Meet The Compers: Martin Garrod

Welcome to the first in a new series of Meet The Compers interviews! This time I’m chatting to Martin Garrod, an active member of both the Lucky Learners and Lucky Legends communities! Martin has had a lot of success over the past year or so, including several fabulous holiday wins. He reckons he’s won at least £21,000 worth of prizes in the last five years.

Martin, when did you enter your first competition?

When I was young I used to enjoy entering drawing competitions with my sister. The convenience food store Mace regularly had a judged colouring competition. My sister was better then me and she won a mountain bike – my mother was motivated by her win and started to enter prize draws. She won a food hamper and £50 shopping voucher (a lot of money in the 1980s!). When the voucher arrived Mum was ill with the flu, so she made me and my sister go, and naturally we got lots of sweets and chocolate! That was a great day for us and we bought what ever we wanted – it was a kid’s dream!

What was the first prize you won?

The first proper prize I can remember winning was on a local radio station about 20 years ago. It was on a Saturday morning and I was woken up by my radio alarm clock. When the song finished there was a competition on, I had no idea what the prize was but I had a real urge to enter it. I called in to answer the question “What is the most popular diet that people do to lose weight?”. I immediately knew what it was, it was simple – to eat less (and not one of those fancy diets!). With my voice still a bit croaky from just waking up I gave my answer and won – the prize was a bouquet of flowers, a Hungry Horse voucher and a head massager. It was around Mother’s Day so it was a nice little extra treat for my mum, although I did keep hold of the head massager!

Which websites do you use to find competitions?

I solely rely on Lucky Legends now but I used to just enter competitions advertised on products in the shops. I didn’t take it seriously until my partner and I won a trip to New York on a crisp packet bought in Sainsbury’s on my lunch break! After this happened I researched online forums to get guidence on comping – I found the Lucky Learners Facebook group, then joined Lucky Legends and find that I am winning more now than I have in the past! 

What type of comps do you like best?

My favourite competitions to enter are purchase necessary and instant wins, and competitions where it takes some effort to enter. To have the best chance on these you need to be awake in the early hours of the morning, so there are good and bad points to that but you feel more in control of a win. I find that entering early on I have more success at winning moments, because at that point there’s not many flashed packs in the shops and not many entries – so giving you a much better chance of winning.  I tend to wake up between 1am and 4am in the morning as my body clock is a bit out of sync and have won a lot of prizes entering at this time of day! Other than that I enter a lot of prize draws, I don’t enter many social media or radio comps although I will on the odd occasion if something grabs my attention. 

You’ve been on six prize holidays since you started comping – tell us all about them!

My first holiday win was with Nik Naks – it was an instant win text entry and the prize was for 2 people to have lunch up in a skyscraper with flights, hotel and £1000 spending money. We chose New York and it was at the One World Observatory. It was a game changer for me as it helped me to start getting over my fear of flying, and also gave me the desire to travel more.

The next holiday that I won was a free entry prize draw with Arla Milk in 2024. I remember reading the small print which said you could enter once a day, so I did that for the entire promotion period. I got the winning email on a Friday after work – I was on cloud nine for a while (which ironically was the name of the fantastic company who organised my prize!). I could choose between several destinations but I decided on Thailand as I’d always wanted to visit. The prize included flights and 7 nights in Phuket at a 5 star hotel, with a body massage at the hotel plus yoga. We added in extra excursions ourselves including a private long tail boat to the Phi Phi islands and a catamaran trip to James Bond island where we met some lovely American friends.

Later in 2024 I went on a prize holiday thanks to M&M’s – this was actually won by a family member but the promoter allowed them to pass it on to me! It was a trip to Disneyland Paris via Eurostar, with transfers and a one night stay at a Marvel hotel and two days park tickets plus spending money. I took my partner here for his birthday and they also had all the Christmas decorations up which made it even more special. 

My final holiday win of 2024 was the McCoys US road trip competition – this was an instant win purchase necessary comp and I won at 5am on a Saturday morning. Again, I had several destinations to choose from, all of which revolved around Route 66, and I chose Los Angeles. It included flights, Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood for 5 nights, a 3 hour classic car experience and spending money. We also met up with our American friends from the Thailand trip!

The next holiday win was in 2025 with O2 for completing a questionnaire about Samsung mobiles – you didn’t even need to have a Samsung to enter! I won a £750 TUI voucher. We booked a trip to Greece but unfortunately my partner’s grandmother fell ill and we had to travel to Brazil to look after her before she passed away. Our holiday insurance provider kindly reimbursed the voucher cost and this went towards the cost of our flights to Brazil instead, which was a great help.

My latest holiday win in 2025 was a £1,000 First Choice holiday with The Pizza Company – another instant win! We plan to use it for a 5 night all inclusive trip to Greece – this is what we planned to do with the Tui voucher, so we feel lucky to have another opportunity to go on this trip!

Do you believe in the law of attraction?

For sure! I always say if you’re a happy person then you draw happy people towards you – and can apply the same principle with attracting other things into your life. If you really desire something then I would say hold on to it in the present tense and imagine you already have it. Just being grateful for everything really does help manifesting things too. Just knowing it is due to you and is already yours and don’t think “I wish” but to know that this is coming very soon as it’s already yours. I knew I was going to win the Thailand holiday before I even won it!

I would say to manifest things, remember “SPEC”: Select it, Project it, Expect it, Collect it
(this acronnym was created by American comper Helene Hadsell, and you can find out more on the Contest Queen website – Di)

Do you have any tips for winning holidays?

If you want to win a holiday then concentrate on searching for those specific competitions, as there are so many comps at any one time to distract you! Check the small print and T&Cs on each one to see how many times you can enter – whether it’s daily, weekly or just once, and whether it’s purchase necessary. Not many people realise a lot of the time you can use the same receipt and enter multiple times.

I also use an app on my iPhone called Freeform to organise all my comps into separate files. I add in receipts, the competition details, any barcode details I need to enter if relevant and also the website link so it’s all there in one place, it’s then easily accessible and allI in one place. I also take pictures of receipts while I get them at the till just incase I lose it on the way home. Being organised is crucial to maximising your winning potential!

Do you share your wins with friends?

I sometimes share comp details or wins with friends or work colleagues – the ones which are free to enter and have a good chance of winning. One friend won some Thornton’s chocolate and another won a Guinness jumper just before Christmas from a text to win. My workmates loved the year’s supply of biscuits I won, and a couple of years ago I helped my whole work team to win a Guinness jumper and we wore them at our Christmas meal. The looks that we had from other restaurant guests was funny as we all had the same jumper on!

Have you ever had any celebrity encounters as a result of a prize?

When picking up my prize Eurostar tickets at St. Pancras I stumbled upon the singer Ella Henderson playing the piano and singing. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I had to Google her face and make sure it was her. We ended up chatting and even had a photo too. She was a really lovely person and asked how I was and was genuinely interested. It made my day. I had recently quit my job and was feeling low so it was a real pick-me-up moment. 

Another celebrity encounter was when my friend Chris and I were on the train to London in November 2024 on our Cadbury Day Out prize. A man I recognised walked past me and I said Hello and he said Hello back – I was trying to place him and after a while it hit me that It was Nigel Planer (Neil from the 80s TV series The Young Ones!) He was over the moon that someone recognised him, shook my hand and let me have a photo with him – a proper gentleman. 

Do you have any lucky charms?

I got myself a gold lucky cat in Thailand, which I keep on my desk to give me luck at work. It’s also a reminder of how lucky I have been with comping – it makes me smile when I glance at it every now and again, and appreciate what I have. 

What’s the best thing about comping?

I like working out where I can find certain flashed products for comps In supermarkets and this can sometimes mean going to hundreds of stores to try and find it! For me it’s like a treasure hunt and is part of the whole enjoyment. Sometimes I will go with friends in search of it or I might hop on the train and go out of town so there’s the dedication and time there. Once you find it you feel like you have already hit gold before you have even entered. It’s things like these that are hard to find that are worth searching for. This is how I won the trip to Los Angeles on McCoys crisps. I went around every single convienence store one Saturday with my friend but no luck that day, however after two weeks I finally found a flashed pack so I knew as it was hard to find that there couldn’t have been many entries – and I eventually won when I entered at 5am.

What’s the worst thing about comping?

Firstly, when you enter a competition and there’s an error on the website or with the “are you human” checks! This can be very frustrating. Secondly, for me it’s not getting enough sleep as I enter most of my competitions during the night. Some nights it will be 30 minutes and other times a couple of hours depending on how many there are. I try and enter prize draws during the day and leave only the winning moment entries ones for overnight!

Have you ever inspired anyone else to start comping? How are they getting on?

I won a hot air balloon ride for two people with Robinsons. I’m not keen with heights so I gifted it to some friends and went with them to watch. It was a lovely day and my friend Chris loved the experience and was motivated him to start comping as well. His biggest prize to date was 2 tickets to the Brit Awards at the O2 with spending money – he invited me as his guest and it was a brilliant day. Chris continues to enter competitions and I tell him “You will win again some time very soon, just believe in it and know it!”

What would be your dream holiday prize?

I want to go back to Thailand as I absolutely loved that experience – but I appreciate any holiday prize that comes my way!

Where can SuperLucky readers follow you on social media?

I’m @martingarrod1983 on Instagram!

Thanks so much Martin – I’m so inspired by your holiday successes!

If you enjoyed this interview please do check out the other Meet The Compers Q&As here. If you’d like to know more about the Lucky Legends membership, head to superlucky.me/luckylegends