I’ve got £1k free holiday, a shopping spree and front-row tickets by spending 2 mins a day on my phone – how you can too

ROB Bone never misses an opportunity to enter a competition and be in with the chance to win a top prize.

If the 29-year-old, from Uxbridge in London, spots a competition, he always stops to enter his email address, join a mailing list or scan a QR code.

Some may call him crazy, but Rob’s tactics have helped him to bag 13 prizes this year, including free show tickets, bottomless drinks and perfume.

Meanwhile, last year he scored seven prizes including a shopping spree, front row tickets to the live finale of ITV’s Mamma Mia: I Have a Dream and Virgin Experience points.

The social media executive said: “I often see a QR code when I’m on the bus, spot a form in a magazine or get served an Instagram post. I always see at least one competition a day and I never let it pass me by.

“I always have a positive attitude and think I’m going to win, so I pop in my email address and see.”

Rob enters so many competitions that he often forgets which ones he has signed up for – until he gets the call to say he’s won.

“I probably enter two competitions a day, so around 700 a year,” he said.

“I don’t track which ones I’ve entered, so when I get an Instagram DM, call or email to say I’ve won, it’s always a really happy moment.”

Every competition Rob has won was free to enter and he’s managed to bag thousands of pounds a year in prizes.

Rob first started entering competitions when he was a child and caught the bug after winning a giant Club Penguin toy.

But it was only at university when he started to enter competitions more seriously.

“When I went to university I knew that money was going to be scarcer and all of the little treats in life were going to be less regular,” he said.

“I thought, if I can get them for free elsewhere then it would make life a little bit more fun.”

Rob puts his success down to his positive attitude and believes it helped him to win a £1,000 shopping spree at luxury department store Harvey Nichols.

“I’d been out for a long day of shopping and had loads of bags,” Rob said.

“But when I went into Superdrug, I saw a cardboard stand, which was a collaboration between L’Oreal and Emily in Paris.

“The prize was a shopping spree at Harvey Nichols. All you had to do was scan a QR code and sign up.

“I dropped all my bags, entered my email, then went on my way. A month later I got an email to say I’d won, which was just amazing.”

Rob said his top prize was a £1,000 Love2shop holiday voucher, which he won through an Instagram competition.

“You just had to tag a friend in the post,” he said.

“My friend and I are going on holiday to Poland and all the flights and the hotel are paid for. We only had to pay £60 each for the trip.”

Meanwhile, last year he won 20,000 Virgin Experience Points, which he used to canoe across the world’s tallest aqueduct, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, in Wales.

But some of his favourite prizes are slightly more unusual.

“Sophie Ellis-Bextor is an ambassador for Lumos, a children’s charity, and I won a signed Christmas card from her.

“It’s part of my Christmas box and every year I bring it out and put it on the wall with everyone else’s cards.” 

To maximise his chances, Rob never enters Instagram competitions that have more than one hundred comments.

He keeps an eye out for local competitions on Facebook, which often have no entries.

“A lot of people don’t believe the prizes are real or the competition really exists,” he said.

“But there are hundreds of pounds worth of prizes up for grabs.”

Tips to bag the top prize

One way to check if a competition is real is by joining a comper Facebook group, Rob recommends.

These groups are made up of professional compers, who enter thousands of competitions each year.

“I regularly see people post in these groups and ask others if they think an email is real,” Rob said.

“Often they don’t know if they are being scammed as they enter so many competitions.

“Everyone in these groups then analyses the email to check if it’s legit.”

Users often also post links to competitions in these groups, so they can be a good place to look if you want to get started. 

You can also find competitions on websites including Loquax and The Prize Finder, Rob recommends.

Compers post any competitions they find on these websites, so you know they are legitimate.

But rather than getting swept up by the feeling of winning, Rob said it’s best to only enter competitions you want to win. 

“I love skincare, but if I see a skincare bundle, then I remind myself that I have five moisturisers at home,” he said.

“I won’t get that happy feeling when something comes through the door that I’m not actually going to use.”

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