June 2004 Archives

Can you earn prizes for listening to and reviewing music? Sure ya can! Read on for my review of PromoSquad!

The company that owns BabyMint and NestEggz, a private firm now called Vesdia Corporation, bought the StockBack rewards program in April (more here) and today announced its relaunch (more here).

I have accounts on BabyMint and NestEggz, and had difficulty registering on StockBack -- emailed customer service about it -- just to let you know in case you have similar problems.

StockBack previously was a rewards program that offered shopping rebates at 75 merchant partners and by using a 1% rebate credit card. The new StockBack offers a 2% rebate credit card and nearly 500 merchants! And earnings can be directed into "virtually any" mutual fund or brokerage, or received in the form of a check.

Today MetaReward and Ebay announced they're going into partnership. Exactly how it's going to work isn't clear to me right now -- the news release says something murky about MetaReward "provid(ing) the technology platform necessary to accurately and reliably award Anything Points earned from partners." This would make me think that MetaReward is just going to be the backbone of Ebay's software that will enable users to earn Anything Points from a wider variety of sources. I dunno, read the news release here and draw your own conclusions. No doubt we'll be hearing more about this in the future.

If you're not aware, MetaReward powers a lot of the signup offers available on many paid email and rewards programs, including their own program NetFlip, as well as Search Cactus, QuickRewards, and CreationsRewards, just to name a few.

Consumers use of credit cards is affected by the rewards the cards offer, but more than 50% of them who've been enrolled in a rewards program over 5 years have never cashed in their points! This is according to a survey conducted in October by Maritz Research (more here).

Why is that? Are half of us too lazy to find out what rewards we're eligible for? Are we saving up for one humongous reward? Or maybe half of us just haven't earned enough to redeem? I don't know. But if you do have a rewards credit card, you owe it to yourself to find out exactly how the program works and what you're eligible for!

I read a quote somewhere once that said something like, "The worst rewards program is the one people don't know about." If the credit card companies aren't properly informing their customers about how their programs work -- not just that "you earn points for purchases" but what rewards are available, how long until points expire, how exactly to redeem and what an expected wait time is for receiving a redemption -- they aren't influencing consumer behavior. They need to get on the ball.

In the meantime, we (consumers) need to take the initiative to research our rewards. Get on the phone with your CC company! Heck, you're already online, check it out now! And make sure you know what your options are so you're maximizing your reward per dollar spent.

Hi, all! I was contacted by a gentleman who is planning to start a new travel-oriented rewards program. He asks for input on the program -- any suggestions, ideas, a "wish list" if you will...including your ideas on payouts, referral commission, etc.

Please leave a comment here with your suggestions on what would make you want to use and recommend to others a new travel-related rewards program!

Thanks!
(Note: You do not have to leave an email address to leave a comment! I don't want anyone here to think this is an attempt at getting a spam list together for this fella!)