The Best Travel Competitions
Posted on 27th February 2019 by Lon
The Best Travel Competitions
Every comper would love to go on a free trip and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a November night in Norfolk or a weeks’ holiday for the family in Florida, travel is travel right? I only enter travel related prize draws and competitions and those that I do, I take a glance at the terms & conditions to understand what the prize actually is before deciding whether it’s worth entering.
At any one time there are hundreds of travel giveaways for a chance to win some great holidays and some that are well, simply not worth winning let alone entering! I’ve put together a quick list of the websites and promoters where you can find some great travel giveaways as well as some tips on whether they are actually worth entering or not.
At any one time there are hundreds of travel giveaways for a chance to win some great holidays and some that are well, simply not worth winning let alone entering! I’ve put together a quick list of the websites and promoters where you can find some great travel giveaways as well as some tips on whether they are actually worth entering or not.
This is a lovely and quirky website with a focus on food and travel and it provides a great listing of travel comps, we love it. They list travel comps almost on a daily basis, remove any expired ones and tell you the end date so the list is always up to date. You’ll find the list of comps is all on one (rather long!) webpage but they’ve sourced a great selection so top marks to team.
Another great listing with more than 300 travel giveaways at any one time. A rather random order though but lots of variety and info as to when the giveaway ends, the entry method (e.g. enter by website) and if you are logged in they keep track of your ‘entries’. Well not exactly, as an entry would appear to mean a click through to the competition promoter’s website but it gives you an interesting idea as to how many people have actually clicked through. A decent bunch at Latest Deals, we like them.
Another very comprehensive listing (possibly the largest out there) and they provide 2 prize categories for travel comps; Holidays UK and Holidays Worldwide. Again, you can keep track of those that you have entered, search by type (e.g. www entry, Facebook entry, etc.) and thank the member who listed the giveaway details. A nice site for the comping community very good for those targeting travel comps.
Best Loved Hotels is a trusted site offering superior quality independent hotels and accommodation throughout the UK and Ireland. Every week they have one or two giveaways for chance to win a 2 night stay for 2, bed & breakfast and a dinner on one of the evenings. To be honest, this is pretty much the perfect prize as a travel comp. As the standard of accommodation is excellent, you’ll be sure to travel to the destination, wherever it is, if you’re the winner.
A fantastic website for travellers offering in-depth reviews on places to go, from cities to wilderness and with great interviews and travel stories. As for their competitions, they are both big ticket and exceptional!
Another quality website for the discerning traveller but don’t be put off, everybody has a chance to win one of their competitions and the prizes are fantastic. There are different entry methods too, some require you to answer a question and others require you to do some research to find out where an *image or picture were taken. Some of their prizes do exclude flights/travel to the hotel so winning will still cost you to get there.
*Here’s a tip when you find a competition with one of these images: Right click on the image and click on ‘copy image address’. Go to a website such as TinEye that offers a Reverse Image Search and enter the image address. This will now show the results of where that image can be found online and it should not be too difficult to find out where the image was taken.
Tips for entering Travel Competitions
Terms and Conditions – they are there for a reason so do read them! Many promoters in travel comps have pretty strict terms so although it may be a great prize, it might not even be possible to actually go. For example, we have seen a promotion to win a family holiday but when looking at the terms it excluded school and public holidays with select black-out days so it couldn’t be used over Easter or Christmas! So when exactly could you take the kids on this wonderful trip? Non transferrable too … so a very slim chance you could actually use it. Naughty but within the rules of running a promotion compliantly.
How easy or difficult it is to enter – if the entry requirement is simply to enter your name and email address then you can expect the giveaway will attract a higher number of entrants so your chance of winning is a lot less but not quite zero. However, if the competition entry requirement involves you being creative for example submitting a photo, coming up with something witty or even making a video than this seriously increases your chances of winning if you are prepared to spend some time on your entry.
Reach/Audience of the brand/promoter – big brands have a massive audience and they can afford to offer fantastic prizes. If ITV is running a competition for a £20K family holiday then you can expect hundreds of thousands of entrants so again, lovely prize but the chances of winning are incredibly slim. Likewise with Bauer Media who own hundreds of magazine titles and can feature the same competition across multiple titles. So it’s better to identify smaller brand promotions where possible as these will naturally have less entrants and thus you will have a better chance of winning.
Random or Judged – When a prize winner is randomly selected then again you can expect a higher volume of entrants and it’s just down to luck if you’re chosen. Enter enough of these (some compers enter 200+ per day) then you may win something sooner or later. If the competition is judged, requires skill or creativity and you have spent time/effort on an entry then you stand a greater chance of winning. Some compers only focus on these knowing that if they do win they’re likely to win something worthwhile.
How far/remote is the accommodation – Let’s face it, for those with the travel bug a trip is a trip and if it’s free it’s definitely worth entering. However, the destination of the place is likely to put off quite a few compers, simply because they cannot get there or it’s not worth traveling to for a one-night stay in a hotel. You often see prizes such as luxury 5-night stay in Dubai but it excludes flights and meals so even if you do win it will still cost you a couple of grand to be there.
Facebook Competitions – Hmm, not our favourite cup of tea by any means but a rather large amount of travel comps can be found and shared here but we have found so many that are non-compliant (limited, non-compliant or no terms & conditions displayed) while others being an outright scam.
Page owners have a problem, they have to spend money to acquire Page Likes and when they do post they see a limited organic reach…some would even say their reach is being stifled by Facebook. The answer, pay to Boost the post to reach a bigger audience but those new Page Likes somehow seem to erode rather quickly … so you have to pay to Boost some more.
However, as Page owners want Likes for free, you will often find giveaways that ask you to Like the Page/Post, Share, Tag friends, etc. as a condition of entry. This totally flouts Facebook rules and can see you get suspended or banned as you are deemed to be spamming other members. Page owners run the risk of being suspended too.
I recommend joining the Travel Competitions Facebook Group, it’s pretty new but the Admin team are finding and posting travel comps pretty regularly but more importantly, notifying members of possible scams and dodgy promotional behaviour!
Hope this is helpful and do feel free to contact us if you have any comments or suggestions. In the meantime, good luck and let us know if you win!
Photo by Dan Ramsay on Unsplash