claire.

 The pair of them didn’t have to do a thing; Lucozade took care of it all the arrangements. 

“ A private car came to pick us up from the airport. We had a basket of local fruit and glasses of champagne in the car before we even got to the resort”.

There were a lot of giggles from the back of the car as the driver took them across St Lucia to their exclusive resort, Le Sport on the North of the Island. And when they arrived, nothing was too much trouble for the staff. Le Sport has every facility you could imagine, the bedrooms are luxurious (a four-poster bed in each) AND, it has its own private beach!

 “ I knew mum wanted a holiday where she could just lay on the beach and relax,” says Claire “ whereas I was dying to try out the aerobics classes, water sports and snorkelling. It was perfect for both of us”.  

Relaxing certainly wasn’t a problem, every day at 3.00pm the girls had a free massage, and full use of the fantastic spa. They got to try out exotically named treatments (thalassotherapy, eucalyptus inhalation and seaweed wraps) that conjure up images of the rich and famous on lavish pampering retreats or lucky magazine editors researching the best of top-class spa holidays (I’m yet to convince anyone that it would be a good place to send me). “Imagine,” says Di “ how marvellous it is after a hot day, to simply potter up to the spa and have the most amazing massages.” It sounds like bliss.

And the food was to die for. The delicious breakfast spread looked more like a banquet, with everything imaginable laid out to choose from. And lunch. You could find food from every corner of the world: freshly prepared local dishes through to Lebanese, Chinese, Moroccan… there was even two chefs on hand to cook-to-order should, somehow, you not find anything you fancied.

 “ The evening meal was haute cuisine and very posh” says Di. “ The delicious deserts with their juicy sauces were tempting me before I’d even got through my starter. It was all simply out of this world!” 

Plus, and Di has a very good point here, “everything tastes twice as good when it’s free”.

Di and Claire didn’t have to spend anything; the only time they put their hand in their pockets was to buy some traditional St Lucian souvenirs to take back.

Ben Barton from Lucozade was thrilled to hear what a fantastic time Di and Claire had had. He told me, “ we had a great time organising it too – it was a really popular competition.” Over the 31 days, 22,294 people entered the comp - approximately 700 entries a day. Compare this to the 54 million people who enter the National Lottery, Di’s chances of winning this fantastic all-inclusive holiday worth £3,000 were almost 100,000 times better! And it only cost her 25p!

This was a really popular national competition, just think about all those comps in Simply Prizes that come from specialised magazines, little known websites and unique stores – your chances of winning are even greater!

When Di got back home, there was a Long White Envelope waiting for her, with ANOTHER WIN; this time a weekend-break to Guernsey.

“You never know what is going to arrive in the post the next day”, says Di. “That’s the fun of comping!”

Spending a couple of hours every evening when her three foster children have gone to bed, Di enjoys a couple of hours to herself, entering comps – about 50 a month – and sees the results!

Comping is great fun and satisfying. When you think that the odds of winning prizes with the National Lottery are so high and the frequency of actually winning, well it’s a one really isn’t it? It’s inspiring to know that through comping, you could be winning prizes EVERY WEEK!

These can be little treats you wouldn’t normally buy yourself, gadgets that you’ve always wanted but thought were too extravagant, holidays to the most amazing places and even a brand-new car. You could be winning huge amounts of cash or a life-changing experience like Rob Jones who won a trip down to the wreck of the Titanic!

So let’s carry on comping and like Di, get home to find another Long White Envelope to say we’ve won!