Trip sweepstakes are one of the most frequently offered prizes available, but if you find one that can only be entered by a smaller group of people be sure to enter. This is the case in the Caribbean Giveaway that is only open to three states...

Residents of CT, FL and NJ should be all over this internet sweepstakes. It offers 25 people a chance to win a luxurious vacation in the Dominican Republic. This is exactly the kind of sweepstakes I look for to enter...limited eligibility and lots of prizes. If you do not live in one of the eligible states for this promotion, use it as a guideline of what you should be on the lookout for. Then be ready to enter when you find one for your area.

SweepsU.com puts locals side by side with the national sweepstakes on our Sweepstakes and Contest list, because we consider them the best of the best. If you do not want to view regional (state) sweepstakes that you cannot enter it is easy to eliminate those not open to your state from the list. Just click on "by Status" and then click on the box next to the words "Hide listings you are ineligible for (by region)". Then you will only be able to see the limited area sweeps open to your states and the nationals (of course). If at any time you want to view the sweeps not open to your region, just un-click the box and you will see what's being given away in other parts of the country.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

The Magic Wand Sweepstakes ends on July 31 and you can only enter once per person. If you have not already entered this sweepstakes, now is the best time to do so. Years ago, when drop box sweepstakes were all the rage, many sweepers made an extra effort to get at least one more entry in on the last day of the promotion (if the rules allowed). The strategy was a good one. The easiest sweepstakes entry to pull out of the box is the one on top so it was frequently selected as the winner.

Although sweeping has evolved and online entries far outnumber drop boxes these days, many sweepers still believe in the old theory and want to get one last entry submitted near the end of the sweepstakes life. If it is a one entry only sweepstakes, they wait until the last week or day to submit their entry. The reason for the strategy has changed, but it’s still a good one. Sweepstakes and contests have increased by the thousands in the past few years. Most people entering them lose track of the sweepstakes they were interested in as they move on to new ones. Those few who remember and get that late entry in will have fewer entries to compete with and a better chance of being selected.

To find the Magic Wand Sweepstakes on the SweepsU.com Sweepstakes and Contest list, do a Custom Search by typing the word magic in the Contest Name field. To list the sweepstakes by those ending soonest (so you can get one last entry in), just click on the word “Ends” at the top of the date column. To list only the "one entry" sweepstakes ending soonest, click on "by Frequency" and then click on either "One entry per person" or One entry per household".

Take care & win BIG!

Gwen

The Little Debbie "Back Yard Makeover Giveaway" is offering a large number of good prizes, but you must be careful to enter only once each week. The Meet Rascal Flatts Sweepstakes is giving away some fabulous trips and gift cards, but you can only enter it once a month.  With hundreds of new sweepstakes popping up every week, many people forget to go back and enter these sweepstakes the following week or month.

This gives the person who does remember to follow through on their weekly and monthly entries a bit of an edge. Anytime a sweepstakes has an element that makes them slightly harder to remember, they will receive fewer entries. You need to be careful though. If you submit an entry less than a week or a month from the time of your last entry for these two sweeps, you run the chance of being disqualified.  It is very important to maintain good records when entering these sweepstakes.

To learn how the SweepsU.com Sweeps Management System (SMS) keeps track of ALL your sweepstakes entries whether they are daily, weekly, monthly or one time only, read the Quick Start guide. Scroll down to the section about Sweeps and Contests and pay close attention to Tracker, Daily Email Notifications and Sweeps Unleashed.

To find either of the sweeps mentioned above on the SweepsU.com Sweepstakes and Contests list, do a Custom Search by typing debbie or rascal in the Contest Name field. To find other promotions that require limited entries, click on "by Frequency" and select any of the weekly or monthly options.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

A technical error for this M&Ms sweepstakes could put you on the receiving end of some nice prizes. The M&M/Mars Company is a great sweepstakes Sponsor and wants to make up for the error by offering a second sweepstakes to award the coupon prizes.

The original promotion ends on July 15, 2010 and the new promotion will begin at Noon on July 16, 2010. Keep an eye on the SweepsU.com Sweeps and Contests list for full details. To view the notice posted on the M&Ms contest website click here.

To find the original sweepstakes listing on the SweepsU.com Sweeps and Contests list, do a Custom Search by typing m&m into the Contest Name field. To find it after the sweepstakes ends, just select "by Status" and "Expired" before you do the Custom Search. If you have been tracking this sweepstakes you will need to do these searches from within your "tracker".

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

The week before Father's Day is loaded with great opportunities to win a prize or two for Dear Ole Dad! This is the week to be listening to your local radio stations...morning, noon and night. Those stations will be teaming up with area retailers to tempt you to come to their live remotes at specific locations and shop for the best gifts for Dad. The carrot they will be dangling to get you there is usually a giveaway with some very nice prizes.

Many of the radio stations also feature call-in-to-win sweepstakes where you have to be a certain number caller to win. There are frequently some great opportunities for winning by writing or calling in to tell them just how great your Dad is! Don't let the writing competitions scare you. You probably have plenty of good material to use if you just think about it. If you want some tips on how to come up with a well written entry, you can read my article in Sweeps University, titled "I Can't Write...". You'll have to speed things up on these entries though, cause most  local Father's Day sweeps and contests will end by Friday.

You may also find a few retailers running Father's Day sweeps in the store. Check your local newspaper and watch the ads for anyone having a giveaway and offering prizes that you are interested in. It could be a Mall, department store, drug store, gas station, barber shop, car dealership...these and many more will use prizes to lure in customers. Most of them will run right up until Saturday or Sunday to try and get those last minute shoppers to pick them. They may not draw until the week after Father's Day, so be sure and get Dad a gift while you are filling out those entry forms.

I have always said that local sweeps are the best! You are up against a fraction of the entries that are received in a national promotion. So give it a shot and then let us know how you did.

Happy Father's Day to all of the sweepers this holiday was created for! May you and your families spend a wonderful day together.

Gwen Beauchamp

It’s finally happening! Only four more weeks of Beta Testing and SweepsU.com will be launched as a full-fledged website. Of course, this also means there are only four weeks left to get your entries in for the SweepsU.com Contest & Sweepstakes open only to our Testers. You can still be one of the two lucky winners of a brand new Netbook and a LIFETIME subscription to SweepsU.com. Scroll down to read the contest rules or you can look them up on the Sweeps List, but don’t waste any more time…Beta Testing and the Sweepstakes both end on June 30^th!

Gwen

P.S. Be sure to keep an eye out for a very special message from the SweepsU.com team with our price structure and subscription options.  It won’t be long now!

SweepsU.com Beta Tester Sign-Up Sweepstakes & Contest

Eligibility: Open only to registered SweepsU.com Alpha and Beta Testers. Previous winners are eligible to win again.

Promotion End Date: June 30, 2010

Promotion Drawing Date: Within five (5) business days of the end of the promotion period.

Entry Limit: There is No Limit to the number of entries submitted by any one person.

How to Enter: Login to SweepsU.com and click on "Sweeps and Contests". In the menu on the left side of the page, you will see "Invite Friend." Click on it and type in the first and last name and email address of a friend you are inviting to be a Beta Tester at SweepsU.com. You can also include a personal message to your friend if you would like. Click on "Send Invitation" and you are done.

You will receive one (1) entry into the Sweepstakes and one (1) entry into the Contest for each new Beta Tester who signs up as the result of your invitation. You will not receive an entry if your friends do not complete the Beta Tester registration.

Each new person who signs up to be a Beta Tester for SweepsU.com will be eligible to enter the Contest and Sweepstakes by inviting their own set of friends.

There will be two (2) Grand Prize winners:

• Contest Grand Prize winner - The person who invited the most people who responded and completed the Beta Tester registration process
• Sweepstakes Grand Prize winner - randomly drawn from all the entries received

If there is a tie for the Contest Grand Prize, the winner will be determined by a random drawing of the tied entries. The Contest Grand Prize winner is not eligible for the Sweepstakes Grand Prize. There is a limit of one (1) prize per person.

PRIZES:

One (1) Contest Grand Prize: An Acer Netbook (ARV $300) and a Life-time subscription to SweepsU.com (ARV: Priceless!)

One (1) Sweepstakes Grand Prize: An Acer Netbook (ARV $300) and a Life-time subscription to SweepsU.com (ARV: Priceless!)

Two (2) Sweepstakes Runner Up Prizes: Five (5) large bars of Scharffen Berger Premium Milk Chocolate (courtesy of TuttiFoodie.com) (ARV $20)

I am the non-techy half of the SweepsU.com team. I work full-time in the IT department at a major university so I do know a few things. But all my years at the IT Help Desk couldn't prepare me for the glitch the SweepsU.com team experienced last week. (Scroll down to see the photos)

The techy half of SweepsU.com is Gerald Anderson, a genius in my opinion. Gerald has written almost all of the programs on SweepsU.com from scratch which is why you will not find them on other sweepstakes websites. We are in our final month and a half of Beta Testing and anxious to add more users to really put Gerald's programs to the test. That's when it happened...the BIG glitch...let's call it Sam.

Several CBS affiliates across the country were scheduled to broadcast an interview with Robert and I. We knew it was coming, thought we were ready, but we didn't count on Sam. You see, Gerald and his wife, Erica, have been expecting a baby and last week everything happened at once.

Erica goes into labor...a few weeks early.

A CBS station airs SweepsU.com information a few days early.

Erica requires surgery to deliver the baby.

300 people sign up to be SweepsU.com Beta Testers.

Samuel Gerald Anderson (Sam) is born

Gwen has a problem & can't get the Beta Testers on - non-techy partner...remember!

Sam is moved to NICU

Other CBS affiliates air the interview.

Gerald splits his time between 3-year old Maddie (at home), Erica & Sam

1,000 more Beta Testers sign up

Gerald tries talking me through the problems

More CBS affiliates air the interview

Erica and Sam are released from the hospital

Over 2,000 beta testers have applied

Hallelujah!

It has been a mad house, but Erica and Sam are finally home and doing well. Gerald is trying his best to work SweepsU.com into a very busy schedule...2am feedings...changing diapers...playing with Maddie! This is definitely the biggest glitch we've experienced since we started Beta Testing at SweepsU.com. But what can I say, Sam just couldn't wait to join the team.

Now for the latest report on SweepsU.com from Gerald. He is almost ready to start sending out email invitations, but we need to do this cautiously. Therefore, when Gerald gives the word I will start sending out invitations in batches of 25. We will wait a few hours, possibly more, and if all goes well send out another batch. This will continue until everyone has received their invitations and logged on to SweepsU.com. The invitations will go out in the same order as the Beta Applications were received. No cutting in line allowed! It will take us several more days, but this is what Beta Testing is all about.

Please be patient and keep an eye out for an email from SweepsU.com. We should be sending one to each of you very soon! Now scroll on down to see some wonderful photos of Sam.

Gwen Beauchamp

Who is that masked man?

Sam in NICU.

Finally at home where he belongs!

There are a lot of rumors floating around about people who enter sweepstakes on a regular basis and (OMG) win lots of prizes!  Some people say that all sweepstakes are scams and the winning stories they hear are put out by the scammers to lure new people in. Others say you have to be really “lucky” to win and don’t even try. And then there are those who tell me, “I entered one once, didn’t win, and knew it was a rip off!”

Well, I am living proof that all of these statements are incorrect! Sure there are scammers out there and you do want to be cautious about what you enter, but there are thousands of legitimate sweepstakes as well. Do you honestly believe that major companies would scam you? Come on, they are pedaling as fast as they can to get consumers to use their products. The last thing they want is bad PR. They will do everything possible to draw your attention to those products and that includes giving away some fantastic prizes. What may seem like unbelievable jackpots to you are just peanuts in the marketing budgets of major corporations. Marketing firms know that the way to get the public’s attention is to give them something to dream about and associate with the product they are trying to sell. Federal Law makes it very clear that once that promotion is advertised it must be completed right up to the distribution of the prizes listed in the rules.

As for being “lucky” in order to win, I spell luck…W-O-R-K! The old saying is very true; if you don’t enter you cannot win. I only win prizes from approximately 10-15% of the sweepstakes and contests I enter and the majority of those are lower level prizes (t-shirts, ball caps, CDs, etc.). The trick is to keep entering and don’t get discouraged. If you continue to enter consistently you are bound to win something along the way. There are methods to up your odds, just read some of my articles in the Sweeps University section of SweepsU.com to learn more about them.

So what about the people who say they gave it a shot and didn’t win anything? If a man goes fishing and doesn’t get a nibble the first time he puts his line and hook in the water, does he have the right to say no one really catches fish. Others couldn’t possibly have caught anything just because he didn’t.  That’s ridiculous, as are people who say they entered a sweepstakes once and didn’t win therefore all sweepstakes are just scams. Anything worthwhile requires a bit of time and persistence. You are not going to win everything you enter, but if you stick with it and enter consistently for several months there is a good chance that you will win something.

One thing that will help you in getting started is a good source of sweepstakes to enter and a system to keep track of them. That is where SweepsU.com comes in. We plan to launch the website by the end of June 2010 with a Community area that allows you to really get to know your fellow sweepers through Blogs, Forums and My Community, an up to date list of current sweepstakes, an absolutely one-of-a-kind Sweepstakes Management System (SMS) created by my partner, Gerald Anderson, and a Sweeps University section where you can read articles that will help to educate you on the “how to’s” of sweepstaking and contesting.

We are currently accepting applications for Beta Testers on SweepsU.com, but there is a waiting list. It will be several days before you receive an email invitation after you fill out and submit the Beta Tester application.  Once you are invited to log in you will have full access to all of the programs on SweepsU.com for just over a month before we launch the website. This includes well over 1,000 current sweepstakes on the Sweeps List that should help to get your sweepstaking off to an excellent start.

I can't wait to hear about all the wonderful prizes you win!

Gwen Beauchamp

In 1988 I wrote a poem that very literally changed my life. That poem resulted in my husband, Robert, and I winning a "Disney Wedding On Ice". It was a fairy tale beginning to a life filled with prizes and experiences we had never before dared to dream of. But it didn't just "happen". It was not because we were "lucky".  After our "Wedding", I didn't even enter to win anything for over a year. But my second win was another big one!

The Coca-Cola and Fox Isle of Dreams Treasure Hunt Cruise (November 5-12, 1989) was both a local and a national sweepstakes with 15 cruises being given away in my metropolitan area and 500 throughout the U.S. and Canada. It was luck that I found the promotion, filled out the forms  and mailed them in, but I soon learned that I had lucked into a winning strategy.

• Locals receive fewer entries than nationals and offer you the best chances of winning
• Mail-ins give you a better chance, because fewer people will take the time to fill out both an entry form and an envelope and pay for postage to mail it in.

Our next lesson came while sailing the Caribbean aboard Carnival Cruise Lines MS Jubilee. Five hundred winners included a lot of people who had been entering and winning repeatedly for years.  We heard story after story that week from sweepers all over the country about the incredible prizes they had won. We learned about sweepstakes newsletters and received information on every aspect of entering and winning both sweepstakes and contests. By the time our ship returned to Miami, Robert and I were both excited at the prospect of what our future might hold.

That was well over 20 years ago! Those first lessons in sweeping were put to very good use. We have now won 12 cruises, most recently the Bud Light Port Paradise cruise (October 2009). This hobby has been extremely good to us, but once again, let me stress that luck is only a small part of the winning process. In the old days you needed a good newsletter, but back then we did not have the World Wide Web. Your best tool in this new world of internet access is a good sweepstakes website that gives you a source of current promotions to enter, a forum to interact with your fellow sweepers and programs to simplify and organize the sweepstaking process. It is our goal at SweepsU.com to provide all of this and more to enable others to create their own "only in sweepstaking" adventures.

Gwen Beauchamp

To read more of Gwen's tips for entering sweepstakes and contests check out her articles in Sweeps University.

My youngest daughter, Joy, has started sweeping! Hallelujah!!! It only took a lifetime of watching Mom & Dad consistently enter and win prizes to get her going. In her defense I will say that she has won more than her share of trips, experiences and luxury items without doing a thing. Let's face it, if you can win without entering...why not? Relatives of sweepers are the luckiest people you will ever meet. Unfortunately for the rest of us, if you want to win something you have got to get busy. But where do you start? Which sweeps will bring you the fastest payback?

LOCALS! I repeat...L-O-C-A-L-S! Any sweepstakes that is open to only a small geographic area ups your odds significantly. How do you find them? TV, radio, newspapers, open your eyes and ears, they are all around you just waiting to be entered. If you live in or near a large city you have tons of them. The best way to find the most is to join a sweepstakes club where the members keep each other informed. If there is not one in your area, try starting one. Two people searching doubles your chances of finding!

Be willing to learn new skills! The internet has changed the world of sweepstaking forever. There are more sweepstakes than we ever thought possible popping up daily on the world wide web. Years ago I told people that there were more than 400 sweeps to enter on any given day. That number is now closer to 4,000...probably more! Internet websites offer sweepstakes, contests and instant win games, but even those are becoming harder to win because there are so many people sweeping and these are fast and simple to enter. Look for the promotions that are more difficult to enter. Twitter is full of giveaways and it is still new enough that many people have not learned to use it. If you master it before the majority of the people, you have a big advantage. To learn to use Twitter, do a Google search (or other search engine) for "Twitter how to". You'll find dozens of articles to help you learn everything you need to know.

The internet now hosts thousands of Blogs on every subject imaginable. Almost all of them offer a prize or two now and then and many have giveaways on a regular basis. The prizes are usually smaller, but they get fewer entries than the big sweeps do and you have a much better chance of winning. I won a KitchenAid food processor last year from a cooking blog with one entry. It may not be a big prize, butit is one of my favorites!

Skill contests require fewer entries, but more time and thought. Most people want to do what's quick and easy. So go against the crowd and start looking at skill contests. You don't have to be a great writer, cook or photographer to have a good idea. Read the articles in the Contests Tips & Tricks section of SweepsUniversity on SweepsU.com to help you get started. Joy's first prize that she won herself was from the Qittle Live The Dream Contest. She submitted her one and only entry on a Wednesday and received a phone call on Friday. She has not yet done anything other than fill out an online entry form. But this promotion is awarding a weekly prize via a random drawing. 100 entries will be drawn at the end of the sweepstakes and those people will be asked to submit a video telling why they want to win. Because a video is involved and maybe the Grand Prize doesn't appeal to many (a year in Colorado) they will not receive many entries. Also, they did not say what the weekly prizes would be, just that they would be valued between $50-$500. Joy won a fabulous LoveSac by CitySac valued at $500.

A few other quick tips:

• enter sweeps offering a large number of prizes
• look for short running sweeps, the shorter it is the fewer entries
• get your entries in at the beginning for sweeps having daily or weekly drawings

As always, remember that sweepstaking comes with no guarantees, but  22 years of winning have taught me that you can tip the balance in your favor.

Gwen Beauchamp