Important Lesson Learned about Entering Instants

Yesterday, I was doing my daily sweepstakes entry early in the morning, which is often how I wake up enough to go downstairs and put on a pot of coffee - in other words, I'm still half asleep and entering by rote. Suddenly, I notice something is different - I've received a winning message from the Nissan - Fly In for the Crows Instant Sweepstakes. Yay, right? Only one problem - as I read the winning screen, I noticed that it said that my confirmation and further directions would come by email. And a bleary little voice in my head said, "Did you check your sweepstakes email yesterday?"

Indeed, I hadn't. And because I've been using the same email address since before the recent spate of email addresses with huge storage capability, that meant that I was over the quota for my inbox. I rushed over to my email and emptied the unnecessary messages out of it as quickly as possible, but I was too late. The winning notification had already bounced.

This was an important reminder for me - not taking careful care of my sweepstakes email can waste all of my hard work entering sweepstakes. In this case, I was lucky. I was able to contact ePrize, the administrators of the sweep I won, and they speedily reissued the winning confirmation. My $25 American Express gas card is safe, and I'm looking forward to receiving it! But if that had been a regular win that I had allowed to bounce, the sponsors might have moved on to the next potential winner, and I could have missed a big prize.

This just shows, it's important to:

1. Pick a great email address for your sweepstakes email. Heinz Tschabitscher, the About Guide to Email, has a list of the Top Free Email Programs
2. Check your sweepstakes email often. Even if your account is not above quota, you could miss the deadline to respond to a win notice if you don't check your mail regularly. Some wins have a very short response time before they move on to the next potential winner, so check in every day.
3. Keep your sweepstakes email neat. Being careful to delete unnecessary emails will make it easier for you to find winning notices among the other messages. Remember that some win notices have subject lines that don't immediately scream, 'You're a Winner!' so check your mail carefully.

For more information, be sure to read All About Instant Sweepstakes and Why Use a Separate Sweepstakes Email