How entering competitions could land you your dream holiday

This time last year I got an email from the team at Jumeriah hotels telling me that I had won a five star break to Frankfurt. The hotel package included a luxury meal, a room with a panoramic view looking over at Frankfurt's most iconic skyscrapers and spa treatments. Once we arrived we were treated like royalty with letters from the manager telling us how welcome we were and chocolates and gifts left in the room. It was a surreal experience and one of the best hotel stays I have ever had and best of all, it was free.

My stay at the Jumeriah Frankfurt hotel wasn't the only travel competition I have won,  a few years prior I won a luxury stay in London, tickets to Proud Cabaret and our meals and transport paid for. A lot of people don't enter competitions because they believe that they won't win, but how do you know you won't win if you don't try?

These days there are many ways you can enter competitions and there's something to suit all types of 'comper' to those who only have five minutes at the end of the day, to those who enjoy being creative. From liking Facebook statuses to retweeting posts, re-gramming Instagram images to creative writing competitions, there's plenty of competitions on the internet and the more you enter, the more chance you have of winning.

Competition listing websites

Competition listing websites such as Loquax and Competition Database are the first port of call for most people looking to enter the odd competition, but they are usually highly saturated competitions because so many people are entering them. They are a great way of seeing which websites regularly list competitions, but don't rely on them.

Google searches

One of the best ways to enter competitions is to make a wish list of items you would like to win and do a Google search for those competitions - for example, searching 'win a holiday to Thailand' and sort by most recent. This way you are only entering competitions for the items you would really like to win and you may find a few competitions with low entries that haven't been listed on competition websites yet.

Searching social channels

Finding competitions on social channels such as Facebook and Twitter are really easy and the most experienced competition entrants would say it's one of the easiest methods for you to win. A lot of social competitions ask for you to submit a photograph to win or describe why you would want a prize or something that has happened to you. This gives you the opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

Newspaper/Magazine competitions

A lot of people don't enter newspaper or magazine competitions as they see them as too time consuming or too much effort, but I once saw a competition in a newspaper where I had to email an answer off to win a £500 Primark voucher and I won. 

So there you go, why not try enter a few competitions this year? You never know, you might just win your dream holiday.

Do you enter competitions?