Milesource.com Looks Great, But the Rewards are MIA...
Written: Apr 03 '03 (Updated Jan 27 '04)
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At first, I was sold on Milesource.com, especially since they offered several ways to earn points without spending money. Overall, the site is fairly well designed, and for those that do shop online, they have an extensive list of companies that participate in their program. However, the problem isn't earning points, it's REDEEMING them.
Here's what I like:
The MileSource.com Web site offers daily trivia questions, which can earn you a variety of points. They use a random drawing to determine winners based on those that took part in answering the trivia questions. I'm not sure it makes any difference in giving the right answers, as it was difficult finding any details about this on the site.
They also have a section called Milebuilder which promises up to 22 points per day simply for clicking on Web site links. While this is a helpful way in getting points for virtually doing nothing, it never quite seems to be 22 points. I guess that's where the UP TO 22 points comes into play. Overall, I can't complain as it's still a quick way to earn points.
They have a few free games offering additional chances of "winning" points. It's a little different from many of the traditional game sites in that you don't earn points per game, rather you are entered into a drawing for free points based on the number of times you play. Often, no points result from the games, but once in a while you find 25 points or so deposited into your account.
Shopping through the site earns you 2 points per dollar spent. The nice thing is that the e-mail address you provide to online vendors is a special Milesource.com one provided when you sign up with Milesource. It's not really an e-mail account, more like a message forwarding service. You use this special "fake" e-mail address in your contact information when placing online orders through Milesource partners, and any e-mails sent to it get forwarded to your real e-mail address as only known by Milesource. I find it kind of nice in keeping my regular e-mail address from ending up on a million spam lists.
What I don't like:
The biggest complaint is that I have tried to redeem points and have NEVER received what I was promised. I cashed in enough points for two movie tickets last summer and have still not gotten them. I've tried e-mailing, calling, faxing, smoke signals, sign language, and telepathy - all to no avail. Customer service has not responded to any of my attempts to contact them. Not even once. The points were deducted from my account almost immediately, but the "prize" remains missing in action.
It's funny, you don't find out about the problems in actually redeeming the points until after you've spent months earning the points. I guarantee I won't waste any more time earning points at this site. Milesource.com looks great on the surface, but they just don't follow through on delivering the goods.
Personally, I recommend Mypoints.com, as I've redeemed points several times and have ALWAYS gotten what I was promised. It may take a little longer to earn points there, but I think the rewards are better and at least you actually receive them.
Update: I did finally get a response to one of my e-mails from Milesource. They apologized and told me that there were problems (duh) with getting some of the prizes out, but that my movie tickets would be sent within a few days. That was over 8 months ago, and I still haven't seen anything from them. I sent a few follow-up messages, but once again got totally ignored. I've since stopped visiting the Milesource Web site completely and have completely written them off.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
RBradford
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Location: Dallas, TX
Reviews written: 109
Trusted by: 32 members
About Me:
I'm a Computer Hardware, Software, and Gadget Junkie.
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