My Points Aggravation (Updated)
Written: Nov 04 '01 (Updated Nov 29 '01)
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The Bottom Line
Too muck clicking for too few points. Good for frequent online shoppers, otherwise it takes too long to get your gift certificates.
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Update Concerning my remarks on customer service; they replied to me today (Monday), with a very polite response that answered my questions quite nicely. They must not have customer service representatives working on weekends.
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MyPoints - the concept is simple, and the idea is enticing - you click on links sent to you in email, sign up for special offers, etc, and when you have enough points you can redeem them for gift certificates. The problem is that it takes forever to get points by just clicking on links, and they don't send me any offers I'm interested in joining.
Right now I have 2360 points, and I am going to redeem them for a $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble once I get 2475 points. Up until October 1, I only needed 2250 points to get the gift certificate, but the points to redeem were raised just before I had enough. Once I redeem these points, I will be canceling my membership. While the $25 will be nice, it has taken me somewhere between a year and a half to two years to get enough points.
When I first joined up with MyPoints, clicking on a link in an email always gave you 10 points. Recently, that was downgraded to 5 points per click, with only a few 10 point offers. I probably get 4 or 5 emails per week, and this is mostly my only mode of getting points, so you can see why it would take a long time to gain any amount of points.
A few days ago, I sent an inquiry to customer service about my points balance, which wasn't as high as it should have been. I immediately got an automated response saying that I should expect a response within 24 hours. That was about three days ago and I still haven't heard from them. Maybe it's because it is a weekend? We'll have to see.
MyPoints does offer other ways to earn points, which can be seen on their Earn Points page, and include MyPoints Shopping, where when you shop with certain online merchants, you are rewarded with a set number of points per dollar spent (usually only 1 or 2 points per dollar).
On the Earn Points page, you can also have the option of clicking on the following links to earn points:
Try it out - "Earn Points by checking out some fabulous trial offers."
(most of which involve spending money or giving out your credit card number to get a month or two free to a deal, after which you can cancel your account or if you don't cancel, they will automatically bill your account on a monthly basis afterwards - don't fall for it - chances are you will forget to cancel and end up with an unwanted bill, all in the name of getting a few points).
Finance Center - "Earn Points for building your financial future."
Take a Survey - "Earn Points fast. Answer questions about your likes, dislikes and opinions." (you can only take the "About you" survey once, and there never seems to be any other surveys available).
Visit Web Sites - "Earn Points by touring Web sites." (click on links and visit web sites to earn points - you can only earn points for clicking on a link once per 365 days - links change occasionally).
Refer-a-Friend Program - "Tell a friend and earn up to 1,000 Points per month!" (sounds good, right? well it's not that great - you only get credit for a referral once that person has signed up and earned 125 points, and you can only get credit for 10 referrals per month).
Links Program - "Earn Points linking from your Web site!" (essentially the same as the Refer-a-Friend Program - you put a link on your site to MyPoints and anybody who joins up through the link is counted as a referral).
On the Shopping page, you can choose from many different online stores, ranging in categories from Accessories to Computers to Electronics to Pets and many more. Get points for shopping, deals vary from store to store: you may get a set amount of points per dollar, or you may get a deal like "get 300 points with a purchase of $20 or more". The only way this is good is if you are already doing the shopping anyway.
On the Member Values page, there is a list of various offers to sign up for, with different amounts of points offered for signing up. Most offers involve you spending money.
You can redeem your points from the Spend Points page, where you can choose a gift certificate from many different merchants from many different categories. Most gift certificates come in values of $5, $10, $25 or $50.
On the Account Statement page, you can check the points you have available, as well as points earned but not yet applied to account (points are accredited overnight), points reserved for pending redemptions (sometimes it takes longer to get points if for example you are switching your phone company - this would take 30 days). You can also choose to get a weekly or monthly statement.
If you are interested in getting some gift certificates for free, but you aren't patient, this isn't the site you are looking for. If you don't mind waiting forever, or if you do a lot of shopping online anyway, then this site isn't that bad.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
fyvel
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Member: Mandy
Reviews written: 90
Trusted by: 81 members
About Me:
Doubt everything. Find your own light.
-- Buddha
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