Eating out courtesy of MyPoints!
By glblguy
Photo by: meandmybadself
If you aren’t using MyPoints, you’re missing out on a really easy way to get what boils down to free money. MyPoints is a service that pays you for reading emails and taking short surveys. I generally receive 3-5 emails per day and they take all of 3-5 minutes to read and receive points. My wife and I both participate.
Last week, my wife cashed in her points for an Olive Garden gift card. We started doing a weekly date night a few months back, and used the gift card to pay for most of a night out at the local Olive Garden. She used 3,450 points for a $25 Red Lobster/Olive Garden gift card.
My balance is currently at 2200 points and I’ll be cashing in my points balance for another gift card and another night out! Depending on how much time you’re willing to invest, MyPoints also offers games and other special offers for receiving more points.
You can also shop through them and earn points for buying things online. This is one area that I need to spend more time utilizing. We have all kinds of things we purchase on a frequent basis that I could probably be earning points for and frankly probably get them cheaper online. Lynnae over at bring frugal buys her printer ink online through MyPoints. I need to do that too.
I prefer not to spend a great deal of my time on MyPoints though, so I just click on the emails at 5 points each and visit their website and answer the polls for additional points. I will occasionally complete a survey if I have the time. I’ve also referred a few friends, which gets you points as well. I referred my wife.
One thing I do appreciate about MyPoints is that it hasn’t resulted in me receiving any excessive or unexpected junk mail or SPAM. This is not the case for other points/survey programs I have participated in. They also don’t send you tons of email everyday. To be honest, I wish they would send more! I’d be fine with 10 or 20 emails per day, given that each one literally takes less than 10 seconds to process.
I personally highly recommend MyPoints. If you don’t want your inbox cluttered (like me) and you’re a Gmail user, here’s a tip…
Let’s say your email is [email protected]. When you signup for MyPoints, enter [email protected]. This will still route the email to you, but will allow you to easily set-up a gmail filter to route all of the email sent to glblguy+mypoints into a MyPoints tag and have it auto archive. This will keep your inbox clean but still allow you to easily process your MyPoints emails when you want. This is how I manage mine and it works great.
Here are a few articles from other bloggers about MyPoints:
- Maximizing Your MyPoints Rewards at I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…
- Free Gift Cards from MyPoints at My Dollar Plan
- Earn Money by Shopping Online at Mommy Gets Paid
Have any tips or tricks for using MyPoints? What have you received with you points? Add a comment!
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:53 am
Thanks for the mention! I love MyPoints too!
I’m going to have to try that email trick. My inbox is always a mess. LOL
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Thanks for the mention!
You really can add up a lot of points just by answering all the polls and clicking through the emails they send! I am not sure what I will do with my points, I think I am currently around 2,000, I may save them up for that Olive Garden gift card-sounds yummy!
Take Care
LJ
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Another trick I use is to open a new browsing session in the Firefox browser, and then use the middle mouse button to click the link to the MyPoints offer. Doing this will open the link in a new tab but will keep the main Gmail tab at the fore front. I also use the “j” keyboard shortcut to navigate to the next oldest email in the list. So the process simply becomes middle click then press J, and repeat. When all the emails have been processed you can simply close the browser and all the tabs are closed as well.
NOTE: you may have to go into the settings for the tabs and change the default settings so new tabs are not opened in front of the current tab.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I just got my first My Points gift card in the mail today! A $10 Target gift card, and I’ve been working toward it since mid-January. So, less than two months!
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Thanks. I may give this a try.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I’ve had a MyPoints account for years but have only recently learned how to really make it work for me. The email and respond is the most basic way to earn points. I’ve also downloaded the MyPoints toolbar to my browser and I earn points by using their search function. If I’m planning to make an online purchase, I always check to see if I can earn points through that merchant via the MyPoints website. But the quickest way to rack up the points and get the benefit is with the MyPoints credit card–and this is where you need to be careful. Each person will know what’s best for them. I’ve had a zero balance on my credit cards for about two years now, and that is why I feel so comfortable using the MyPoints card even though it is a higher interest rate card than any of my others. I use the MyPoints card for nearly everything (I just renewed my vehicle regitration with it earlier today). Groceries, gas… everything. It also helps me with budgeting too, because all of my purchases are listed out in one place.
When it came time to update the fixtures in our 2 bathrooms, I paid for all the hardware with points redeemed as gift certificates to Home Depot. This past Christmas, I was able to complete nearly all my holiday shopping using points redeemed as gift cards. Now that I’ve really learned the MyPoints system, I estimate that I’m able to put $250-300 back in my pocket each year by redeeming points.
I’m careful not to spend extra just to earn more points, and I’m careful not to rationalize frivolous purchases because I’m using points to buy it.
You must be careful, to be sure, but it really is a great way to stretch a budget.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
ooops, to clarify, I didn’t give the gift cards as gifts for the holidays, I used the gift cards to make the purchases.
I only give gift cards as a last resort.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Thanks for letting us know of one of these that isn’t just trying to sell you something. Sounds like it works pretty well.
Lisa
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
I just wrote about MyPoints recently. Check to make sure you are getting the best points per dollar ratio when you cash in your points.
I haven’t done the math on it, but I think FatWallet would be a better deal for buying stuff online. You get cash back this way.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Exactly, I signed up with a version of my e-mail that I use just for MyPoints. It’s definitely worth it to me to periodically get gift cards. I don’t know yet if I’ll use them for practical things or fun things.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Free food is great! My Points is so easy. Interesting tip for the gmail. I really need to switch from Yahoo to gmail!
March 25th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
MyPoints is a scam. You try to collect points and when you get to any level where you can get something, they freeze your account. They are not in the least way rewarding. DonÂ’t use them, donÂ’t refer your friends, just donÂ’t put yourself through the pain. It takes about 4 months to get to a reward, only for them to cancel your account. When you address them concerning this, they convieniently donÂ’t have your information on record. It is a fraud, a SCAM, you will be wasting your time. Get a real job. It takes about an hour to earn 100 points if you wait and let the emails build up. So you are earning less than one dollar an hour. WouldnÂ’t you rather spend that time elsewhere?
Rhonda
March 25th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Rhonda, I completely disagree. The emails don’t take long at all, and we’ve received more than $100.00 in rewards so far on multiple visa gift cards.
Sounds like you had a bad experience with them, sorry to hear that, but a number of us pf bloggers have had really good experiences with them.
March 25th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
@Gibble: I couldn’t agree with you more. My wife has been using them for years and we have redeemed a lot of points just by clicking the emails. Quick, painless and a great rewards.
March 26th, 2008 at 6:54 am
I just reached 5000 points trying to get to a $50 reward level and they decided to randomly freeze my account. They refuse to acknowledge any communications to them. I thought that people should know about this experience. I have two friends that this has also happened to. One had about 4000 points and MyPoints disappeared their account and the other had their account shut down and it took 6 months to get it back and the points had been reset. They are not honest.
Really is the time you put into this worth the pain?
March 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I agree with Rhonda. In our dorm, we have a shared computer and all had MyPoints accounts until recently. They have all been frozen for some reason. Does MyPoints not allow more than one person use the same computer? This was extremely upsetting. We had almost earned enough points to get a reward. I am very upset with them.
No ONE should use MyPOINTS and their advertisers should drop them.
March 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
@Holly – I wonder if they watch for the same IP address using MyPoints thinking it might be someone running multiple accounts.
@Rhonda- Is your situation similar?
March 29th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
That may be the case. One person thinks that they monitor the time spent at each site.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:21 am
Oh, great. I just received email from MyPoints stating that they made a mistake. But there was no way to give me back the 5500 points that I had earned with them prior to their error. And they thanked me kindly for my support but sorry I had to start a new account.
Scam. I say it is a scam.
April 10th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Mypoints will freeze your membership for no reason when you build up enough points for a large award, 3 or more $50 giftcards. They will not answer your email, even after several messages sent, nor do they have a customer noservice phone number. In my opinion they are a scam. There are better sites that offer cash and gifts for surveys that are honest and fair.
If you are a member, cash your points as often a possible. Do not build up too high a balance or it will disappear too.
August 29th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
i’ve been using mypoints for about 6 months now and i have a little more than 3500 points. my mom introduced me to it. i was going to use the giftcard for whatever i decided to buy but now im thinking im going to use it for a program my church has around christmas since i already have everything i need. i hope this works.
January 21st, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Free money? Yeah, for them.
I’m another person who’s gotten ‘screwed over’ royally by MyPoints. I’d actually been a member since late 1998 and had never even redeemed my points once, as I wanted to accumulate a large amount and get something really nice with them.
Well, having accumulated a huge number of points through them (over a faithful 12+ years!!!), I just today got an email saying that my MyPoints account was canceled. They said I’d violated their ‘Terms of Service’ somehow, though no definite reason was given. All my points were canceled.
I’d advise everyone: Don’t waste your time with MyPoints. You’ll be clicking your brains out – for absolutely nothing!
I’m going to talk to the BBB about them.
You’ve been warned – so beware MyPoints!!