2022: my comping year
So there’s just a few days left of 2022, can you believe it? I’ve spent the last few days eating Christmas treats, and compiling my annual round up of the year’s comping and blogging highlights! I’ll be sharing a few statistics, see how many prizes I ticked off my wishlist – and I would love SuperLucky readers to share their own facts and figures in the comments too, or on the special post in the Lucky Learners Facebook group.
At the start of January I created my Prize Wishlist Bingo Card – 24 prizes I wanted to win in 2022. I find this a brilliant way to focus on and search for prizes that I really want to win! If you want to create your own Bingo card for 2023, you can save a copy of my template to your own Google files by clicking here – then just type your prizes into the boxes. Or just print off a copy and write on it, or draw your own bingo card in your diary – or even better, fill out the template in your 2023 BootComp planner!
This year I managed to cross off 9 of the 24 prizes on my card, including a sunshine holiday and a TV. I’ve still had no luck with winning a PlayStation 5 or kitchen stand mixer, so they will be moving on to my 2023 bingo card!
Although I didn’t win a trip to Asia, I had two big cash wins of £2000 and £1000 which paid for flights to Korea for next Easter, plus covered some of the accommodation costs. You can still get the goodies on your wishlist even if you don’t win them – I like to believe the law of attraction will eventually find a way.
Despite not getting a line on my bingo card, I did win some fantastic prizes in 2022 – so let’s take a look at all the statistics and enjoy a review of my comping year!
My 2022 prizes
In 2022 I won 132 prizes with a total value of £17,359. As I’ve done for many years, I tracked my wins using a Google spreadsheet which means I can see how well I did in various types of competition. From the details on the spreadsheet, Google can also create some nice graphs to share with you!
This year on average I’ve entered about 20 comps each day – about 5 daily entry/instant win comps (these might be text, app or online entry), a couple of purchase necessary comps, maybe one or two radio comps (online or standard rate call/text). I’ll enter a few from emails in my inbox, and a handful of comps from my Twitter feed. Most evenings I’ll check Instagram and enter between 5 and 10 comps from my feed or notifications. I don’t use listings websites unless I’m looking for a specific prize from my wishlist, but I do my own regular Google and Tweetdeck searches to find competitions.
Comparing prize amounts and values from 2018 – 2022
The graph below shows the difference in the last five years of my comping so you can see how 2022 compares to previous years (last year I had the big £25,000 Brewdog win, explaining the huge jump!)
What type of comps did I win?
Of my 132 prizes won in 2022, 58 required a product purchase, 11 were creative photo or video comps (2 of these were judged, the rest were randomly picked), 10 were standard rate text entry prize draws and I had 2 on-air radio wins.
Where did I win these competitions?
Like the last two years, most of my prizes were from web entry prize draws. Instagram was once again my most successful platform for social media comps, and I won 21 prizes in Instagram prize draws (and one prize in a judged Instagram photo competition). I hardly entered any comps on Facebook, and only won 3 prizes there – and had 9 wins on Twitter. I also had my first LinkedIn competition win this year!
In my 2021 round up I did say that I intended to put more effort into creative comps in 2022 – and I did! I was pleased to win two big prizes – Glastonbury tickets and £500 – on TikTok. Not many compers enter TikTok competitions so they are generally low entry, with nice prizes. If you’re a member of my BootCompers Facebook group I’ll be sharing a guide to TikTok in the new year!
My 2022 prize highlights
So, let’s check out the highlights of my comping year!
In January I had a great radio win on Capital Xtra in their Sing 2 promotion on the breakfast show – I sent a standard rate text entry (15p), and I was lucky enough to get a call back! I won £250, a Bose speaker, selfie light and tripod.
In February on Instagram I won a Winter Cycling kit with @JMWinyourcorner with a fantastic coat, gloves, headband and a new helmet (prize number 1 ticked off my wishlist!)
I also won a stationery bundle in a Uniball Instagram prize draw, including a fabulous Fjallranven Kanken rucksack and an Echo Dot speaker. The highlight was a pair of brilliant notebooks, the first one has lasted me all year!
March was a successful month for purchase necessary comps, with my biggest win of the year – a LG tech bundle, including a 65 inch TV, soundbar, two bluetooth speakers! I also won £1000 cash in a Lu biscuits prize draw at the Co-op, plus a £500 Easyjet voucher in the Walkers instant win (this went towards our sunshine holiday in October)!
Late in the month I completed a Pitchero survey about NFTs that landed in my inbox, and won a £100 JD Sports voucher. This meant I could tick off school shoes and skate trainers from the wishlist, as I bought two pairs of black Adidas trainers for Ryland, plus a pair of Vans.
In April I won one of my favourite prizes of the year – an annual family pass for Hollywood Bowl! This has been a fantastic prize – every month we get a free game for 4, plus meals and drinks. Ryland has taken different friends with him, and our bowling skills have really improved. We won this by sharing this photo on Instagram or Ryland & his mate Marley with their heads poking through the stand. Keep an eye on the Hollywood Bowl Facebook, Instagram and TikTok as they run regular competitions!
Later in the month I won a lovely local prize of a cocktail masterclass in Hove with @cocktailsanddoughnuts on Instagram! This was a great opportunity to meet a local gin and vermouth maker, and I felt quite tipsy walking home afterwards. Local comps get very few entries, particularly for events on a specific date (I think this one had less than five entries on Instagram).
Ryland and I got to go on a Wembley Tour as part of a prize we won with Carabao last year. He loved it!
Every year I manage to win tickets to the Great Escape Festival in Brighton, and this year was no exception although I left it late, searching for and finding a low entry comp on Twitter the day before the festival started! It was so sunny and we had a great weekend. Also in May I won a prize draw with Krayna Vegan Beauty products – the prize was a trip to visit Krayna’s HQ in Poland! This trip has been put on hold until the situation with Ukraine and Eastern Europe has settled. They did send me a parcel of lovely moisturiser and cleanser to use though.
I promoted the Litter Lotto app on SuperLucky in May – I can’t stand to see litter, so I was excited to hear about an app that incentivised litter-picking with cash prizes. I won two referral prizes of £50, because two of the users I referred won £1000 cash each. I’ve only won one instant win £5 so far, but I keep on trying!
In summer half term we went on our prize holiday to Snowdonia, which I won last year on Magic Radio. We stayed in a lovely glamping cabin and had a brilliant time at Bounce Below and on the Zipwires (let’s not talk about my husband breaking his collar bone attempting an ambitious mountain bike jump though!)
In June I was lucky enough to win TWO pairs of Glastonbury festival tickets! The first pair was in a Guardian prize draw, and the second pair I won in a judged TikTok competition. Unfortunately we had to turn down the Guardian tickets as they weren’t transferable to friends! For the TikTok comp, we had to recreate Glastonbury at home as duet with EE’s post – this was a tricky challenge as you had to record a duet live on the app rather than upload existing content, but I meticulously planned the storyline and timing and it worked out perfectly. We took Ry to the festival, and had an amazing time!
@superluckydi #duet with @eeuk #myglastonbury ♬ original sound – EE
I won a great Tesco text to win competition during the Women’s Euro 22 tournament – Ryland got to be a flagbearer at the England v Norway match at Brighton’s stadium, which England won 8-0. We also won £350 cash! I also won tickets with the Pepsi instant win so Rob and Ryland went to the Wembley Final too.
In July I had a brilliant #NationalBikeWeek win – a Pure Flux Hybrid e-bike from It’s in Nottingham. Plus £100 Halfords voucher on Instagram and £100 Go Ape voucher in the Robinsons Big Fruit Hunt!
In July I also had 4 wins in the competition of the year – the Amazon Prime Day Sweepstakes! £500, £250, £100 and £50 of Amazon vouchers, which covered most of my Christmas presents! At the end of the month I got to use the final part of my big 2021 Brewdog prize – a stay at the Brewdog hotel in Manchester and a beer school session. I took my best friend Jo, and we had such a giggle!
August was a great month – I won tickets to South Facing Festival with Coke, and Brighton Pride tickets on the Costa app.
Then I had an amazing radio win on Absolute Radio – I phoned in, did a super simple quiz and won £2000 cash plus a heap of Maynard Bassetts sweets.
In September I won one of the lovely Crayola bundles in the Nestle Cereals prize draw and in October we went off on hols to Crete using our Walkers Easyjet prize voucher – I loved wandering around the Palace of Knossos!
In November I had a surprise from Fruit Shoot – I won a prize in their mop up draw, a day out at the Science Museum and £50. I also bagged a £20 Deliveroo voucher from the Coke app instant win – another prize ticked off my wishlist!
In December after several entries I finally had a 4am win on the Glade & Wilko instant win – a £100 Wilko voucher! I ticked off another wishlist prize when I won a Barry M cosmetics bundle on Instagram – and to finish the year I had success on TikTok – my #FirstDirectSpendTrend video won me £500 cash, just in time for Christmas!
@superluckydi What I love to spend my money on… Japanese & Korean cookery lessons! #firstdirectspendtrend ♬ All I Want Is You – Disco Lines
And that’s it for my favourite prizes this year – I’ve been really pleased with the variety of wins, and in particular I enjoyed Instagram comping in the evenings which really paid off. Thanks to everyone who has tagged me in giveaways this year, I do appreciate it!
SuperLucky blog news
SuperLucky was recommended in the metro, and I joined ‘coupon kid’ Jordon Cox for his Secrets to Saving roadshow in Portsmouth.
I conducted a new compers survey which had 662 responses and some fascinating results. And in February I was delighted when SuperLucky won ‘Best Lifestyle and Money Blog’ at the SHOMO Awards!
In summer I worked with the team at Maybe* to create a guide helping small businesses to run compliant competitions and prize draws on Instagram. You can watch the webinar and download a free workbook at www.maybetech.com.
Along with 3 other Super Lucky readers, I featured in an article about comping in the September 2022 issue of Which? Money magazine. There’s also an accompanying podcast you can listen to – this was a really fun interview to do!
My comping tips also featured on several other websites including the Daily Express, The Money Edit and Hey Money Talk.
In November I published my BootComp Comping Planner and Goal Setter – if you’ve not got your copy yet, you can buy on Amazon here. I set up an accompanying BootCompers Facebook group for compers with a copy of the book, where I’ll be sharing video guides and Q&A sessions in 2023 and it should be lots of fun for compers who want to take their skills to the next level!
In December Ryland and I appeared on Channel 5 in 30 tips to cut your Christmas Spend – comping was one of the tips and they featured clips from our festive unboxings.
This year I enjoyed working with Cheddar and JamDoughnut, two fantastic cashback apps, to promote their competitions. Lots of SuperLucky readers are now regular users of these apps and saving lots of cash, so I hope to have some more exclusive comps with them in 2023.
Coming up in 2023
I’m busy writing my new beginners comping book, How to Win Competitions, which will be published in 2023. Having spoken to lots of compers about hands-on sessions, I think it would be great for me to run some comping workshops in England and Wales next year – I’ll be looking into venues for that soon. My big goal for 2023 though, is to win a new car – it’s been twenty years since I won my Beetle, and I’d love to have an electric one! You can check out my full 2023 prize wishlist below – if you’re creating your own, print off your own blank PDF to fill out, or save a copy to your Google Drive and type into the boxes.
Thanks again to all my readers and everyone who enjoys, comments on and shares SuperLucky blog posts, it’s very much appreciated! My Lucky Learners Facebook group has now grown to almost 15,000 members – please do let me know your feedback and suggestions for SuperLucky, Lucky Learners, and BootCompers as I’m always looking for ways to improve and streamline the information I share.
Lucky Learners big wins
Of course, the members of my Lucky Learners Facebook group have had an amazing 2022 too, here’s just a few of the highlights:
- Claire won £4,000 Tui vouchers plus £1000 cash in a Wrigleys TTW
- Jean won £10,000 and tickets to the BGT semi finals with McVities
- Alison won £10,000 in the Strongow Refreshing Moments photo competition
- Becky, Sarah and Tamalyn all won a £10,000 KitKat Dream Road Trip
- Penny won £10,000 with Old Jamaica
- Lin won £35,303 on Bauer’s Cash Register with a free online entry
- Janie won a 16 night Thailand trip with £1000 from Wolf Blass
- Kayley won a £5,000 holiday in Stacey Solomon’s social media competition!
- Lucy won a trip to Korea to meet the Spurs team
More than 40 Lucky Learners won a trip to Oman in the Visit Oman World Cup promotion (my lovely friend Susannah is taking me along as her guest, so I may see some of you there!). And 77 Lucky Learners won £1,000 cash in the Mastercard £1million giveaway that I recommended on the blog and in my newsletter!
Don’t forget you can always keep up to date with all my prizes in my monthly round ups and unboxing videos on YouTube. Oh, and don’t forget to read my list of the best prize promotions of 2022 too, and see if your favourites made it onto the list!
Tell me in the comments below (or on the chat post in Lucky Learners) about your own comping successes in 2022 and your plans for 2023!
I can’t get your link for Litter Lotto to work. I’m a volunteer litter picker for my local park, loads of pizza boxes and pop bottles left there!
It looks like there’s a problem with referral links at the mo Lynn – just search for LITTERLOTTO in the app store or Google Play and you’ll find it!
Congratulations on your 2022 wins, you really inspire me to be more creative. For personal reasons I can’t be on any social media platforms (I really miss Lucky Learners) so for 2023 I’m going to concentrate on purchase necessary and web based comps. Good luck for 2023!
Good luck Susan! Maybe you could set up a FB account just to join LL? Facebook are relaxing rules on using nicknames soon so you could use a fake name.
Thanks for this Di, I didn’t know I could use a fake name on FB so that may be a way forward.
Very many congratulations! You are an inspiration and I mention you regularly when people don’t believe people actually win. Good luck for 2023! X
Thank you Margaret! Hope you have a successful 2023!
I absolutely loved your TikTok entry for the Glastonbury tickets! Well done! I finally won an effort comp this year (just a photo, not judged) but feel inspired to keep going. Thanks 🙂
Fab, well done Alison! It just needs a bit of practice to get into the habit. So often the photo comps are random winners, so it’s worth a go!
Congratulations on winning such brilliant prizes, and sharing all your hints and tips with us.
Wishing you a happy and successful 2023.
Happy New Year! Hope it is a successful year for us all! I’m off to a good start as just won with the Walkers £250 comp.
That’s great news Sarah – congrats!
Hi Di! Congrats on all the wins and thanks for sharing your stats – super interesting to see and nicely laid out. Just wondered if you also kept track of your spending for the purchase necessary comps at all?
Hi Di,
congrats for your 2022 wins. My december was quite successful. I won a swiss chocolate package Läderach via Bauer Media Group it contains milk covered popcorn, Madagascan grand cru noir chocolate 64 %, a box filled with chocolate candy and a box with 13 different chocolate tastes such as pistachio, raspberry etc., again the perfume samples, a freebie with FingerHaus two calendars for 2023 and a freebie of cat food, then with the Ritzenhoff advent calendar 2 Celebebration Deluxe Champagne glasses set # 3 designed by Romi Bohnenberg, I won with Suhrkamp publishing 1 of 12 book surprises, I was picked for the childrens books such as Kieran E. Scott Punkt., Attilio Pinocchio, María Isabel Sánchez Vegara Little People, Big Dreams Maria Montessori, Maria Gianferrari Sei wie ein Baum!, Eoin McLaughlin Polly Dunbar Umarmst du mich mal?, Susanna Mattiangeli Das verschwundene Versteck, Sharon Cameron Das Mädchen, das ein Stück Welt rettete- Nach einer wahren Geschichte, some stickers and a tote bag Rosa Parks, I’m sorry that I didn’t translated the book title into english, I won with Lavera a cosmetic set with lots of stuff, such as lip balm, hand cream, cleaning foam, moisturizer body milk, cream shower, deodorant cream, mild care soap and refill bag, then last but not least I won with Frag (Ask) Team Clean a sample Love Nature Colour – laundry detergent cherry blossom. I wish you and your family for 2023 a lot of success! Take care Jeanette
I won a trip to Oman too! Hoping to go in March. Would be lovely to meet up if you’re there at the same time 🙂
I also won a trip to Oman, I would never have entered if I hadnt seen it on your site and it was the first comp I have won through Insta. Yay
Do you know anyone that has been already – hoping to get some tips – best places to go, must sees, prices. etc.
Im going mid March.
Thanks Di
Congrats on an amazing 2022. Hopefully many more competitions to enter in 2023. My wins, interms of value have been same for 2021/2022 looking to build and push in in 2023.
Congratulations on your 2022 wins Di! And good luck for the year ahead. You never know – you may have a tent win on its way in the last couple of days so you will have a row!