Contest Description

THE ENTRY PERIOD FOR THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.

Tell us why you deserve to have HomeAway save your summer vacation!

Whether you’re stressed out, tired of hearing about the gloomy economy or simply want to escape, HomeAway is searching for the person who is most in need of a vacation.

If that sounds like you, we want to hear your story. Submit a text entry, a photo essay or a video explaining why you deserve to win the $10,000 getaway complete with a stay in a HomeAway vacation rental. If your story doesn’t top the list, don’t worry: two runners-up will each receive a $5,000 trip.

The contest runs until July 2, 2009 and is followed by two rounds of judging. On July 2, voting opens up to the general public: that’s your chance to get your friends and family to vote for your entry. The top 15 vote-getters move on to the final round which is judged by our panel of experts.

The three winners will be selected on July 28, 2009. It’s time to get moving, so good luck!

How to Enter
How Can I Improve My Chance of Winning?

No Purchase Necessary. See Official Rules.

How to Enter:

There are three ways to enter the contest and convince voters that you really need your summer vacation saved: (a) short text essay; (b) photo essay; or (c) video. There are a few limits to your submissions based on which format you choose: text entries should be no more than 500 words; photo essays can include up to 5 images with short captions of 50 words or less per photo; videos should not exceed three minutes in length.

Eligibility: The contest is open to legal residents of the United States and Canada who are 21 years or older as of June 2, 2009 (for U.S. and District of Columbia residents), or the age of majority or older within the Canadian province in which they reside as of June 2, 2009 (for Canadian residents). Residents of Quebec are excluded from participation.

1. Browse www.homeaway.com during the Contest Period and select one of the nearly 180,000 vacation rental properties. Make note of the six-digit number and the URL associated with the property you'd like to vacation in for a week (you'll need it for the entry form). [NOTE: If you win the contest, you are not bound by this choice; you are free to switch rental properties for your actual vacation.] Don’t worry, once you sign up, the site will walk you through where to input the property ID.

2. If you are submitting a photo or video entry, create it in advance by publishing it to your Flickr account or YouTube channel.

3. When you're ready to submit your entry, come back to this page and click the "Enter Now" button above. An entry form will appear and guide you through the process. You will need to submit a short summary of your entry–at least 50 words but no more than 100–along with the property ID of the vacation rental you’d like to stay in. This is what voters will read when browsing entries, so make sure it sells your story.

4. Hit submit– then, we'll post your entry. Don’t forget to tell your friends about this contest because in the first round of judging, the finalists will be determined by the total number of votes. To prevent gaming the system, you can only vote once for a particular entry.

Key Dates: Entries must be submitted by 11:59 a.m. CST on Thursday, July 2, 2009. Public voting begins at 12:00 p.m. CST, July 2, 2009 and will continue through 11:59:59 a.m. CST on Thursday, July 16, 2009. Expert voting for the top 15 entries based on number of votes will run from 12:00 a.m. CST, July 17, 2009 to 11:59 p.m. CST July 20, 2009. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, July 28, 2009.

How Can I Improve My Chances of Winning?

Submit a Smart Summary
As we mentioned in the How to Enter section, the summary is an important component to attracting voters because it’s the first indication of what your entry is about. So the more succinct and compelling you make the summary, the better your chances of getting noticed–and scoring.
   

Use Your Network
Of course, once your entry is posted on SaveOurSummerVacation.com, you'll want to copy the URL of your entry and send it to your family and friends, asking for their vote.  It only took 677 votes for mother of three, Emmy O’Dwyer, to win the grand prize in the “Why I Deserve a Getaway from HomeAway” blog contest in January. Check out her tips and advice on how to get a leg up on the competition. 

Tag Wisely
Visitors can browse by tags, so adding WHY and WHERE tags is another way to make your entry more visible. Be sure to also add tags to your original entry on YouTube, Flickr, etc.– this will also greatly help with visibility and search.

While we're not sure why you deserve a break or where you’d want to spend it, we’ve put together a list of example tags that may be helpful for your entry.