Sunday Express Crosswords Changes

[GetOverIt]

I've just finished the Sunday Express Skeleton and realised theres now no mention of a postal address or prize even though there is still a space for your name and address. Then I saw prize for the big General Knowledge crossword is now only £250. When did this happen?

I'm sure I did the skeleton last week - I buy The Sunday Express most weeks - and I'm sure there was a postal addrees then.

[Lie-in King]

Sorry, I don't know what's happened - also mentioned here -

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Quizzes-and-Puzzles/Crosswords/Question1842150.html

[GetOverIt]

With stamps costing £1.10 or 85p, postal entries are becoming a luxury - but I certainly would not replace postal entry with premium line texts - especially with the prizes shrinking. This could be a good opportunity to stop buying The Sunday Express, and perhaps concentrate on some of The Times crosswords that I don't always do - like The Mephisto and the cryptic jumbo, and then enter online.

[GetOverIt]

I've just sent the following to

[email protected] which I think is the right email for competion enquiries.

Hi, I notice this week that theres seems to be no postal entry for The Skeleton and that the prize for The S magazine crossword may or may not have been slashed to £250. I am part of an online community that love crosswords and entering competitions. I think that if the above changes are true/permanent - you will lose the support of many of these readers and I for one will definitely buy The Sunday Express a lot less if not at all.

Eddie

[Lie-in King]

If you get a reply, would you post it on this thread please? It would be useful to be able to point others to it :-)

[GetOverIt]

I will - I don't post on this site much as I find that if I am struggling with a particular clue, it will invariably have already been asked about - and solved ( quite often by your good self) here, so I don't need to.

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

I do most of my crosswords on the Readly app, and the only Sunday Express available newspaper is the Irish version, although I suppose it’s the same. (They also have the general S mag) I’ve just checked back on last week’s edition (June 25th) and the Skeleton still had a first prize of £100 with 9 runners-up of £25, and the address in the same box. Yesterdays edition is exactly as described in this question. Incidentally there IS a postal address for the Skeleton - it’s tucked away the box entitled “Mystery Word - Win £50”. It seems that’s the only kind of prize they’re offering now. And yes, the mysterious “£250 GK crossword in S Mag” banner is there too, even though in yesterday’s May it was clearly still £1000. All very odd, so I’ll be following this thread closely.

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

Imagine if you won the S mag comp and they sent you a cheque for £250….

[teacher1]

..... I see that the Big Monday Crossword now has a prize of £250 ! That has been cut in half ..... it was £500 previously ! It seems that The Express is now cutting back on all its prizes ! The Crusader Prize Crossword is now ONE weekly winner instead of £100 per day winner. ;o(

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

I wonder if this is a reaction to all the crossword solving apps and websites that are available today. These days it’s easy to use one of them to complete pretty much *any* prize crossword (I’m not putting down this site, although it takes more effort to get an answer here than with an app)and they may have seen an increase in entries lately. Winning prize crosswords has become a contest of pure luck rather than skill.

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

Actually, it isn’t…they probably just don’t want the work of checking entire crossword grids. Much easier with “mystery words”. I often wonder how crosswords are checked…must be a pig of a job if there are hundreds of entries.

[Buntz]

Before long we'll be having to pay them to enter. Teacher1, it's worse, Big Monday prize used to be £1000.

[GetOverIt]

I always thought they just opened one entry at a time, going on to the next one if there was an error in the first. That would be a very easy way to process them. And as for how you solve the crossword, I thought they wouldn't care apart from knowing with a physical copy entry that you had actually had to buy the newspaper.
I used to occasionally buy the monday Express - but I certainly won't anymore with the changes to the Big Monday and the Crusader crosswords.

I should have added in my email to them that it was quite disrespectable to its solvers to make these changes without at least a notification on the puzzles page.

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

Maybe they put a tiny paragraph about it somewhere else in the paper. It’s not the kind of thing they’d want to shout from the rooftops.

[smiley1]

I am very interested in the outcome of this, i only buy the one paper per week. I submit the You Crossword online which costs nothing with my 3 month £1 subscription and there are loads of other puzzles there too.

The chances of winning are quite low anyway and if I can save myself £2.30 for the paper plus 68p for the stamp and then the cost of the envelope on top

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

The prize for the GK is now officially £250, and there’s more clarification of the rules/winning entry procedure etc. It’s still a decent amount to win IMO, but now that they’re added the disclaimer about one winner being picked from all entry routes it feels like there’s even less chance to win it. I wonder if there was an internal co*k-up with the drawing or something which has led them to change and clarify things.

[FleshpotsOfDevon]

Most likely, £52,000 a year was getting a bit much…

[smiley1]

And now only £50 for the Skeleton too, used to be 1 X £100 and a few X £25, time to stop buying the paper methinks

[valbarnes]

i emailed the Sunday Express about this but no answer from them re the disappearing prizes. It still says £325 in prizes above the crossword but apparently only gives £50 for the Mystery Word and last Sunday there were no winners published besides the £50.