The KidsWB.com "Grab Bag of Fun Giveaway” and the Crown Royal Matt Kenseth Promotion have several different time periods in which you can enter. The catch is that the entries from one period DO NOT roll over into the next sweepstakes or contest entry period. So if you are one of the few who remembers to enter during the new times you have much better odds of winning.

To find the KidsWB.com "Grab Bag of Fun Giveaway" on the SweepsU.com Sweepstakes and Contest list, do a Custom Search and type kids in the Contest Name field. To find the Crown Royal Matt Kenseth Promotion type crown in the Contest Name field.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

Let's face it everyone wants to win Cash Sweepstakes, Car Sweepstakes and Travel Sweepstakes, but what about those sweepstakes offering off the wall prizes that would only interest a few?

For example, the New Orleans Hotel Collection/Saints Ticket Sweepstakes would only be of interest to a person who either lives within driving distance of the Superdome in New Orleans or is planning a trip there. Okay, there might be a few die-hard New Orleans Saints fans who would go all out on this one, but not many! This promotion will only receive a small percentage of the entries sent in on a Cash, Vehicle or Trip Sweepstakes and you should constantly be on the lookout for sweeps like this offering less popular prizes. If the prize is of interest to you and few others, your odds of winning are much better.

When I know that I am traveling somewhere several months in advance.  I start looking for sweeps offering smaller prizes for tickets and gift cards to events in that area of the country. It can really help the travel budget when you are able to visit a few of the tourist attractions for free. Be sure to watch the eligibility on each sweepstakes to make sure that you are allowed to enter.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

The FAO Schwarz Fall Into Fun Sweepstakes is offering 4 fabulous bundles of toys as prizes. The Best Buy® Halo®: Reach New York City Flyaway Sweepstakes is giving Xbox 360 consoles to 25 winners. There are dozens more current sweepstakes offering great prizes that you can use for gift giving during the holidays. But you need to be entering these Game and Toy giveaways right now in order to have any prizes you win delivered before the holidays.

Judging agencies can be notoriously slow in shipping prizes to sweepstakes winners. You will receive them, but not always as soon as you would like. I have always entered the sweepstakes offering hundreds or thousands of small prizes throughout the year than hide them as they are delivered. It has been a big help with my holiday budget to start the season with free gifts and stocking stuffers. So, if you haven't already started working on your holiday stash...GET BUSY! Oh...and be sure to keep an eye out for local promotions. Not only do they give you better odds of winning, they are usually a little quicker with the prize deliveries as well.

To find the FAO Schwarz Fall Into Fun Sweepstakes, Best Buy® Halo®: Reach New York City Flyaway Sweepstakes and other sweepstakes offering games and toys as prizes on the SweepsU.com Contest and Sweepstakes list do a search by clicking on "by Prize" and "Games/Toys/Video Games & Systems". To find a specific prize such as Xbox 360 consoles, do a Custom Search by typing xbox in the Prize Description field.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

The Gadling and jetBlue AYCJ Sweepstakes started on August 25th and ends on September 1. On Tuesday, August 24th the Entertainment Weekly “LOST” Box Set Contest ran for 8 hours only. Both of these are extremely short running sweepstakes which really ups your odds of winning. If sweepers do not check their sources regularly, these short ones are over before they even know about them.  To get in on as many of the short running sweeps as possible check the SweepsU.com Sweepstakes and Contest list regularly and keep an eye on the "Start" date as well as the "Ends" date. Your sweepstakes entries have a much better chance of being selected when there are fewer entries to compete with.

To find the Gadling and jetBlue AYCJ Sweepstakes on the SweepsU.com Sweepstakes and Contest list do  a Custom Search and type gadling in the Contest Name field. To find the EW “LOST” Box Set Contest, look in the SweepsU.com Forums under "Urgent Sweeps".

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

Meijer has two new sweeps that just started, the Sweet Style Sweepstakes and Back to College Shopping Spree Sweepstakes, but only five states are eligible to enter. That makes these a great promotion to get in on. Any time a sweepstakes is limited to a specific area of the country…

…your odds of winning are increased. At SweepsU.com we list local sweepstakes alongside nationals, because we want you to win! So always watch for locals sweepstakes that increase your chances of winning!

We also want to save you the time of looking through sweeps you may not be eligible to enter. The SweepsU.com Sweeps Management System (SMS) knows your home state and color codes each sweeps listing for you. If the wording “Only in…” or “Void in…” under and to the right of the Sweeps name is RED, you are not eligible to enter. If the wording is BLUE, you are eligible to enter the promotion. If you prefer not to even view sweepstakes that you are not eligible to enter, select “by Status” in the Search menu, then check the box next to the words “Hide listings you are ineligible for (by region)”. All of those sweeps with red letters that you couldn’t enter are now hidden from your view. If you want to see them again, just uncheck the box and they will reappear on the list instantly.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

The final round of the Kroger Summer of Savings Game begins today and gives sweepers an excellent opportunity to win some free food. The prizes are not big ones, but there are so many of them that the odds are good that you will win something!  If you haven't won any prizes lately...

it may be just the motivation you need to get you in the mood to start sweeping again. Winning a prize, no matter how small, gives you the incentive to continue entering. The more sweepstakes you enter the more likely you are to win something, which once again stimulates you to enter even more sweepstakes and hopefully win more prizes. It really is a sweepstaking Merry-Go-round! So instead of strictly entering the big travel sweepstakes or the House sweepstakes offering one prize, look for something with hundreds or thousands of lower level prizes. Winning a small prize may be just the mental boost you need to keep going until you win that big one.

To find the  Kroger Summer of Savings Game on the SweepsU.com Sweepstakes and Contest list. Click on Custom Search and type kroger into the Contest Name field.

Take care and win BIG!

Gwen Beauchamp

 

Check the listings in SweepsU.com for twitter sweepstakes to enter.  Follow the links to those sweepstakes.

On twitter search for the words winner, win, sweepstakes and giveaway.  You will find many using that method.  But silly people also use win and winning when talking about sports.  I do not care about the score of the game- I want to enter to win for giveaways.  This is a very time consuming way to find giveaways.

The best way I have found is to follow fellow sweepers who follow other sweepers who follow the giveaways.   Start by following me on twitter.  My twitter name is rose7am   Click on find people at the top of the page, type in the name and it will take you to my page.  After you become a follower of me or anyone else, you will be able to see the postings by me and everyone I am following on my page.

Short version on entering now, more details in the next blog. You want to start entering to win. Pick one of the tweets.  It will show the twitter name of who posted it on my page.  This is the first word that will show in blue, and then it will show a http: link again in blue, what giveaway this tweet is about and following @ again in blue the name of the sponsor.  Clear as mud right?

Click on the http: link this will take you to the information on the giveaway.  Read it all very carefully.  Every giveaway has a certain way they want you to enter.  RETWEETING will not always do it for you.  Some want you to follow them on twitter, some want you to sign up for their blog, some want you to tweet certain words and then post a comment on their blog that you tweeted and REQUIRE it to be done in a certain order.

Read the rules, understand the order to enter, check to make sure the giveaway is not expired, that it is a giveaway for your state or country.  Lots of Canadian and UK giveaways too, do not assume that it is for your area.

Check the prize, is it something you want or could use?  Tweeting is like sweeping only enter for something that appeals to you.  No kids, skip the diaper giveaways, no dog forget the dog food giveaways

The @ followed by a name in blue is who is sponsoring this giveaway.   This is where your sweeper smarts are really useful.  Click on that name.  It will open the Twitter, Web, or Blog for the sponsor.  Poke around a bit.  Does this look like a person or company you would associate with or tell you friends about?   Think about this- I do not care if they are giving away a computer or whatever.  If they do not appear trustworthy, or feel creepy, or sleazy, chances are they are not really giving away that wonderful item.    Do they have rules posted? Some places do not have many rules.  But there should be at least an ending date.     IF they are a big name retailer, fast foods chain no worries.  There are many great prizes given away by the smaller sites also.  Check them out and win something big.

You can tweet till your little twitter fingers fall off- but if you do not follow the rules you have wasted your time.

Go out there and practice entering for twitter giveaways.

More details on my brilliant and duh moments learning twitter in the next blog posting.

Roseann

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.

I have got to learn to use Twitter!!! Sweepstaking is evolving and if I don't keep up I'll be left out on some great prize winning opportunities. But...I have been banging my head against the computer in my frustration with this latest way to enter sweepstakes. It's okay folks, my computer wasn't hurt. I just can't seem to figure it out on my own and all I've gotten out of trying is this silly little jingle going through my head. It's from a McDonald's commercial back in the 80's with a bunch of kids from Camp Nippersinker, wearing raincoats and chanting...

 

We are Nippersinkers, we're in luck,

If it rains all day, just pretend you're a duck!

Waddle-Waddle, Quack-Quack, Waddle-Waddle, Quack-Quack!

 

So here I sit at my computer with that chant coming back to haunt me. I can't get it out of my head, so as the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em...

 

We are sweepers and we've got the pluck,

To learn new ways to increase our luck,

Twitter-Twitter, Tweet-Tweet! Twitter-Twitter, Tweet-Tweet!

 

No, I haven't lost it! After writing my own silly jingle I moseyed on over to www.twitter.com and signed in to my account, but after that...I * AM * LOST! It looks like a foreign language - I don't even know where to start. But this time I took it to the top. I asked the great GOOGLE.! I typed in "twitter how to" and the great GOOGLE did not disappoint.  It pulled up 356,000,000 articles that matched my search. I'm still working on the first 10, but so far they are great.  Step by step details on what to do and how to twitter with a few videos as well. I should be a twitter expert by the time I get through all of these and I only have 355,999,993 to go!

Gwen Beauchamp

Along with all the great Sweeps already listed on SweepsU.com we're starting a good one of our own. Gerald has removed the wait time for new Beta Testers, which means everyone gets on as soon as they are approved. SO BRING 'EM ON! Send invitations to your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, bowling team, carpool, Sunday School class, PTA members...you get the idea!

Everyone who signs up using the link you sent them earns you an entry towards winning some great prizes. At the same time, you will be giving your friends the advantage of using SweepsU.com at no charge during Beta Testing. So what are you waiting for? Read the rules below and start sending your invitations out now.

Gwen

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 Start Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Promotion End Date: Will be the same as the Beta Testing end date currently scheduled for the 1st quarter of 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 Management System" (SMS). Once you are in the SMS you will see a new heading, "Invite Friend." Click on it and type in the first and last name and email address of a friend you think would like 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.

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. The person who has the most people sign up as Beta Testers for SweepsU.com will be awarded the Contest Grand Prize. The Sweepstakes Grand Prize will be awarded to the person who is randomly drawn from all the entries received throughout the Promotion Period. The Sweepstakes winners will be selected in a random drawing using www.random.org. 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)