Tips to Winning Contests & Sweepstakes

[Damnedifiknow]

The question I have is Macro and Script the same as an automated program (Roboform,etc.)? In some rules it seems like it but others leave it more vague if it's the same or not...?

[mardi61]

Thanks for taking the time to dispense all this advice. I've been filling out contest entries with the aid of my computer so i'll start entering text manually from now on. Haven't won anything yet but now I'm better informed.

[WandaJean]

Can someone please take a few minutes to explain to me how to enter twitter contests, what does it mean to tweet and retweet, I see so many of these contests and I have a twitter account but I have no idea what I am doing on there, thanks,
WJ

[macfsh]

Hi WandaJean, I'm just getting into it myself but I find if you follow some of these businesses they will tweet a question. You can click on reply on that tweet and post your answer to the question. They might say the first person to reply wins or whatever. Or sometimes you might see a tweet posted and it will say retweet to win. All you do is click on that post and say retweet. When you retweet that sends the tweet to all your followers.

Have I explained that well? I won $5 from Taco Bell before Christmas. That's all I have won on there so far. I find you have to be watching it all the time and be very speedy.

I struggle with how to find the right people/companies to follow. How do you know their twitter names?

Let me know if you have any questions.

[ami1975]

Hi there,

I just wondered if anyone uses the contest sites where you pay for a membership? I know when I lived in the US, I joined one and they seemed to have a ton of contests that I wouldnt have found just googling or looking up.

But I'm wondering here in Canada, if it's just as easy to find them yourself or since I'm living in Quebec and half the contests I can't enter anyway, if it's even worth it to try for three months.

[barbs]

Most contest specifically ban entries that come from "paid contest entry" sites,
hence the ban on 'autofill' programs, which is how these membership groups enter your name.

[hpopliger]

contestcanada.com gives you a 30 day free trial (although usually lasts longer) but then asks for a $25 annual suscription - worth it if you ask me - i've won many many many contests through their website

[ami1975]

Thanks for the info...

I meant the sites where they list the contests for you, not actually enter for you. Those always seem so unfair to me!

I was debating on whether or not to try one, because I won LOADS in the states when I bought a premium membership with a contest site because they had contests everyone could see and then those you could 'see' with a premium membership. Won a Wii within the first 2 weeks so easily made up for the 20 or so I paid for a yearly membership. Just trying to figure out if it's worth it for me here in Quebec because it seems there are so many contests where Quebec is void...haha making me wish my hubby took the job in Toronto instead jk

[truckerofbc]

Here's my tip for Canada Safeway online tickets.
Find all the tickets you can. You'll need at least 200-400 per day. I usually get them from my local safeway stores "Dry" Garbage cans that are situated at the exits and I usually average 300-400/day. I found that the odds of winning are best when the computer is reset to a new day in my time zone. For example when the clock is 12am in BC it is 3am in Ontario. There will not be many people playing at this time obviously and so the more entries you have the better chance you have to win at this time as the computer randomly "thinks" that many people are playing at once and when there are 44 prizes awarded randomly per day the odds of you winning within the first 2 hours are excellent. I have won a lot of prizes in the last 2 years from these contests. You can check out what I have won in the "what have you won lately" in the contests section.

[barbs]

Very good info. I had suspected the odds were better at that time of the night. (I don't have a computer at home right now but I'm hoping to obtain one in the near future.)

I did take your advice and pulled tickets from my local Safeway garbage cans the last few days of the contest. (Felt extremely self-conscious, but was hoping to win a prize.) I only found about 30 or so tickets in the cans per day. So overall, I entered about 100 or so times, but was entering in the daytime.

Do you know off-hand, how often Safeway runs these contests?

[DinYXY]

I opened a twitter account a few months ago. I honestly had no clue what I was doing but I kept "tweeting" how much I liked coffee and wanted a Tassimo coffeemaker and believe it or not, I won one! Its worth about $170.

If you want a Twitter account, google "twitter" and register, much like registering for contests. You can use your name ex: "Person" to keep it simple and your twitter name would be "@Person". Then you can search for "#contests" or "#giveaways" and you will find lots.

For instance if I tweeted "I just entered the XXX contest. RT this to win", you would only have to hit the "retweet" button and you are in! That would mean you RT'd (retweeted) my tweet.

In the tweets there is usually a link which leads to info about the contest and rules so I read those once to find out 1) if it is open to Canada, or 2) if I have to sign up to their newsletter and 3) leave a comment on their blog and 4) then tweet. I don't bother with a lot of those, especially if the prize is small and there are too many steps. With the exception of a few, such as the coffee maker, I do find the Twitter prizes are on the small side, so I don't spend a lot of time at it.

If you need help, just let me know. I had such a hard time when I started because I had no idea what to do.
For some contests you can enter the regular way and sometimes get extra ballots for Twitter and Facebook. Good luck in 2010.

[ripples_chick]

well well thanks so much for the info - sure appreciate it

[SweetPanda]

Thanks a lot for all the tips everyone!

I have tried to enter local contests as well but I have a very bad experience though ...

I won a story book and a pair of mitts from the Toronto4kids contest. Well, it's from Toronto so I did not anticipate there will be any problem. One day UPS showed up at my door and said I have to pay for a package in the amount of $19.55 (for GST, it was less than $1, all other fees were from UPS). I thought that it was something that my hubby ordered from ebay so I signed for it.

It turned out that it was a prize that I won from the Toronto4kids website and I had never thought that the prize will come from the states ... even though I emailed Toronto4kids and they simply said the sponsor should have indicated it as promotional material and not the value of $30 ... there's really nothing they can do about it ...

I searched amazon.com and the set is listing for $23US ...

[ilikeitcheap]

Hello everyone,

I just joined up today and I'm happy to be here with you guys! This is the first place I started looking, to get tips on winning some awesome contests! Thanks for all the great tips, now off I go to enter some contests...

[JeLLo2775]

I posted this link in the 'What Contests Have You Won' thread, and perhaps it would be more useful right here...

On last nights Citynews, there was a segment regarding winning contests.

http://citynews.video.citytv.com/vid...01/Lucky-Lady/