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

21 years ago Robert and I sailed away on the Coca-Cola Isle of Dreams Treasure Hunt Cruise...along with 500 other winners. We boarded Carnival Cruise Line's Jubilee and departed for a private island in the Caribbean where we searched for hidden treasure.

I didn't do too good in the treasure hunt, my prize was a whopping $20. But I struck gold on that ship! Seven days on a vessel loaded with sweepstakers makes for one incredible week! I will never forget that first cruise and the thrill of meeting so many warm and friendly sweepers who were willing to teach this rookie the ropes.

We've had several other opportunities since then to travel with other sweepers. Those trips stand out as some of the best we have been on, all because of the friends we were able to share the experiences with. Our most recent one was last October when Robert won the Bud Light Port Paradise cruise. Bud Light selected 2,000 winners, each winner was allowed to bring one guest and we filled two Royal Caribbean ships as we sailed to Nassau and a private island in the Bahamas.

Bud Light is in the process of filling two more ships with winners to sail the Caribbean. Be sure to check out all the different opportunities you have to enter on the Sweeps list. Here are a few offering multiple trips:

Bud Light Port Paradise Sweepstakes
Sail to the Bahamas with 2,000 winners on the third Bud Light Port Paradise cruise. There is a charge of $190 per person ($380 if winner travels alone), but this is legitimate. Robert and I paid the fees last year and had the time of our life for less than the airfare for one person would have cost us. To see a video of the private concert by Dave Matthews Band that Bud Light treated us to on last year's cruise, go to My Community and click on the link to the video that a SweepsU.com subscriber posted.
To see a list of all the Bud Light promotions listed on SweepsU.com click on "by Custom Search" and type bud light into the Contest Name field. Many of these are for specific geographic regions and more are being added as we find them.

Blue Light "Refreshment Weekend" Sweepstakes
50 winners will travel to southern Vermont to attend a party with the Labatt Blue Light Refreshment Duo
To find this one on the sweeps list, click on "by Custom Search" and type refreshment into the Contest Name field.

Food Lion Keith Urban Sweepstakes
19 winners will attend a Backyard Barbeque in Nashville, TN with Keith Urban in October 2010.
To find it on the sweeps list, click on "by Custom Search" and type keith into the Contest Name field.

Good luck everyone!

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.