I first heard about MyPoints.com back in 1998. They were advertising that you could earn rewards for receiving and responding to advertisers via emails. The emails are in html format with pictures and information about the product they want you to learn more about. The lower part of the email has a red button that you can click to go to the website the email is pertaining to. In that area they also talk about how to earn points. You earn points for getting the email and visiting the advertised site and usually you earned more points for joining something or buying something. The points you earn could be used for cool gift certificates to either online shopping or actual store shopping. Early on I found out you could get points for referring people so I referred my various email accounts, I have always had at least 3 and think at that time I had 5 different email accounts. I earned points quickly for joining cd clubs and book clubs and referring myself. I would get a reward every couple months. I spent points as fast as I got them. I ate out at Olive Garden or Red Lobster with a $25 gift card or went shopping at Target or Barnes and Noble. All I had to do was pay attention to the emails sent to me from MyPoints and click the red button, if I was interested in the offer I pursued the points if I wasn't I just got the points for receiving the email. The emails from MyPoints never gave me a virus, they never crashed my computer and I was getting a reward simply for checking email which I do several times a day anyway. However keeping up more then one account became tedious and seemed a little unethical so I began canceling the other accounts. I would wait until they got large enough for a gift certificate and I would order it, recieve it and stop using the account. It slowed my gift certificate use way down but my email accounts became manageable again. I still had two for a while but in September of 2001 I donated my points to the World Trade Center victims via Red Cross. The company matched all the pints given and made a donation in dollars. I started back up with just one account this time and have been going strong since. I am currently at 9,424 points and could easily get nearly 75 dollars worth of rewards gift certificates. This account has accumulated a grand total of 19,599 points and given at least 3 to 4 rewards. I donated points for Katrina victims and that is the last time I have done anything with points.
Points are accumulated in several ways the first is by just clicking the button in the email that takes you to the advertised site, that earns 5 points (it used to be ten but they probably were giving too many gift certificates out). The second way is to join whatever website mailer they are pushing. These are usually low point awards
but you basically get points to let them email you stuff. I use a certain email for mypoints so junk email is no big deal. Some of these websites are cool some are not. The other way is to buy something or to join a club where you agree to buy things and this gets you more points. Sometimes points are awarded with every dollar spent. So it is advisable to check online before you buy if there is anyway to get points for getting something you were going to get anyway.
They have different levels of rewards you can get 5, 10, 25 dollar or higher gift certificates for most of the places. This means you can get a small reward quickly or wait a little while longer for a bigger reward. The 25 dollar rewards usually cost about 3,250 points to get for most places I get rewards from. They were of course lower in the beginning. The points awarded were higher and the rewards cost less points to get and then they changed things but I stayed with it because I still get something for nothing. I have donated to Red Cross twice, I have received several gift certificates to Olive Garden, Circuit City, Target, Barnes and Noble and more. Every once in a while rewards change like it seems that Olive Garden is no longer a reward but they have Chili's, Baja Fresh, Pizza Hut, On The Border, Starbucks, Macaroni Grill, Cracker Barrel and a few others. They offer gas cards to Shell and BP, they have Target, Sears, Circuit City, Walmart, Linens n' Things, Macy's, Old Navy, the Gap, Kohl's, and many more stores to shop at listed. They also have gift certificates for online shopping at places like Omaha Steaks, Overstock.com, Red Envelope and a few others. They have hotel money and United Air mileage for purchase with your points. They have a lot more then this you may want to look into it.
It is an easy program to join and follow and only takes as much time as you do at each site. Some days I read all about a company that is advertised and other days nothing sent out is of interest and it takes me a few minutes to click on the sites for my receiving points. If you are interested in joining let me know. I will email you an invite and then I will get points which is a good thing. You can get points for up to 5 referrals a month so if I achieve 5 I will spread the love to people that signed up through me.
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