Competition Rules
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These rules explain how Avid competitions accept entries, select winners and handle prizes. Read the particular competition details together with these rules before entering.
Eligibility and ways to enter
You must be 18 or over, live in England, Scotland or Wales, have an Avid account and complete its required agreement and eligibility declaration. Ordinary account restrictions apply. Keep access to your registered email and supply accurate information.
Eligible online entries use Credits or available promotional entries. You can instead enter for free by ordinary post, paying your own postage and following Free Entry. You do not need to buy Credits for postal entry. Accepted postal entries use the same answer, aggregate limit, Main draw and Instant Win rules as online entries.
Check the competition details
Each competition displays its reference, prize description, Credit price per entry, question and offered answers, available entry capacity, any per-account limit and its closing format. The reference identifies the competition for postal entries and enquiries. An advertised value describes the prize; it is not an automatic entitlement to a cash alternative.
We may correct presentation errors, but a title, image or description edit does not give us a right to change the material promise for an accepted entry. Any material problem with a competition will be handled consistently with your contract and statutory rights, not by silently replacing its rules.
When an entry is accepted
An entry must be accepted while the competition is open, with capacity and any remaining per-account allowance. Submitting online or posting an item does not reserve a place. The limit counts accepted entry units across both routes, including accepted wrong answers; making more submissions does not increase that limit.
Your answer is evaluated against the competition's question. A clear choice of an offered but incorrect answer is a valid losing entry: it counts towards capacity and your limit, and spends its Credit or promotional funding. It cannot win a Main or Instant prize. Invalid or missing input is not repaired by guessing your intention.
Before an online entry, review its answer, quantity and the exact Credit/promotional split. An entry that is not accepted spends neither. Accepted entries and their recorded answers remain in your history. A lost response is not a reason to assume failure or pay again; check My entries or Contact us.
Closing and draw timing
Every competition closes to new entries when its capacity is reached. Its displayed format determines any earlier closure and when the Main draw becomes ready. Entry closure and publication of a result are separate events.
Fixed-date competitions close at the displayed end time or when full, whichever happens first. The Main draw becomes ready at the displayed end time even if entries filled earlier.
When-full competitions close and become ready for the Main draw when their capacity is reached. They do not have a fixed closing date simply because other competitions do.
Random-trigger competitions have a hidden entry threshold. Reaching it starts the countdown displayed by the competition. Entries close when that countdown ends or capacity is reached; the Main draw becomes ready at the countdown end even if capacity fills first.
A ready draw must still be run and its result published. Do not rely on a result or email arriving at the exact closing instant. Allow normal postal delivery time: a competition can fill or close before your item arrives. See Free Entry for the receipt and processing conditions.
The Main draw and no eligible winner
The Main draw selects randomly from eligible accepted entry units with a correct answer. Each eligible unit has a chance; an account or multi-entry submission does not receive just one chance. Funding an entry online, promotionally or by post does not change that treatment.
If no accepted entry has a correct answer, the competition ends with no eligible winner and the Main prize is not awarded. This is not cancellation. It does not automatically return funding, create a replacement entry or move entries to another competition.
We preserve the recorded result and entry history. A later account block does not itself remove earlier entries from the draw or erase a win. Separate individual prize decisions are explained below.
Instant Wins and prizes that remain unawarded
Where a competition has Instant Wins, prizes are attached to hidden positions in the order of accepted entry units. A correct accepted answer reaching a winning position receives the corresponding award. Accepted postal entries use the same allocation as online entries.
If an incorrect answer reaches a winning position, that prize is left unawarded; it does not move to the next entrant. Positions not reached before entries close are also left unawarded. We do not automatically redistribute those prizes. Not every advertised Instant prize will necessarily be won.
The advertised Instant prize list describes the competition's prize catalogue, not the number of hidden winning positions still available. A previously awarded or unawarded position is not offered again merely because its prize remains pictured. Hidden positions are not published for entrants to target.
Winning an Instant prize does not remove that correct entry's Main draw eligibility. Check Wins and prizes in your dashboard for recorded awards and available claims; postal entries do not depend on receiving an immediate on-screen result or email.
Claiming your prize
A Main prize becomes available when its result is published. Its ordinary claim deadline is 28 days after publication, saved with the prize and displayed in your account. Submit the requested claim information by that deadline. The period does not start from an email and is not a delivery promise.
The passage of the deadline does not itself close a Main claim. We may close an unsubmitted claim after it is due, or extend or reopen it with a later deadline. Contact us promptly if you need help. We will consider relevant circumstances, including whether our own notification or processing failure prevented a realistic opportunity to claim.
Instant prizes do not have that general 28-day deadline. Available unclaimed Instant awards remain claimable unless a specific applicable expiry or separate prize restriction is shown. We do not apply a Main deadline simply because a prize is an Instant Win.
Provide accurate delivery details when claiming. The saved claim information is used for fulfilment; changing a profile or Registered address later does not automatically reroute an already submitted prize. Contact us about a correction. Dispatch and delivery updates are separate from submitting a claim, and fulfilment time depends on the prize and circumstances communicated to you.
Results and claims appear in your account. We may also send prize messages, but email is not guaranteed to arrive at the instant a draw is run or a result is published. Contact remains available if you cannot sign in or a claim is unavailable.
Prize restrictions and recorded history
Before shipment, we may withhold an individual Main or Instant prize where credible evidence of fraud, manipulation or another serious abusive breach of the rules affects that award. This must be a proportionate decision about the relevant prize, not automatic punishment for a bank dispute or unrelated account issue.
We will consider information supplied through Contact and restore availability where the reason no longer justifies withholding. Restoring a prize does not itself reopen a separately closed Main claim. A restriction on one Instant prize does not automatically cancel other awards.
A private unavailable message does not erase the historical result. Recorded public results remain part of competition history, with public-name treatment explained in Privacy. Private administrative reasons are not published as winner information. These controls do not recall a dispatched or delivered prize or automatically create a new winner, refund or replacement entry. Your lawful remedies remain available.
Cancellation and new competitions
If a material problem requires cancellation before a completed Main outcome, we will explain the circumstances and respect your contractual and statutory rights. Cancellation is not an unrestricted right to replace the advertised promise. A completed no-eligible-winner outcome is not relabelled cancellation merely because nobody won.
When we cancel a competition, the ordinary process returns the actual Credits spent on accepted entries to your Avid balance. It does not automatically refund a Credit-pack payment. Spent promotional entries remain spent; postal entries spent no Credits to return. Entry history and already recorded Instant Wins are preserved. Any further remedy required by law remains available.
If we run a new competition following a no-eligible-winner outcome, it is a separate competition with its own published details and new entries. Earlier entries are not rolled over, recharged or entered again automatically.