2024: my comping year

So we’re almost done with 2024 – it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me, and in this post I’ll be reflecting on my comping successes from the last twelve months. You can also check out my list of the best prize promotions of 2024, and see if your favourites made it onto the list!

I’d love to hear about your prizes and comping achievements too, so please share your own round-ups in the comments or on the special post in the Lucky Learners Facebook group.

As usual, I created a Prize Wishlist Bingo Card for 2024 – featuring 24 prizes I wanted to win! Pinning my wishlist up about the kitchen sink where I see it every day helps me focus my comping efforts.

If you want to create your own Bingo card for 2025, 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 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 2025 BootComp planner (which also has a special new page for your ULTIMATE prize wishlist!) 

This year I won nine of the prizes on my wishlist: wine, a holiday, Olympics tickets, EURO24 tickets, clothes vouchers, kids books, football tickets, £1000+ cash win and a prize for a friend. But you can still get the goodies on your wishlist even if you don’t win them – the law of attraction will eventually find a way! Two of the remaining prizes on my wishlist were gifted to me: Girls Aloud tickets (thanks Marta!), Thorpe Park tickets (thanks Gyongyi and Carmen!), so I crossed these off too. I decided to buy myself an iPhone, and the next door neighbour offered to go halves on a hedge trimmer! And to celebrate my 50th birthday I spent some of my savings on a Michelin Starred Meal and a Birmingham stay. I thought a haircut would be easy to win, but that wasn’t the case – so I’ll roll it over to my 2025 wish list. I think I only found 2 comps to win curtains all year, so I’m aiming for John Lewis vouchers instead for 2025, and will use those to buy curtains!

Now, let’s take a look at all my statistics and enjoy a review of my comping year!

My 2024 prizes

In 2024 I won 168 prizes with a total value of almost £19,500. 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 the different prize promotion formats!

This year on average I’ve entered more comps than in 2023 – probably about 25 comps each day. Each day I will do about 8 daily entry/instant win comps (these might be text, app or online entry), a purchase necessary comp, a couple of radio comps (online or standard rate call/text). I check the emails in my inbox for comps, and do a handful of comps from my X (Twitter) feed – plus around 10 Instagram comps. And in 2024 I have a new habit of checking my Lucky Legends forum every day for great new competitions too!

Comparing prize amounts and values from 2020 – 2024

The graph below shows the difference in the last five years of my comping so you can see how 2024 compares to previous years – I won more prizes this year than any previous year since I started comping in 1997! The highest value prize was £5,000 cash on Magic Radio.

What type of comps did I win?

Of my 168 prizes won in 2024, 57 required a product purchase, 8 were creative photo or video comps (6 of these were judged, 2 were randomly picked), 8 were standard rate text entry prize draws (including a trip to New York), and I had 6 on-air radio wins.

Where did I win these competitions?

In 2024, most of my wins were from website entry forms, some of which I found details of in newsletters. I won 41 prizes on Instagram, but only 4 prizes on X (Twitter), 2 prizes on TikTok and nothing at all on Facebook (although I probably entered less than ten FB comps!). I won 13 text-to-win comps, 4 small prizes on the Coca-Cola app, and 1 on the Jet2 app. I also got lucky with the Great British Raffle app/website – 21 of their daily winners were referred by me so I also won £10 for each winner!

My 2024 prize highlights

So, let’s check out the highlights of my comping year! My first prize of the year was £50 of skincare from Blur London in an Instagram giveaway, and I won lots more smaller prizes on Instagram throughout the month including nice Veganuary prizes from Shore Seaweed and Boka.

In February I won another skincare bundle on Instagram – this time with S.O.S Skincare. I was delighted to win a Thai meal at the Hare and Hounds Pub in Brighton in their Valentines Instagram comp, and they didn’t mind that Ry came along! We also dined out at Blossoms Japanese restaurant with a £100 voucher from an Instagram comp. I spent Valentine’s Day itself in a Porthcawl Cottage with Ry’s mountain biking crew, and won us a free fish and chip supper when I took a photo of them for the Sarson’s photo comp!

This year I was pleased to win lots of prizes for my four great nieces – including two lots of books from Armadillo Magazine on Instagram, and garden games from a Tesco and Rowntrees text-to-win.

The Wrigley Extra Mood-Boosting Breaks instant win was really popular with SuperLucky readers – I entered every day and was over the moon to win a short break! I took my friend Carmen to Norfolk in the summer and we had a fabulous chilled out break together as nobody else was staying nearby. It was so lovely to see hares and deer wandering around outside our little cabin and to enjoy our hot tub under the stars.

In March I won a £500 British Airways voucher in a Capital Radio text-in competition and in April I won Railcards and £200 for travel from National Rail in their ‘recreate a moment with a grandparent’ competition – Ryland re-created this photo with his Grandad in Wales!

In the Easter holidays I had booked to take Rob and Ry to Ljubliana using the £500 First Choice voucher I won on TikTok in 2023, but First Choice cancelled it at the last minute. Leaving me with no time to rebook or find an alternative, I complained to First Choice and they increased the value to £1,000. We used this to travel to Bilbao & San Sebastian instead (where Rob & I had got engaged on a prize trip back in 2006!)

In May I had a great win for Ry’s football team courtesy of Arnold Clark – 20 tracksuits embroidered with the Hove Park Colts club badge. I had a nice little £50 cash win from the great Ribena instant win and arranged a fun meet up with loads of Lucky Learners at the Sailor Jerry prizewinners party in London.

Despite being an Arsenal fan, my husband Rob enjoyed a day at the Spurs training ground with his friend Oli (a prize from a Heineken and Tesco text-to-win) – they took along a Premier League football which the whole squad signed, and we used this as top prize in the Hove Park Colts’ Golden Jubilee fundraiser in June (along with a signed Kaminski goalie shirt I won from 90 Minute Football in an X prize draw!)

In June I was excited to win tickets to the opening match of EURO24 plus £1,000 in the Co-op and Coke purchase necessary promo. My friend Kazzy won the same competition and as neither of our husbands could go away that weekend, we decided to make it a girls trip! I used my £500 BA flights voucher to book us a stay in Salzburg, and we did a day trip to Munich for the Germany v Scotland match. The opening ceremony was great – shame about the score!

In July I had a couple of nice instant wins – £50 cash with ASDA & Tango and an Odeon Limitless annual pass with Cadbury – plus the next day I won £200 cash from another Cadbury comp, the Tesco ice cream text-to-win! In September I won a bottle of Patron Tequila worth £175 from the Whisky Stock and a case of lovely Casillero del Diablo wine on Instagram.

Later in the year I got back into the swing of radio comps again, with a small win of a yoga mat on Virgin Radio. I was called to take part on a Capital Breakfast promotion to win a trip to New York – I didn’t win, but was sent 5 bags of Cheez-Its as a consolation prize. I won VIP On The Beach festival tickets on the Radio X evening show, and then £200 of Shell Fuel vouchers on Magic. These were all text-to-win comps that cost standard rate (NOT premium rate!) which had been posted on the brilliant Radio Comps forum on Lucky Legends.

In October I won a TV and soundbar in the Abbot Ale instant win, and also won my first ‘seeded’ instant win prize when I found a stickered Nocco can in Asda (the sticker discovery was much more exciting than the prize of 12 cans and a tote bag though!)

After failing to win on Capital, I was excited to get a winning text message while at hospital with my mum in November – a 3 night trip to New York for 2 with $650 spending money, in the Brooklyn Brewery text-to-win comp at Tesco. I kept this a secret from Ryland, as I hoped to change the booking to include him. Cloud Nine were really helpful, and used the spending money towards his flight, and switched us to a cheaper Williamsburg hotel with two double beds in the room. I gave Ry a New York Guide book for Christmas with the itinerary and dollars inside and he’s so chuffed!

More November wins included a £75 cash win in the Lindor Tesco competition, a fun night out at the Connected Brighton Christmas party with my comping mate Natalie, and £45 Just Eat credit in the Tombola I’m a Celebrity QR code scanning comp.

Susannah invited me to Stylist Live in London and after putting in the effort to find the hidden gifts, we both won a goodie bag in their Treasure Hunt! My prize was a cute Isla de Mer bag worth £120, and Susanah won a bundle of beauty products.

I won a lovely prize from AllBarOne on Instagram – a year’s supply of Everleaf drinks and a £200 ABO gift card. The OG comping crew (from when I first started comping seriously in the 00s!) came to London for the day and I treated them all to cocktails!

My biggest win of the year came at the end of November when Magic Radio invited listeners to tell their stories of who they wanted to be reunited with, for a Moana 2 sponsored on-air promotion. My best friend Jo moved to Japan in 1999, and I knew this would probably be an unusual destination to choose as an entry – I was so excited to find out we had been shortlisted! We were both called to go on air together, Harriet announced that I had won a trip to Japan but actually the prize was an amazing £5,000 cash. Jo and I are currently researching Mongolia as a destination for our reunion, a new adventure for us both!

In December I didn’t enter many Advent Comps, but I did win the Casdon Toys Day 9 giveaway – kids cookbooks and biscuit making sets, and a shopping trolley playset perfect for my great nieces. I also won a glamping spa break at my favourite local campsite, Wowo! As you probably know, I love my cocktails so it was great to win a mobile mixology class including 4 drinks for 11 people with CleanCo, which I’ll book in for 2025.

I won a £100 Morrisons voucher from their Coke promotion (this had 200 prizes, and lots of Lucky Legends members won!). I also had a bash at TikTok Live Giveaways and won two small prizes in those – a lip gloss, and toiletry bag. And eventually, I won a Guinness jumper (I’ve been trying for years!) – and my final win of the year was a £50 voucher for Seoul Plaza in their Arirang Rice recipe competition.

And that’s it for my prize highlights this year – although I didn’t do too well ticking off my wishlist, I was delighted with my wins, especially the £5,000 cash. Using the BootComp Planner to focus my comping, get organised and plan in advance for purchase, effort and radio comps has worked well – although after all the radio wins I’m now on a ban from entering all comps on Bauer, Global and Wireless stations until at least April!

SuperLucky Community news

2024 has been an incredibly busy year for SuperLucky! The business took an unexpected change of direction in spring when my 80 year old Mum was diagnosed with cancer, and I needed to prioritise taking care of her and my 94 year old dad (who live far away from me in Wales). Advertising income from the SuperLucky website had dropped significantly after Google’s updates, and I realised I couldn’t continue to dedicate so much time sharing free content. So I made the big decision to launch the paid Lucky Legends membership, which would give access to the Compers Shopping List, a new competition forum and my monthly ‘Legends live’ streams. Over 1,800 compers have joined so far, and their feedback has been fantastic. And with SuperLucky finally making some income, I was chuffed to recruit my first member of staff, Gyongyi!

The Lucky Learners Facebook group is still as busy as ever, now with over 23,000 members. In November I celebrated ten years since its launch with a fun Facebook Live party with lots of prizes! The group is designed to be the first port of call for new compers, but most of the Legends are still regular contributors too which is lovely to see, and we have some great member giveaways posted.

Updated versions of my BootComp planner were published on Amazon in October, and in November my podcast interview with Helen Dewdney (The Complaining Cow) was broadcast on East London Radio (you can listen on Helen’s website here).

Plans for 2025

In 2024 I took a break from writing my beginners comping book, How to Win Competitions, in order to concentrate on Lucky Legends, but I’m determined to get it published in 2025. I’m also keen to upgrade the BootComp Planner to a sturdy ring bound book (with an integrated pocket!) for 2026. And I really want to make my plans for Lucky merchandise a reality too.

As for comping, I’m still putting together my 2025 prize wishlist and goals in my BootComp Planner and all will be revealed soon!

I’m excited that we’re having a compers get together in Glasgow on 22 February 2025 – it’s a reunion party for the winners of the Jet 2 Party Plane trip to Majorca in 2019, but Lucky Learners will have the opportunity to come along too – keep an eye out for more details in the Facebook group soon. Along with my comping mates Andrea and Kirsty, we have lots of ideas to make this an unforgettable party!

Thanks again to everyone involved with the SuperLucky community, whether you’re a Learner, Legend, BootComper, subscriber or just enjoy my social content and unboxings! I really appreciate your support and feedback.

Lucky Learners Big 2024 Wins

Of course, the members of my Lucky Learners Facebook group have had an epic 2024 too, here’s just a few of the highlights from our annual ‘biggest wins‘ post:

• Hazel won an MG in the monthly Autotrader electric car giveaway
• Edita won £10,000 with PG Tips
• Sarah won a VIP experience with Walkers at the Champions League Final
• Bobbie won a trip to Orlando with Magic FM worth over £7,000
• Emma won a £5,000 Lastminute.com voucher with Bertolli
• Lorna won a £5,000 holiday to Dubai & training with the Man City team
• Beth won £5,000 to spend at Next
• Ben won £5,000 on a Talk Sport quiz – and a £5,000 holiday voucher with Herbal Essences
• Karla won £5,000 for her kid’s dream thing with Fruit Shoot
• Susan won a £4,500 solo adventure tour to South Africa with G adventures
• Becca won a million Virgin points on Virgin Radio (worth over £5,000)
• Charlotte won a pair of flights to anywhere in the world, plus a £1,500 AirBnB voucher with Snapdragon
• Melissa won £2,775 in the ASDA Win your lunch promotion
• Claudia won a trip to Bali with Slimfast & Home Bargains
• Ree won a trip to Washington DC to see Arsenal Women on their pre-season tour, with £1000 spending money
• Kassi won £2,863 worth of Chapel Down wine
• Sarah won £2,000 of Wickes vouchers on Absolute Radio
• Rebecca won a trip to Thailand with Robinson’s
• Anglea won a 5 star trip to New York with Pop Tarts
• Amelia won a holiday to Finnish Lapland worth £4500 – and a trip to Las Vegas!
• Sophia won a trip to Las Vegas with JD Sports
• Ellen won £1,000 cash, £1,000 BoohooMan voucher, Apple iPhone 15 pro max and AirPods Max on Instagram
• Sarah won a £3,000 spa break to Evian in France
• Sharon won a £2,000 holiday voucher with TravelUp
• Kirsty won a family road trip adventure with 4 different hotel stays and activities, worth over £3,000
• Chris won £1,500 on Capital Radio
• Caroline won a family holiday to Crete with Aunt Bessie’s
• Sandra also won a trip to Crete and £1,000 of Simply Be vouchers
• Joanne and Sue both won EURO2024 tickets and £1,000 with Coca-Cola
• Simon won a dining table from Oak Furniture Land worth £1600
• Helen won a cruise on Greatest Hits Radio
• Amy won a trip to the Paris Olympics worth around £2,800 with SuperSavvyMe and Amazon
• Leah won a trip to Paris and tickets to the Olympics Closing Ceremony with Corona
• Abbie won a Valentine’s break and Fairfax and Favor clothes, worth over £3,000
• Gina and Kerrianne both won a bed with a built in TV from Benson’s
• Vikki won a trip to Tobago by voting in the Sun Travel Awards
• Vicky won £1,036 on Capital Breakfast’s Bong Game, and Annie won £1,313!
• Julianne won a £4,000 holiday to the Azores with Classic FM

Congratulations to you all!

Stay updated on all my prizes by watching my monthly unboxing videos on YouTube and subscribing to my fortnightly newsletter.

Tell me in the comments below (or on the chat post in Lucky Learners) about your own comping successes in 2024 and your plans for 2025! And if you’re a Lucky Legend, join me for a live broadcast on the evening of Monday 30th at 7.30pm to share our comping goals and dreams for the new year – find the link on the forum! Legends can also win a £25 voucher by sharing their 2024 successes on this forum chat topic.