Montys Millions Withdraw £20000 Monaco Dream Prizes
Everyone loves the feeling when they’re told they’ve won a prize, but when that prize is a biggie in the shape of a £20000 trip to the Monaco Grand Prix, that feeling is magnified! It’s a trip of a lifetime, a chance to live like that rich and famous and enjoy one of the highlights of the F1 racing calendar.
Now…. imagine the feeling to be told just days before the event that the prize has been cancelled and that instead of the trip, you’ll be receiving a refund of between £3 and £15 or nothing depending on how you won the prize.
Sadly, for one Loquax user the above is reality and user reaction, initially to the win, and then the subsequent loss of the prize can be found on the forums. However, they are not alone and a similar story is also on ITV F1 and Manchester Evening News .
The competition was Monty’s Millions, run by Millionaire Games Ltd. It featured on a number of top UK websites including Top Gear who “teamed up with MontysMillions.com to offer you and a friend the chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip of a lifetime to the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix, valued at a whopping £20,000!”. The winners would stay at the five-star Boscola Hotel and get the chance to watch the Grand Prix from a 135ft Mega Yacht AVA in Monaco Harbour.
According to the report in the MEN the company had problems with “a vital element of the prize”. This apparently was the yacht from which the winning contestants would watch the Grand Prix. It’s unclear why they couldn’t have substituted that part of the prize, or just offered the winners a weekend in Monaco?
The report also says the company lost money on the promotion. Whether this had anything to do with their decision to cancel the prize and refund the winners remains to be seen, but usually when a prize can’t be fulfilled the promoter should attempt to replace the prize with something of equal or higher value.
Currently the site is closed but a cached version of the prize rules are available via google. In the rules they do sadly state “There is no cash alternative or any alternative to the winning trip to Monaco in May 2007″. The rules also state “The Promoter reserves the right to cancel any competition, for any reason, before the designated closing date”, however there’s no information about what would happen if the prize failed to materialise? From initial reports, it does appear they’ve optted to refund monies and not fulfill the prize.
With paid to enter competitions under more scrutiny because of recent TV phone scandals, this kind of event leaves a very bad taste in the mouth for all concerned with competitions. It’s now up to the promoters to sort this issue out, but the “winners” may find themselves without a prize or any kind of recompense.
Hopefully the Institute of Sales and Promotions or Advertising Standards Authority (both good channels to pursue when you have a problem with a missing prize or poorly run competition) will be able to help them.
We don’t know if Monty’s Millions will return as their website suggests, but after this few compers would entertain them. A google search shows that they have recently become the sponsor of Chris Stockton’s BTC Racing Lexus (BTCC.net). If Chris is successful in this year’s BTCC races it may well be that he is the only winner with Monty’s Millions.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Jackpotjoy Prize Draws - Do People Win?
Regular visitors to Loquax will know that we do a lot of promotion of Jackpotjoy - from free scratchcard games to bingo games, including the likes of Deal or No Deal and Price is Right Bingo. As well as pay to play games, JPJ also run regular free prize draws. To enter these competitions players have to earn prize points and then use them to obtain entries. Getting points is easy as you can earnn up to 5000 free points daily by playing our free scratchcard game.
However, a lot of compers ignore these competitions as they think they have no chance of winning or that no one ever wins (despite a regularly updated winners page). That’s actually not true and let’s face it you’ll have less chance of winning if you don’t enter!
We recently ran 4 exclusive £50 prize draws with Jackpotjoy and asked them how many points the winners of each draw had in that particular draw. The stats are below, along with some other recent competitions that ran on JPJ.
As you can see you don’t always need a lot of points to end up as a winner. In fact, just by playing the free scratchcard a few times a week you could build up enough prize points to get a few entries into the current prize draws. Of course if you have time then you can also play for fun at Jackpotjoy and accumulate more prize points.
We don’t know how many people enter each of the competitions, and are awaiting those figures, but remember with only 6 to 8 prizes up for grabs a month there can only be 6 to 8 winners, so you may not win. However, you’ll have more chance of winning if your name is in the hat than if isn’t because you think “you won’t win” or have assumed the entry level requirements are beyond you - when they most certainly are not!
Popularity: 4% [?]
Win Glastonbury Festival Tickets
The Glastonbury Festival takes place between the 22nd, 23rd and 24th June 2007 and tickets to the event are well and truly sold out. You can’t even get hold of tickets via eBay this time round as the organisers have taken all precautions to prevent touting. However, if you’ve not got a ticket there’s still a chance you could be at this year’s festival. You just have to enter competitions and hope to win Glastonbury tickets.
There are a number of prize draws open for Glastonbury Tickets, but be quick as many close by the first week in June. For example Play.com have managed to get a pair of tickets including camping and car pass to giveaway to one lucky winner. Answer one question and send in your details by June 10th to enter the prize draw.
Time Out have teamed up with the official cider of Glastonbury Festival and are giving you the chance to win a pair of exclusive tickets to the three day festival which runs from June 22–24 2007! The prize also includes Brother’s Festival Survival Kit. You have until June 14th to enter this one.
And finally, The Times have teamed up with Yeo Valley Organic, one of the official recycling partners at the festival to offer you a chance to win a pair of Glastonbury Festival VIP tickets! Answer the question and send in your details to enter the prize draw.
Useful Links
Glastonbury Competitions
Win Festival Tickets
Win Concert Tickets
Popularity: 11% [?]
Fanta Launch Get Up and Play Competition
It’s time to Get Up and Play with Fanta as they’ve launched their brand new competition offering 560 prizes, 10 a day for 56 days. The competition runs from 14th May to 8th July 2007 and the prize is described as “The Ultimate Games Room”! Fanta competitions have been very popular with compers, and with such a large number of great prizes on offer, it’s one you should try and enter every day! The prize includes a Nintendo Wii Console and a Samsung 26″ LCD TV, a cool mini fridge packed full of ‘Fanta’, ‘Sprite’ and ‘Dr Pepper’!
Even better, you can get free entry into the prize draw. Just send in your details and a code will be sent to you by mobile or email, so that you can enter the prize draw. You can enter once every day during the promotion. Codes are also available on “ringpulls on 330ml promotional cans or on the reverse of labels on 500ml and 2lt promotional bottles of ‘Fanta’ Orange, ‘Fanta’ Orange Zero, ‘Fanta’ Fruit Twist, ‘Fanta’ Icy Lemon, ‘Sprite’, ‘Sprite’ Zero, ‘Dr Pepper’ and ‘Dr Pepper’ Zero”.
All entries received up until midnight will go into that day’s draw. You may not know this, but Fanta are also giving away 1800 Nintendo DS Consoles. All you have to do is enter three times or more and you will be entered into a weekly prize draw. Good luck!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Reading Can Help You Win Prizes!
How often do you read the rules or competition terms and conditions? How often do you check the site you’re visiting to learn about the site and who’s running the prize draw? Do you read the blurb before the competition or do you head straight for the entry form and send in your details and suggested answer if provided? You could be missing out on prizes by not taking a few minutes to do one or all of these steps!
This blog post is part inspired by a current discussion on Loquax forums - Maybe this is why I don’t win????? - and something that cropped up thanks to a subscription service sending user’s to Loquax’s Fight Climate Change site.
A week or two ago we noticed that people were registering on Fight Climate Change (FCC). Sadly, it wasn’t because they were interested in energy saving or being eco-friendly, they were visiting the site to try and win a car. The FCC site contained details of ITV’s current Toyota Prius competition at ITV Climate Change and a link to the site, but despite this people were registering with FCC, not going to ITV and entering the proper competition.
Even after we changed the details compers were still registering. Making it totally clear that they just weren’t reading what was in front of them! Had we not sent them an email and informed them of their error and pointed them in the right direction, they’d have no chance of winning the car!
This though is not the only example. Zoo Weekly now have a social network type blog site, but on their competitions it clearly states “email in your entry”, yet week in and week out people still post answers in reply to the original post. The same thing happens on other sites too including Lastminute’s Something for the Weekend blog (the forums). Compers are missing out on the prize draw simply because they don’t read the information in front of them!
Our advice to all compers is simple - take a few minutes to read!
1. Read the competition blurb, it can tell you about the prize on offer, may contain the answer to any competition question and may explain how to enter the competition.
2. Read the competition question and multi choice answers. Don’t rely on suggested answers as questions may be randomised, or different from day to day! If you’ve read the competition blurb you may already have the required answer in front of you.
3. Check for competition terms and conditions or rules! You may find the tiebreaker you’ve just spent an hour working on has been for nothing as the competition you’ve found closed in 2003. Don’t waste your time on out of date competitions! The rules may also explain any restrictions to entry, information about the prize or any conditions related to claiming the prize.
4. Look for the small print and opt in/out boxes! Remember competitions are run by promoters who may want your details for marketing purposes - make sure you’re not signing up for mobile clubs, book clubs, or accepting third party adverts and emails!
5. Look round the website! A lot of compers don’t do this and it’s something we advise you try and do - some prize draw landing pages don’t fully indicate the type of site you’re visiting. Not only is it a decent thing to do to get to know the promoter (after all they’re running the competition) but it may turn out the prize draw you’re entering is aimed at specific groups or ages! Looking round the site also gives you a feel for the type of company running the competition, and you may find more competitions or, as sometimes happens, that the website hasn’t been updated for months.
But won’t this take up precious comping time? Well, yes, but a few minutes taking your time to enter a few competitions properly is better than entering as many comps as you can, without knowing the sites you’re visiting and even getting disqualified because you’ve not entered the competition properly.
Popularity: 4% [?]