Big prizes keep on coming in three's

I enter lots of comps and over the years have won holiday breaks, a bathroom, a kitchen, cash , TVs , etc, etc. but just recently I have had a concentrated spell of luck for big wins – three wins in less than two months!

Big prizes keep on coming in three’s!
 
Last month we told you about Karen de Ronde who won three amazing prizes in a row?  (If you did not see the article, through comping, Karen won a trip to Memphis, Egypt and a brand-new Kia!) 
 
Well this month we heard from Tony Driver – Tony is another big three winner!  This is what Tony had to say;
 
‘I enter lots of comps and over the years have won holiday breaks, a bathroom, a kitchen, cash , TVs , etc, etc. but just recently I have had a concentrated spell of luck for big wins – three wins in less than two months!
 
It started last November when I entered a comp in my local evening newspaper to win a luxury weekend in The Yorkshire Dales and was delighted to hear soon after that I had won.  We arranged to go the first weekend in April as it was my birthday.  My wife Celia, and I had a lovely relaxing time, being pampered in one of the best country hotels in Yorkshire – this turned out to be just what we needed to prepare us for what was about to happen next!
 
A week after I received that winning letter, the local daily newspaper started running a prize draw comp to win four days in New York. My wife Celia said I had no chance as I had just won the evening paper’s previous prize.
 
Undeterred I entered and then I won!   Wow, New York has been on my holiday wish list for thirty years now!
 
We packed masses in during our four-day break including; a visit to The Empire State Building, a trip on the Staten Island Ferry and shopping including ‘window shopping’ for diamonds at the legendary Tiffany’s!
 
We also visited Ground Zero which was a very moving and a truly humbling experience.
 
When we got back from New York my children Tom, Jack and Amy complained that I was always winning prizes for holidays for two – which isn’t strictly true, but you know what kids are like?
 
So in January when the evening paper ran yet another comp – this time to win a family trip to Australia – I just had to enter to keep the kids happy.
 
This time entrants simply had to collect four tokens from the newspaper and send them in on a postcard.  Now as this was such a great prize I spent ten extra minutes personalising my postcard with the use of some corks on string and a cardboard boomerang!  (cost 80p in total!)
 
But by the time I had stuck my corks and string on the postcard , and the postcard to the boomerang it all would not go through the letterbox! So, during my lunch break I dropped it off at my local newspaper’s office.
 
And guess what, two weeks later I found out I had won the prize!
 
Only one slight problem (and I’m not griping here!) the prize was for two adults and two children - I have three!  But rather than draw straws on who would get left behind! I was able to pay extra so I could take all five of us away!  So with our feet barely touching the ground, having just got back from New York, off we all went to Australia over the Easter break.
 
Although the prize was for a trip to Sydney for 14 days we really wanted to visit Perth as both my wife and I have cousins there who we had never met. The promoters were very generous and let us change the prize to spend six days in Sydney and eight days in Perth. Being able to do that was the icing on a very memorable comping ‘cake’.
 
There were too many highlights to mention from visiting Australia (another destination that has been on my wish list for some time) but some of the most memorable were spending two nights on Rottnest Island nature reserve – real back to basics stuff with wooden chalets nestled amongst the vegetation and a chance to meet Quokkas (a small indigenous Aussie marsupial, bit like a small wallaby). 
 
We also had a fantastic six days in Sydney and got to see Harbour Bridge at sunset and sail past the Opera House.  The kids really enjoyed a trip to the beautiful Blue Mountains and having no fear got to hold pythons and have a cuddle with some less lethal koalas!
 
And yes, thanks to the power of comping we got the chance to meet our long-lost family too – It’s great what comping can do!
 
As I said, I do enter quite a lot of comps each week, but it does not take me long at all to get up to thirty entries sent off.   Even with thirty comps a week there are plenty of new experiences to try and I still tend to only enter the ones I really want to win! (However, thanks to all my prizes, I am running out of holiday leave this year!)
 
As well as getting thirty comps in a week my other top-tip for success is to put in a bit of extra effort in, such as personalising postcards and using eye catching designs.  Well, let’s face it, I did not get a bad return from spending 80p on some corks and string!
  
 
Best wishes,
 
Tony Driver