Prize Form / Read the promotion
Checklist
Eight questions, in the order that matters
A promotion’s terms are not long, and eight questions cover the parts that decide whether a prize is worth having and whether it will arrive. This page is the desk reduced to a checklist a reader can run in five minutes, in the order in which the answers change the decision.
Claim stub
- Claim
- PF-54-09
- Subject
- The checklist
- Questions
- eight
- Time
- about five minutes
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 answerAsk eight questions of any prize promotion: what form the prize takes, who sets its value, whether a cash alternative exists, how long the claim window is and from what moment, which channel counts as notification, who delivers the prize and where risk sits, what eligibility tests apply, and who decides a dispute. The answers are all in the terms, and together they decide both the real value and whether it arrives.
FormValueWindowChain
The eight, in order
- What form is the prize? A credit to a balance, a bank payment, a voucher, a thing, a personalised thing, an experience, conditional credit or locked points. The forms page places all eight on the ladder; the answer to this question decides the answers to the next five.
- Who sets the value, and what figure is quoted? A list value is a statement about what the promoter is giving. The value page separates it from what a buyer would pay.
- Is there a cash alternative, and at what figure? One clause turns the prize into a number. Its absence is equally informative: the alternative page covers both it and the substitution right that is not the same thing.
- How long is the claim window, and from what moment does it run? Thirty days is ordinary and fourteen happens. The claim-window page works through the dates.
- Which channel counts as notification, and is receipt deemed to happen when the message is sent? This is the question that decides how much of the window a reader actually gets to use.
- Who delivers the prize, and where does risk pass? A promoter, a prize supplier, a fulfilment house and a courier, with risk usually passing to the winner at dispatch. The chain page follows it.
- What eligibility tests apply, and what proof is required? Age, territory, household, entry route and any purchase requirement, plus the documents a claim needs. The conditions page lists the four tests a claim passes.
- Who decides a dispute, and is there publicity attached to winning? Most terms make the promoter the final judge, and many make being named a condition. The winner page covers both.
Worked example - the checklist run against an ordinary promotion (illustrative)
Questions with a clear answer already in the terms: 6
form (a thing), value (list 480.00), window (30 days from notification),
notification channel (the account message centre), delivery (a named courier), eligibility (18+, one per household)
Questions whose answer was not in the announcement and had to be found in the terms: 2
the cash alternative (none offered) and the substitution right (a prize of equivalent value at the promoter's discretion)
Time to establish all eight in a well-drafted promotion: about five minutes
Time to establish them after a prize has been won, with the window running: the same five minutes, spent under a clock
The arithmetic that matters here is not a percentage: it is that two of the eight answers lived only in the terms, and those two are the ones that decide whether the advertised 480.00 can become money.
What good terms look like
clear Statements a reader can act on
A stated claim window with a named start. A cash alternative with a figure or a formula. A named notification channel. A delivery commitment with a named party. A results date. Those five turn a promotion into something a reader can plan against, and they are all ordinary drafting rather than favours.
vague Wording that shifts everything to the winner
"A prize of equivalent value at the promoter's discretion". "Notification will be deemed received when sent". "Risk passes on dispatch". "The promoter's decision is final". None of these is unusual and none is unlawful in itself, but a promotion carrying all four has moved every risk in the chain to the reader.
One question this checklist deliberately does not ask. It does not ask how to win, and this desk publishes nothing about increasing the chance of selection: no strategy, no system, no pattern. Whatever the entry mechanism, the outcome is a decision by somebody else, and a page that claimed otherwise would be selling a superstition. The eight questions above are about the prize after it is awarded, which is the part a reader can actually control.