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Affiliate disclosure. The partner link in the masthead and in the bands beside the copy on this page is a sponsored link to a partner operator, and this site may be paid if you open an account through it, at no extra cost to you. It carries rel="sponsored noopener" and opens in a new tab. That matters on this desk in particular: the subject is a promotional award, and this site's own revenue depends on a reader opening an account. There is no ranking, no review and no recommendation of any operator anywhere on this site, and nothing here is a route around a promotion's conditions.
Prize Form / Questions
FAQ

The questions, in full

The ten questions readers ask most often about a prize that is not money, answered directly and without either a ranking or a promise. Each answer states the mechanism and names the page where the arithmetic is shown.

Claim stub
Claim
PF-54-11
Subject
Ten questions
Format
answer first
Scope
no advice, no rankings
Money2 forms: a credit to a balance, a payment to an account in your name
A buyer3 forms: a voucher, a thing with a market, a personalised thing with none
Attendance1 form: an experience that can only be attended, on a date
A condition2 forms: credit behind a condition, points locked to a product
Direct answerA non-cash prize is worth what its form realises rather than what the announcement states; a cash alternative exists only if the terms offer one; a claim window commonly runs thirty days from notification and is not paused by a missed message; and a prize that is unclaimed, undelivered or held as conditional credit can be lost in ways the announcement does not mention.
Read the promotion

The eight questions that produce every answer on this page for a specific promotion.

The claim ledger

The arithmetic behind the first answer, five prizes priced to what could be realised.

Six beliefs

The assumptions these questions usually start from, each checked against the clauses.

About this project

What this desk is, how the series works, and what it refuses to do.

The questions, in full

q01

What is a non-cash prize actually worth?

Less than the announced list value in most cases, and how much less depends entirely on the form. A cash credit is worth its figure. A voucher is worth what a buyer will pay for a restricted voucher, or its face value if the winner shops at the listed stores anyway. An object is worth the going second-hand price. An experience is worth what it does for the winner and nothing in money. Conditional credit is worth the expected amount that survives its condition. The desk prices five prizes end to end on the ledger page.

q02

Does a promoter have to offer a cash alternative?

No. A cash alternative exists where the terms say the winner may elect to take money instead of the prize, at a stated figure or a stated formula. Where the terms offer nothing, the winner is entitled to the prize described and to nothing else, and declining it produces no payment. A separate substitution clause - allowing the promoter to supply a prize of equivalent value - is not a cash alternative and moves the choice to the promoter.

q03

How long do I have to claim a prize?

Whatever the terms state, commonly thirty days and sometimes fourteen, measured from the notification rather than from the draw or from when the winner read the message. Where the terms say a notification is deemed received when sent, the window runs even if the message was never opened. A claim not made inside the window is normally forfeited and the prize returns to the promotion.

q04

What happens if I never receive the notification?

The window still runs from the moment the promotion sent it, so the practical step is to write to the promotion before the window closes, quoting the entry reference and asking whether the entry was selected. That puts a claim in substance on the record. Where the terms describe a witnessed draw, the witness statement is the document that establishes whether the entry was in the pool.

q05

Can I sell a prize I do not want?

Usually yes for objects and vouchers, at a discount that reflects the item no longer being new and the voucher being restricted to listed stores. Usually no for experiences, which are not transferable in practice and may be tied to a name or a date, and no for conditional credit, which cannot be sold at all. Personalised, engraved or sized items have no buyer, so their realised value is effectively zero.

q06

Who delivers the prize, and who is responsible if it goes missing?

A non-cash prize normally passes through four parties: the promoter, a prize supplier, a fulfilment house and a courier. Terms commonly state that risk passes to the winner on dispatch and that a refused or uncollected delivery counts as delivered, which puts a loss in transit with the winner. The practical step is to raise a missing item with the promotion rather than the carrier, because the promotion is the party the reader has terms with.

q07

Is a prize taxed, and on which value?

Where a jurisdiction taxes a prize, the figure the tax is measured against is normally connected to the announced list value, because that is the figure in the promotion’s own records, rather than to what the winner could realise by selling the item. That produces the shape readers notice most: a liability in money measured on an asset that is not money. This desk does not answer tax questions; the tax desk in this series covers the liability itself.

q08

Can the promoter give me a different prize instead?

Where the terms carry a substitution clause, yes: a prize of equivalent value may be supplied if the advertised one is unavailable. Equivalent is rarely defined, and it can mean the same list value, the same cost to the promoter, a comparable category, or the promoter’s own assessment. The substitute may have no market for the winner, which is why the clause is read as a risk allocation rather than a guarantee.

q09

Do I have to be named publicly as a winner?

Frequently yes, because accepting the prize is often stated to include consent to the use of the winner’s name, region and a photograph. Declining publicity can be treated as declining the prize where the terms make it a condition. Where the clause gives consent rather than making it a condition, it is worth checking whether the permission has a stated term and an address for withdrawing it.

q10

What can I do if the promotion refuses my claim?

Establish which of the four tests failed - eligibility, the entry, the proof, or the promoter’s decision - and put the correction in writing while the window is open, because three of the four are factual and fixable. Where the terms make the promoter’s decision final, there is no further reading inside the promotion, and the next step is the consumer-protection route for the promotion’s territory rather than another email to the same team.