PUERTO RICO: MY HEART'S DEVOTION

There’s a snobbism at work with these online sweeps. Practical, humdrum prizes, like a year’s worth of gas-oline, or outlandishly impractical prizes, like a Hummer H2, don’t have the same cachet as the exotic getaway. (I’ve seen sweeps for both in the past 24 hours.) We may live in an era of mass travel, but the idea of vacation as prize trumps a year’s worth of fossil fuel any day. Friends who would never go for a year’s worth of gasoline – “Why bother?” they say with a shrug – or some vulgar gas-guzzling military mobile get starry-eyed at the chance of winning a trip somewhere. It fuels the travel as credential, travel as redemption phenomenon.

Over the weekend, I entered sweeps for Scot-land, Britain and Arizona. (Details to come in the coming weeks.) I entered this today's featured sweeps, for a two-night stay in Puerto Rico plus airfare, last week. It’s the first either/or sweeps I’ve come across, where the sponsors choose the accommodations based on availability. That’s very practical, but what if the winner has been pining for, say, the Martineau Bay Resort in Vieques (www.martineaubayresort.com) over the Westin Rio Mar Beach Golf Resort & Spa in Rio Grande (www.westinriomar.com) or vice versa? Personally, I'd be thrilled with either.

Luckily for the handful of friends and family I’ve hoodwinked into reading this blog, I have never been to Puerto Rico, so no trip reminiscentiae today. (Big sigh of relief there, no doubt.) That said, it would be great fun to get there one day, for many reasons, but especially because one of my son’s teachers this year is from Puerto Rico.

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PUERTO RICO: 2 NIGHTS AT RESORT PLUS AIRFARE

DEADLINE: May 31, 2006
TO ENTER, CLICK: www.travelandleisure.com/contests/perryellis/sweeps/
SPONSORS: Travel + Leisure, Perry Ellis, Puerto Rican Tourism Company, et alia.
THE DIGS: www.martineaubayresort.com or www.westinriomar.com THE INELIGIBLES: N/A
ARV (APPROXIMATE RETAIL VALUE): $4,500
THE FINE PRINT: Travel by December 31, 2006
MY PERSONAL ENTRY: March 23, 2006
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[Full disclosure: I have purchased, and subsequently worn, Perry Ellis articles of clothing. I have also written articles for Travel + Leisure. I plan to research whether having written for a sponsoring magazine renders one ineligible for sweeps participation. I know my freelancer friends are burning to know.]