How comping has changed my life

FOR SARAH MACAVOY, WINNING AN £8,000 HOLIDAY MARKED THE START OF A POSITIVE, HAPPY FUTURE

I'd like to share with you the story of my first win. I married a lovely fella in June this year and in the build up to the wedding enjoyed dreaming of the wonderful things I could have if money was no object. But we had to plan our wedding on a budget.

We hadn't even considered a honeymoon, until I saw a competition in a bride magazine to win a week's holiday in Barbuda.  The holiday was worth £8,000 - three times our wedding budget.

I showed it to my husband and said, "I’m going to win this."

 

“Yeah right,” he said.  “No-one ever wins those things”.

 

But I entered anyway and spent a couple of hours thinking of a slogan to the tie-breaker competition. I finally came up with....

 

"skinnydipping with my handsome groom,

 in the beautiful blue lagoon,

 would be the perfect honeymoon"

 

I sent it off and forgot all about it. That’s what great about comping, being able to end off lots of entries to great prizes, put them to the back of your mind and then get the wonderful surprise when you find out you have won!

 

A few weeks later, totally out of the blue, I received a phone call telling me I had won.  I couldn’t believe it, nor could my fiancé.

 

As you can imagine, we had an absolutely amazing time in Barbuda. The Island is beautiful, a truly unspoilt paradise.

 

We were treated like royalty, with butler service and our every need attended to. There were only four other couples at our exclusive island resort, so we had the beaches pretty much to ourselves. As part of the prize we had a romantic beach picnic in a secluded cove just off the island. We were taken there by a private boat and picked up again later. We had Champagne, a delicious hamper of food and a mobile phone – so we could phone the staff at the resort if we needed anything else!

 

 It was a trip of a lifetime and I didn’t ever want to leave. I can honestly say it was the perfect start to married life. Comping has marked the beginning of a positive happy future.

 

As soon as I returned from the honey-moon I never would’ve had if it weren’t for comping, I had the comping bug. I am now entering as many competitions as I possibly can and subscribe to Simply Prizes competition magazine to make sure I get my hands on the best competitions every month.

 

Sarah Mcavoy