All this week (commencing 17th June 2024), ITV’s live daytime shows – that’s GMB, Lorraine, This Morning and Loose Women – have been promoting the new £250,000 cash giveaway launched on GMB at the beginning of the week by Andi Peters.

There has been very little mention of bonus prizes this week – regular competition participants might recall that this time last year, there were bonus prizes of a Mini and Campervan up for grabs in the first couple of weeks of the competition.

If you’ve got sharp eyesight, you might have spotted a box on the entry details screen on the TV directing you to the terms and conditions this week, but it’s all quite complex in their legal terminology.

To our knowledge, it’s the first time that ITV have done things this way around, and there’s probably a few people that might feel a little disappointed that more wasn’t made of the bonus competitions that arrive next week between today, 21st June 2024 and next Friday, 28th June 2024 for paid entries, or the following Thursday, 4th July 2024 for free postal entries.

What Is The Bonus Competition?

When you enter during the second week of the competition, you’ll get an extra entry into the bonus competition as well as the main quarter of a million pound prize draw.

What Can You Win In The Bonus Competition?

There are prizes of £10,000 in cash for five lucky entrants.

Does It Cost More To Enter The Bonus Competition?

Entries are free into the bonus competition – you’ll get one free entry for each entry you lodge into the main draw in the second week of the competition.

When Can I Enter The Bonus Competition?

For paid entries – that’s phone, text and online entries, the second week’s entries are considered to be made from today (21st June 2024) until next Friday, 28th June 2024 at 4pm.

For free postal entries, you need to use the postal prefix of BONUS26 instead of CD25, and make sure your entry arrives before the post deadline of 4pm on July 4th 2024.

If your postal entry arrives after July 4th, 2024 but before the main competition for £250,000 closes at 4pm on 18th July 2024, with either the BONUS26 or CD25 prefix, you’ll still be entered into the main draw, but not the bonus competition.

Why Do ITV Run Bonus Competitions?

Bonus competition help ITV maintain momentum in attracting entries into their prize competitions.

As the draws are often open for several weeks, viewers are more likely to ignore them as time goes on, so extras get added to some promotions in order to boost the interest of the viewers.

The fact that this time around only the second week has been chosen to offer the bonus suggests that entry numbers might start to flag after the completion of the launch week, but later pick up as the sense of urgency arrives to get in the draw in the final week.

It’s a slightly risky strategy though, as some viewers might feel cheated if they’ve entered during the first week and wont get the same extra chance to win as someone joining in a week later.