I have gotten several questions lately about earning money through rewards programs and this MyPoints review is part of my ongoing effort to give a detailed opinion and guide to each of the most popular programs.
MyPoints is definitely in the group of most popular programs. Even if you haven’t heard of them, they have been around for such a long time they deserve exploring as one of your options.
What Is My Points?
MyPoints is a rewards program that pays you for doing tasks you do online anyway. Over time your points accumulate and you can exchange those points for gift cards. The points translate into about 0.62 cents apiece. With the smallest prizes being $10, this means you have to accumulate 1600 points to cash out for a gift card.
This does not translate into the best ratio from among all the online rewards programs, but it does not make them the worst either.
Is My Points Legit?
MyPoints is the granddaddy of all the available rewards programs. The company was started in 1996 and has had no interuptions in service since. How long have I been a member? Since 1998. That’s right, I have 18 years of experience using MyPoints. As someone who has earned hundreds of dollars in gift cards I can tell you first hand that they absolutely do pay out and that MyPoints is legit as can be.
What are the MyPoints Rewards?
MyPoints really pushes you to cash out with gift cards. They do this by giving you the best rate of return on specific gift cards. You do have the option to cash your points in for a payout via PayPal, but you will get 0.55 cents for each point which is a more than 10% discount on the value of your points.
When I started with MyPoints there were no options for electronic gift cards. They actually sent a gift card to you in the mail. I joined because they gave gasoline cards and I was a poor college student looking to get around town.
Now, you can get e-gift cards and they are the best deal in their lineup of rewards. There are some gift cards that are more expensive than others, but right now you can cash out 1,600 points for a $10 gif card from:
- Barnes & Noble
- Bass Pro Shops
- Bath & Body Works
- Boston Market
- The Children’s Place
- Chili’s Restaurants
- FootLocker.com
- GAP
- Groupon
- Longhorn Steakhouse
- Maggianos
- Old Navy
- Olive Garden
- On the Border
- Panera Bread
- Red Lobster
- REI
- Romano’s Macaroni Grill
- Shutterfly
This is a pretty wide and varying list of MyPoints rewards offers, but there are even more in the 1,700-1,750 point range for the same $10 cash out. This wide variety is why MyPoints stays a viable option for many people as a preferred rewards program.
How do you Earn Points with MyPoints?
Back when I started with MyPoints they were advertised almost exclusively as a “get paid to read e-mails” rewards program. I would literally earn 50 points a day just by opening e-mails. It is pretty amusing that as time has gone on all of these programs that have started out with a specific niche have converged and now offer a lot of the same get paid to opportunities. The current ways you can earn money with mypoints are:
Reading E-Mail – This is still the bread and butter of any Mypoints rewards earner. Each e-mail is worth 5-10 points and you have to click on the link in the email to get credit. If you decide to take advantage of the offer then you can earn even more points.
Paid to Search – This is where Swagbucks got their start with reward people for using their search engine. This is now an integral part of all the top rewards companies and pays you randomly when you use their search and you top out at 100 points each month.
Online Shopping – MyPoints has a pretty extensive set of partners that they are able to reward you for using their shopping portal to access some of the most popular online shopping sites. The rewards are not as good as what you will get with one of the top online shopping rewards sites like MrRebates.com.
That being said, they aren’t that far off and are nice if you are trying to consolidate your efforts into one program many of the top online shopping rebate programs don’t give you enough ways to earn.
Surveys – Surveys are how Inbox Dollars hit it big in the internet world. MyPoints doesn’t have nearly as many as Inbox Dollars, but when you get them they are worth the time to fill them out.
Watching Videos – Sounds crazy right? You can actually get paid to watch videos. You don’t get paid a lot but if you are sitting around watching TV anyway you can watch these videos on your computer or tablet at the same time and earn a little side jingle in your pocket.
Playing Games – I am not a big fan of these because I prefer higher end gaming, but if you like the games then play to your hearts content and earn a few points at the same time.
Printing Coupons – If you do any sort of grocery shopping you know you can print online coupons and save a lot of money. With MyPoints you earn 10 points for every coupon that you print. That works out to 6.2 cents extra on every coupon.
In-Store Promotions – From time to time MyPoints will strike a deal with an advertiser to give you a great in-store deal. For example, right now I can go to Wal-Mart and purchase two boxes of Hefty Trash Bags. When I scan and upload my receipt to MyPoints I will receive 1,750 points. That is enough to get a $10 gift card right away. The cheapest trash bags from Hefty are $5.12. If I go to the coupon printing page and print two of the Hefty $1 off coupons I will actually make $1.76 by buying those bags. That is a rare occurrence but the in-store promotions are a very good way to get a good deal.
Refer-A-Friend – The refer a friend program is pretty good with MyPoints. You get 25 points for referring a friend, 750 additional points when they spend $20 or more in the shopping area, and then 10% of all the points they earn going forward.
MyPoints Complaints
MyPoints has racked up more complaints with the BBB recently and most of them have to do with redeeming and their new verification system. It seems that people didn’t fill out their correct birth date when signing up and when asked to verify they were unable to provide the proper made up birth date.
My experience with any of these programs is that as long as things are running smoothly then they work great, but if you have a problem that falls outside the normal operation then you are going to have a problem getting a response. MyPoints is no different in this regard. That being said, I have 18 years with this company and have never had an issue with getting paid when cashing out my point balance.
How I Use MyPoints for Rewards
In the early days I was a heavy user of this platform because it offered me more options than anyone else. Now I tend to only go in and check the emails about twice a week. This makes sure they will not expire. At this rate I earn about 650 points a month and can cash out every 2.5 months.
I use other programs for online shopping, surveys and getting paid for search. Since I don’t mind having to keep up with those different programs It allows me to make the most money. If you are looking to consolidate your efforts then MyPoints is a pretty good option.
Bottom Line
MyPoints offers a good opportunity to focus all your rewards program earnings in one place. They are, by far, the best of the get paid to options when it comes to getting paid to read emails. As far as all-around performance of a single program I would still give the edge to Swagbucks and InboxDollars, but I am going to continue to use them to get paid for reading their e-mails.
If I had to do a MyPoints review for overall earnings I would give them three out of five stars. They are a solid tested program that pays out, but isn’t out performing the top two competitors in the get paid to space.
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