Enter to Win a Spot on the Amazing Race for Regular Folks, Competitours
After some intensive lobbying by a number of the entrants for the Competitours team travel competition contest, and because one of the two earlier winners hasn’t yet picked up their prize, I am going to shake loose one more ‘half-sponsorship’ — for grabs for the July 2-14 trip.
I’ve convinced my award booking partner Steve Belkin who runs the trip to help me cover the $3850 trip for one teammate (your team partner will be repsonsible for their trip fee). Both team members will cover their own airfare, meals and incidentals. (I’m running dry on miles to donate this month – hah.)
We’re going to run this contest quickly, just 24 hours, so the winner will know they’ve got this quickly.
Just like Steve’s mystery destinations and surprise challenges, to win this contest, ‘ya gotta be spontaneous’. And instead of doing a random drawing, please make your case why your team should be the next and last sponsored team….in the comments, in 100 words or less!
My Award Booking Partner Steve
Many of you know that I offer an award booking service. It grew too big to handle on my own, and I was fortunate enough to be able to partner with one of the real veterans and gurus in the frequent flyer game, Steve Belkin (known in online forums as ‘beaubo’).
Steve is most famous for exploiting loopholes in frequent flyer programs like Aeroplan and United’s MileagePlus in a truly big way, scaling opportunities to earn millions instead of thousands of miles. And in that pursuit he has hired disable Thai rice farmers to fly in and out of the Golden Triangle area of Thailand, and New Zealand college students to fly to Europe for the summer.
His ‘Amazing Race for Regular People’
One of the really fun projects he’s had is called Competitours. Every summer, Steve disappears from work to run what the Chicago Tribune calls “The Amazing Race for Regular People.”
COMPETITOURS is a team travel competition, traversing a mystery itinerary of Western Europe and earning points by accomplishing a daily dose of surprise challenges in pursuit of a $7200 cash prize split between three teams.
Challenges are structured to test 7 – 10 pairs of teams’ creativity, resourcefulness and spontaneity (NOT speed or fitness – hah!). Here’s some of the challenges. Each day’s destination and challenges are revealed just a day or two before. Unlike the ‘Amazing Race’ TV show, Competitours steers clear of weird food, exhausting tasks and manufactured conflict and drama.
It’s a great project, reports are that the trips are great fun. I just lose Steve for those couple of weeks.
Should have picked me the first time, ready to go as father/daughter team. We would fun to the tour and would be grateful for the chance.
My girlfriend wants to get married, I’m dragging my feet. Sounds like the perfect test for future compatibility!
This is that moment when you know you need to shake things up to remind yourself we are not just another cog in the wheel. The Competitours seems like a start to a new life.
Fingers crossed.
Seriously, my wife and I were going to try out for the “other” Amazing Race, except that we will be in the Cinque Terre on the day auditions are to be held in San Francisco. We wanted to be the first “old farts” to win (65 and 63)! So this opportunity seems karma-like! Unbelievably, we share the same birthday (2 years apart) and we both have MBAs from Wake Forest University (go Deacs!). We travel light (everything on our backs), I mileage run (for both of us) and we just LOVE western Europe. We’re all in!
My girlfriend and I are avid Amazing Race watchers (we’ve seen all the seasons between us!). We live in the US, but are not US citizens so, alas, we’ll never have a chance to go on the real thing.
I started at this game when I was young, about 18. Fell in love with frequent flier miles & the opportunities they can provide. I love taking family members on trips-of-a-lifetime and that’s what this hobby provides me! I’m a fierce competitor and would love to take part!
Pick me!
Please pick me because I previously entered a 200 word or less contest to win a B&B in Maine and that didn’t pan out, so this is my only other chance to be a limited-word count winner.
I came across the ‘normal’ Amazing Race website a few months back. I would absolutely love to surprise my fiancee with this trip. She has nagged me to enter to be apart of this show since we met 10 years ago. We live apart most of the year (me in Alaska, her in Missouri) since Alaska doesn’t have a law school. It would be a great way to reunite doing something we love, traveling and competing, prior to getting married in Talkeetna, Alaska in September this fall. Thanks for the giveaway and the great site!
We dream BIG, play BIG & share BIG! Every year we set a crazy (sometimes unattainable) goals. For me it was to take 10 people on a two week trip-of-a-lifetime to Europe on miles. We did it! We love to share BIG!
My husband decided he wanted to run the Boston Marathon. He wanted to qualify base on his time! After lots of long hours, He did it! He will be running Boston in two weeks. We love to Play BIG!
We want Competitours to be our next crazy goal for this year. We are dreaming BIG!
Just got 24 fresh new passport pages
and I’m ready to fill them with stamps.
Travel is fun for people of all ages
especially competitours champs.
I don’t know if we’ll win
but we’re sure to love the journey,
and on our faces you’ll see only grins
as we compete in this travel grand prix.
Why not pick me?
Thanks for the opportunity
My husband and I need an “Adventure of a Lifetime” to get us out of our travel funk. Competitours is the best way to do it!
When I was 10 years old, my cousin and I bought a greyhound bus ticket intended for San Diego (from Des Moines). We apparently were too young since we got confused at our stop and ended up in Seattle… At age 14, we did our first international flight (pre 9/11) together intended for Budapest, but some how in Germany we went through the wrong gate and ended up in Vienna, Austria… These are some of the best memories I have with my cousin. We’d love to redeem ourselves from our travel blunders and compete on Competitours and make more memories.
I f n love surprises. My partner does not. Ready to have some fun!
Pound for Pound the funniest Father, Daughter team you will ever meet !
And being from New York
BECAUSE I F$&@&n said so !!!
WOW, ok need to get out of this funk of winter blues from northeast us.Thxs for the opportunity
My other half and I have been fans of The Amazing Race since the first season. The challenge has been that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the much younger contestants and this sounds like a perfect opportunity for to experience it in a less strenuous fashion.
Thanks for the opportunity, it should be a blast
My fiance and I are getting married in June and we’ll be on our honeymoon during this time. What better way to test the strength of our new marriage than an Amazing Race for regular folk?! We’ll gladly ditch our trip to Thailand for this!
I’ve seen every episode of every season of the Amazing race and would love to give it a try
My favorite cousin beat the Big C
And now she’s game to travel with me.
Most of her life she’s been the armchair kind
But now she won’t let life leave her behind.
So if we’re lucky enough to win a place
In your friend’s version of the Amazing Race
O so grateful I would be
To give sweet Erin this opportunity!
my husband and i are the most normal people you’d ever meet, and maybe the most adaptive. we both traveled internationally (i lived in germany, and he studied in italy) before meeting, falling in love, and embracing this fantastic adventure of every-day life together. we travel light, smile often, and enjoy finding new experiences in unexpected places. the world is an amazing place, and we’d love to explore it together!
Sounds amazing! What better way to take the world by storm? This will be over our 1st wedding anniversary (7/7/14 was the day of wedded bliss). Our love of travel brought us together 6 years ago, and last July saw us exchanging leis on a beach in Maui, night diving with Manta Rays, and hiking through volcanoes. We’ve been trying to figure how we can top that for our 1 year…and this sounds like the perfect adventure. We survived the first year of marriage, but can we survive competitours??? 🙂
Looking forward to a race
I’m gonna level with you. My first anniversary is in less than a week and I got nothin… OK fine, that’s a lie. I have something, but nothing even close to this good. My wife and I work for a software company and traveling and new experiences are our way to get away from “the man”. We’ve eaten bugs, jumped off bridges, run with bulls, and meditated with monks, but we’ve never done any of it competitively. Competitour sounds perfect for us. Also, it’s a way better gift than this paper mâché airplane that I was going to give her…
Gary, Steve,
My girlfriend and I are Europe-based and would love the chance to give this a shot in our own back yard. Between us we speak 3 languages (full disclosure: my girlfriend speaks three and I only speak English!). Travel is a big part of what we look forward to, although budgets are always at odds with our dreams.
I think this challenge would be great fun and a chance to meet people and experience things we wouldn’t normally.
We’d also enjoy showing the other teams what’s so great about Europe and why we love it.
Pick us please 🙂
Thanks.
This is amazing and due to all of the blogs and websites that BoardingArea has introduced me and my husband to, we have enough points for round trip flights to Europe- and have been sitting on them for quite a while now. So if you pick us, we can book tomorrow. Oh, and we don’t suck either, which I think should be written in the fine print for this contest.
I’m gonna level with you. My first anniversary is in less than a week and I got nothin… OK fine, that’s a lie. I have something, but nothing even close to this good. My wife and I work for a software company. World travel and new experiences are our way to get away from “the man”. We’ve eaten bugs, jumped off bridges, run with bulls, and meditated with monks, but we’ve never done any of it competitively. Competitour sounds perfect for us. Also, it’s a way better gift than this paper mache airplane that I was going to give her…
I know the perfect companion to argue with incessantly while racing
Just finished a 40 story race…did not finish in-the-money…but survived for the free beer! My wife (40 + years) and I are never dull and enjoy everything vertical…we will have more fun than anyone else! We promise laughs & notoriety.
I’ve always wanted to go on a Competitours trip ever since I’ve heard about them but the dates never worked out! But this year they do! My husband isn’t eligible to be my partner on the real Amazing Race (must have an American passport) so this would be the next best thing! We’ve traveled in Europe quite a bit but would LOVE the chance experience new unexpected things that we wouldn’t normally be able to do throughout the trip! Also as a project manager professionally, it would be great to not have to plan anything on vacation besides showing up!
Another chance to win this, thanks Gary. It would be the perfect way for my wife and me to get to experience different things in Europe. After 15 years traveling around the world for business I’m working from home now. Wanderlust is setting in. My biggest dream would be part of the Amazing Race; unfortunately I do not have an American passport, so this would be my chance. Thanks again.
How about a fun, energetic, friendly young couple for this competition? 🙂 In 2010 we sold everything we owned and traveled around the world for a year…though Italy is the only European destination we’ve been to. You could say it was party inspired by our love of the Amazing Race. Since then we’ve continued the “foreign” adventure in Austin, Texas. We’re in the middle of fertility treatments right now and this would be a thrilling distraction from that stress. Here’s the site where we logged our travel adventures – http://www.nimblegrit.com – and here’s a link to our healthy eating site where you can see more about us if you care to: http://www.fooduciary.com. Here’s to hoping!
Please pick me! I have applied numerous times to Amazing Race but to no avail. I love to travel and want to do this race with my recently transgendered Military daughter. A real mother daughter bonding….33 years later!
Could really use a vacation, and a challenge, and some fun. I would need to find a babysitter for my pet monkey though..