Official Rules

Word Harvest — November Cup

A free word game of skill by UPI Study. Plain English, all of it binding.

1. Who runs it

Word Harvest — November Cup (the "Contest") is run by UPI Study Inc. (the "Sponsor"), 221 River St, 9th Floor, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA. Contact: team@upistudy.com. Apple Inc. is not a sponsor of, and is not involved in, this Contest (we name Apple only because AirPods are a prize). This is a game of skill: chance plays no part in who wins.

2. No purchase necessary

NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Buying a course, a subscription or anything else does not improve your chances, give you more plays or change your score. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

3. Who can play

• You must be 18 or older (or the age of majority where you live, if higher) when you join.
• Open worldwide, except: residents of the Province of Quebec; residents of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, Belarus and the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions; anyone on a US government sanctions list; and anywhere the Contest is prohibited by law.
• Employees, contractors and staff of UPI Study Inc., and their immediate families (spouse, parents, children, siblings and their spouses) and people living in the same household, may not win.
• One person, one entry: one email address and one player per person. Players who use more than one account, alias or made-up email addresses, or anyone else's account, are disqualified.

4. Dates

All times are US Eastern Time (ET). The waitlist is open now.

Change posted 3 Nov 2026: the opening dates below moved earlier (they were Sat 14, Mon 16 and Tue 17 Nov). The end date and everything else stay the same.

• Sat 7 Nov 2026, 12:00 am ET — VIP access: play opens for players with 10 or more proven friends (section 6).
• Mon 9 Nov 2026, 12:00 am ET — play opens for everyone who joined the waitlist before then.
• Tue 10 Nov 2026, 12:00 am ET — play opens for everyone.
• Thu 26 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm ET — the Contest ends. A round that has not finished by then does not count.
• Winners are told by email by Tue 1 Dec 2026.

5. How to play and score

• Each round is a 5 × 5 board of letters and lasts 2 minutes, timed by our server. Make words by joining touching letters (across, up, down or diagonally), using each letter once per word. Words must be 3 letters or longer and on the Contest word list (a standard English word list, with offensive words removed, plus a few UPI Study words such as UPI, CREDIT and TRANSFER).
• Points for each word: 3 letters = 1; 4 = 3; 5 = 6; 6 = 9; 7 = 13; 8 = 17; every letter past 8 adds 1. A gold word scores more: 3 letters = 2; 4 = 5; 5 = 10; 6 = 15; 7 = 22; 8 = 29; every letter past 8 adds 1. The gold words are listed on the game page. Each word counts once per round.
• There are 50 different boards (Board 1 of 50 … Board 50 of 50). Every board is balanced: each holds about the same number of words and points as the others (within 10%). Each player gets the boards in their own random order and never plays the same board twice.
• Your best single round counts. The leaderboard ranks players by their best round; if two players have the same best score, the one who reached it first ranks higher.

6. Plays and friends

Change posted 3 Nov 2026: from Tue 3 Nov 2026, 10:00 pm ET, a friend no longer needs to confirm their email address to count; see "Proven" below. Everything else stays the same.

• Practice rounds are unlimited and never count. They use 36 practice boards, separate from the 50 cup boards. Everyone gets 2 cup plays. There are no free daily plays.
• More plays come only from friends. Your invite link is your UPI Study referral (ReferOn) link, www.upistudy.com/r/your-code, shown on your Word Harvest page. If you do not have a UPI Study account yet, create a free one with the same email you joined with; your link then appears on your page.
• Each friend who creates a free UPI Study account from your link between Mon 2 Nov 2026, 12:00 am ET and Thu 26 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm ET, and is proven real, gives you 2 more plays and moves you up 100 places on the waitlist. "Proven" means the friend makes the account on their own phone or computer and it meets the UPI Study referral rules, or the friend makes a purchase (a purchase is never needed). No email needs to be confirmed.
• Extra plays are added automatically, usually within 15 minutes of the friend being proven. You can use them at any time until the Contest ends on Thu 26 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm ET. Unused plays end with the Contest.
• Every friend is checked by our system. A friend does not count, and gives no extra plays, if our system finds that they signed up on the same or a similar device as you, used a spam, throwaway, forwarding or alias email address, are a second or fake account of yours or of anyone else, or are not a real new person. A friend found this way later is removed, and the plays they gave are taken back. We may also check friends by hand. Sharing an internet connection (for example the same Wi-Fi) is not, by itself, a reason to refuse a friend.
• Each proven friend also earns you ReferOn points to spend at UPI Study, under the ReferOn rules on your UPI Study dashboard. Those points are separate from this Contest and are not a Contest prize.
• No player can play more than 50 boards.

7. Fair play

Bots, scripts, auto-solvers, word-finder tools, sharing boards or answers, playing for someone else, or interfering with the game are not allowed. Rounds played at a speed no person can reach are held back from the leaderboard and checked by a person. The Sponsor may disqualify any player it reasonably believes has cheated, and its decisions on scores are final. If the game fails in a way that affects fairness, the Sponsor may cancel the affected rounds or replay them.

8. Prizes

• 1st–5th place (5 prizes): Apple AirPods (approximate retail value US$129) and one UPI Study course of the winner's choice, free for life (approximate retail value US$250): US$379 in all for each prize. If we cannot ship AirPods to a winner's country, the Sponsor gives a substitute of equal or greater value.
• 6th–50th place (45 prizes): one UPI Study course of the winner's choice, free for life (approximate retail value US$250), and a single-use code for 50% off a second UPI Study course (approximate value up to US$125): up to US$375 in all for each prize. A winner who already has UPI Study PRO or Lifetime may give the free course to one other person instead.
• 51st–100th place (50 prizes): a single-use code for 50% off the first payment of any UPI Study PRO plan (monthly, 4-month, yearly or Lifetime) or 50% off any single UPI Study course (approximate value up to US$300, depending on what it is used for). The code must be used by 31 January 2027, 7:00 pm ET, and cannot be exchanged for cash.
• Every player: each eligible player who completes at least one cup round gets a single-use code for 20% off the first payment of any UPI Study PRO plan or any single UPI Study course, sent by email after the Contest ends and valid until 31 January 2027, 7:00 pm ET. This thank-you code is not a Contest prize and does not depend on your score.
• Total approximate retail value of all prizes: up to US$33,770. Prizes cannot be transferred (except the gift option above), exchanged or turned into cash. The Sponsor may substitute a prize of equal or greater value. Taxes on a prize are the winner's responsibility.
• UPI Study courses carry credit recommendations from ACE and NCCRS; whether a college accepts them is that college's decision. UPI Study is not a college and is not accredited.

9. Winners

• After the Contest ends, the top 100 scores are checked by a person. Potential winners are emailed at the address they joined with by Tue 1 Dec 2026 and must reply within 7 days, or the prize goes to the next eligible player.
• Potential winners may be asked to confirm their name, age, country and address, and to sign a declaration of eligibility and release. Winners in Canada must correctly answer, without help, a time-limited mathematical skill-testing question before receiving a prize.
• AirPods are shipped to the winner's postal address; course access and codes are sent by email.

10. Your information

We use your name, email and country to run the Contest, check eligibility and contact winners. The leaderboard shows only your first name, the first letter of your last name and your country's flag. We do not sell your information. See the UPI Study Privacy Policy for more.

11. The small print

By joining you agree to these rules and the Sponsor's decisions. The Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late or failed connections, devices or entries, or for technical problems outside its control. The Sponsor may change, suspend or end the Contest if something beyond its control affects it, and will post any change on this page. To the extent the law allows, players release the Sponsor from claims arising from the Contest or a prize. These rules are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.