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My complete guide to winning airline competitions

I'm actually writing this on the 20th December 2019 before my third win with pre-emptive confidence that I am going to win another big airline competition by more skill rather than luck.

1. The first was Sri Lankan airlines. I submitted a picture of my decorated Christmas desk at work and told them why I wanted to go to Sri Lanka. Skill and research led me to be chosen and taken out for a week to Sri Lanka with everything paid for. They even filmed it and I am on their website.

2. Air Transat did a mother's day competition. I signed my mother's card with the other page explaining that I want to go to Canada to see my uncle, auntie and cousins. They picked it for originality.

Since then I've entered 100's more competitions on FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM ranging from Tagging / Commenting / Sharing / Downloading apps / Writing essays / Making videos & pictures. I have come close in quite a few and it keeps spurring me on.

Here's some rules to abide by to help you get your first win.

The most important one first

Read fully the T&C's (Terms and conditions) and understand them. Then re-read them again. You will find you missed something across many pages and that 1 little thing can disqualify your entry. Sometimes it even comes down to uploading the right picture format and 200x200 pixels! etc. Also a lot of people throw their entry in the comments section when it's not counted!

Use an independent account so that other people can't hop onto your potential win. Algorithms will show friends what they might also be interested in and what friends are doing. There was one with only 12 legit entries so having a few people hop onto the competition via you might have someone else win. If it's that long lost person you didn't really like from school that you forgot you had added. Well don't blame me lol. Finally it also helps you to see competitions in your news feed only and you may have to block some pages that are not relevant but sponsored, but all this is easier than your main account.

Have a trusted friend/partner who you can tag any time of day in any competition as a lot ask for this. Make sure they don't go liking and commenting all over it as the algorithms again will show 3rd party friends over theirs.

Remember you can't win them all. There will be complete frustration and let down in some competitions. You may even have a hard time getting to sleep one night as you convince yourself you are the winner. An airline once chose mine to display amazing entries so far. Honestly mine was very detailed with a photo and the chosen winners were pretty much "I want to go here with my friend" Fuming! Many competitions choose at random so therefore beware of putting in lots of time to the standard. (Tag a friend and comment below some shit).

Although it may be tempting, never call out people for their invalid entries. You see people do this regularly helping out people that don't read and it's dog eat dog. If you don't understand how to enter, give yourself a break for a day or 2 and see if you can work it out as you don't want to create a huge hype of invalid entree's now re-entering legit.

Some competitions use flash games like tetris or little games. If the rules say a random pick of anyone that submits their score. Enter. If its highest score have a go but know that there's probably some kid out their scripting the best score while he's sleeping! Very unfair. I met one of these people in China and they were a millionaire from doing higher level scripting as a career and they showed me it in action!

Keep a log and calendar of competitions ending so you can keep track. Many times I have gone back and used another account not associated with my entry to call out BULLSHIT winners and referred to the T&C's. Most of the time the winners will be re-picked if enough people complain (Hence the reason for using another account to call out). Further to this a lot of competition organisers need a bit more time to draw the winner. The amount of people that complain and get rude is hilarious and they are definitely excluding themselves as winners haha

Don't jump on the bandwagon. Be very original and detailed. NEVER take pictures from the internet! Sometimes you are asked to provide a "personal" picture of the country they are sending you to (RARE). Find a facebook friend and low key use their photo of that country, but make sure it's not traceable. Hence the alternative account to avoid friend detection first. Should be fine, maybe even bring them a gift back and tell them the whole story if you did win it lol.

Another Don't jump on the bandwagon. I'm a big believer that when you win something they list your name in their database. So why enter to win a model plane or a goodie bag. I've nearly entered many times without reading the T&C's finding it's a tiny prize and that could really take you out the big win in the future. It looks fixed to have a person win twice! We all know it.

Keep a folder with essays, finest photos, information which you feel will stand out. It's quite easy to adapt an essay or picture which you are really into and come at a new competition with a different angle.

Do not suck up to the competition organisers with your entry/response. No family tragedies or I'm poor story's.

Check the amount of follows and start date of pages you are entering competitions through. Anything from 0-100 is pretty much bullshit. 100-500, be cautious. 1000+ and you're looking good to go. All SandrasTips or whatever is pure bullshit. No one gives a car for free away every month. Its collecting lots of personal details and being sold onto marketing companies who will most likely make a sale from vulnerable / uneducated people. Also have the occasional clear out of pages you follow that are not relevant to your news feed and apps.

Don't ever comment on a post / like a post / share a post unless asked to. Algorithms will show people what is trending/popular increasing the chance of popping up on peoples news feeds on the world stage. This means being organised to post your entry on their facebook post in the final hours of the competition. Reduce the "multiplication of bacteria" affect. Some competitions state a deadline date for entries but always have a clause that allows them to change their T&C's so suit them for closing the competition earlier than expected as they get too many entries. Just get that entry in if you can see the hype!

If you're at a festival, ask if you don't see any competitions. Half the time there’s something alright going and sometimes you don't have to pay for tickets.

Take a screenshot if you're in a rush and come back to it the SAME DAY. Same day is a must as I've missed out some easy competitions by mere hours!. As I'm writing this I missed one yesterday. Some capabilities of facebook are better on a laptop/PC and so are the external links which you go through to enter from legit pages which are often buggy when clicking that most important "Enter" button. Double click and you usually give a double entry which under the T&C is a disqualification. This is why I have got into the screenshots as some are simply near impossible to enter by phone! Crappy website designers! Also keep in mind there's more sponsored competitions via phone app's.

Bookmark entry pages and one's you can enter daily and to keep an eye on and also remember the one's you've already signed up to as most disqualify duplicate entries. Some let you re-enter if you are unhappy with your first. It's very good to see competition that emerges over the course of the competition. I have seen winners win with their second entry before.

Some of them you are just going to find so simple and some you should know when to not bother. For example. They want you to make a movie hyping up your town. I'm out already, someone in a nice city is going to destroy you over your random village/town.

Proper photograph competitions. If you don't have a very expensive camera and photo editing, forget it. No one gives a crap about iphone images.

Think about how you display and present entries. Merge photos or join them with an essay by the side with font large enough to read. Pretty it up. Remember lot's of competitions want to display your entry as raw as you sent it in. Get it presentable. No big airline with 1mil followers is going to show anything that isn't smart and professional.

Have a good look at entries for ideas. You can spur on a new idea and end up not shooting yourself in the foot with something less interesting than the competition.

Check filtered messages occasionally. Sometimes you can get messaged for the next phase of entries or as I have found one employee contacted me off her personal account which was in my "message requests". I went straight to the Air Transat main page with the screenshot to check if legit. Luckily it was and then I started the process of getting my FREE FLIGHTS TO TORONTO.

DPA - Data Protection

Be damn careful of just signing up to entry forms.

Name and email should be fine. You can use a different email just for competitions. You can also use a name for each one to detect who's selling your details to companies as the emails will address you by that name. You can really catch some companies out easy that way.

Address' and phone numbers are more personal. You should be confident that you are signing up to a more legit place. Even if not that legit nothing really happens. It's just you're getting more specific details in someone's database and can get spam letters and phone calls based on your area to sell you insurance or energy plans.

I've had to block many numbers over the years but it's really dying down to not getting any anymore.

Never sign into Facebook via an email link to enter a competition. Always through the normal channels and paste the hyperlink in. If you're already on Facebook logged in and you copy the link in and asks to log in. BULLSHIT get away.

Never ever give any payment details. This guide is based on completely free entries for big wins.

 Finally

Remember there's nothing that similar of a rush than winning a flight and holiday somewhere absolutely free!

Don't become obsessed with competitions, it can consume your day and most of the time waiting around for something you won't win which is why the calendar is a good idea. Write the deadlines in and check it once a day.

Never be a sore loser for a legit winner, be happy for them, they might be in a really bad situation and this has allowed them to see someone across the other side of the world they haven't seen in 20 years.

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