November 2004 Archives
The full review of this program is upcoming but here's what I can tell you so far:
Sploofus.com is a rewards program that offers points for correctly answering trivia questions. Membership is limited to one per IP and you must be 18 or older. The program just started in Sept. 2004 and as of this writing there are just over 1600 members.
You receive a trivia question by email each day. Correctly answer 10 of these daily questions and you advance to the next level. Levels get progressively harder but you earn more.
Each week you get a Showdown Token, and you can use it to challenge the person just ahead of you in the rankings. You'll both be given the same question and the first person to answer it, within 7 days, wins. If you win, you get 10% of the challengee's points (but the challengee doesn't lose any). If you lose, the challengee gets 10% of YOUR points (you DO lose those).
Each time you advance a level by getting 10 correct daily answers, you also get a Wager Token. This allows you to make a wager on your daily question -- get it right, get the extra points. Get it wrong, lose both the points AND any points earned toward your next level.
You can also earn points for referrals or submitting quizzes (get 10 points each time someone takes your quiz!).
What do you do with all these points? Well, the top 3 folks in the different rankings (monthly, speed, level, and category) win GCs, and you can also use points for lottery tickets -- there are two drawings a month for 10 monthly winners.
Ready to join Sploofus.com? C'mon down! Click here and join the fun!
MyPoints just sent out an email advertising its "Holiday Points Extravaganza!"... You have GOT to be kidding me!
They want you to shop through their Points-Per-Dollar Merchants through December 31, and if you do, they'll give you an additional bonus in FEBRUARY. The bonus structure is as follows:
Spend $100 - $499 and get 150 bonus points
Spend $500 - $999 and get 350 bonus points
Spend $1000+ and get 750 bonus points
Okay, this is wrong on so many levels. Where to begin?
First off, MyPoints' points-per-dollar offers are generally very low rebates to begin with -- 2 points per dollar = a 1.82% rebate. 3 points per dollar = 2.73%. 4 points per dollar = 3.64%.
Not only are they low percentage rebates, they are low compared to what other rewards programs pay for the same merchants! Before you shop, go to http://www.sdrawer.com/shopbysitename.htm and find the merchant you want to shop with in their alphabetical list to see what other programs are paying. You'll see that once you convert those points per dollar offers to %, it's easier to compare... and MyPoints usually just plain SUCKS!
Now to further insult you, MyPoints is offering these bonuses based on your total purchases through Dec. 31. Let's convert those, too. 150 points is worth about $1.37. That's the bonus they're going to give you for spending almost $500 of your money through them! Spend between $500 and $999 and they'll give you a whopping $3.19 bonus (350 points). Whoa, hold me back! But if you're a really big spender and you spend over $1,000...you get a $6.83 bonus!
How the heck is that an "Extravaganza"?
Lemme give it to you straight, folks. MyPoints is a great program for those big flat-rate point offers. I LOVE the "500 MyPoints Daily for Any Overstock Purchase" offer. It credits overnight. It works on a purchase of a single media item. You can MAKE money with that deal. But the points-per-dollar offers at MyPoints are pretty sad, percentage-wise. They just don't think you're going to do the math and compare them to other programs and find this out.
You're going to do much better doing your holiday shopping through QuickRewards.net. They have a much higher rebate percentage and they tell you what you earn STRAIGHT UP in percentages, rather than trying to hide it with paying in points. You can cash out to Paypal with no minimum cashout requirement and get paid THE SAME DAY, or you can save up for GCs like Amazon and Disney Dollars. Not only will you earn more for your purchases, but frequent shoppers get bonuses on top of THAT! So, skip the points-per-dollar "Extravaganza" at MyPoints (what a load of crap) and earn more with EVERY purchase at QuickRewards.
This morning someone posted on a forum that they'd emailed Freeride inquiring why so many of their points were pending, and this is the response Freeride sent:
"Thank you for your e-mail. Upon reviewing your account, I see that many of your tokens are from our HotJobs promotion. The HotJobs link promotion was a limited time offer, subject to change without notice. HotJobs decided that they wanted to tone down the promotion, and, as much as we wanted to keep it up, we were forced to drop it down to its current reward limit. This means that some or many of your tokens are no longer valid and may be pending indefinitely. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused."
I've been hearing rumors for weeks that Freeride has been violating their affiliate agreement in offering so many points for HotJobs. Maybe there's something to the rumors. If HotJobs just wanted to "tone down" the promotion, why wouldn't they pay for the points earned up to that point? The only explanation is that they didn't approve them.
If (and that's a big *IF* -- I don't know this to be a fact) Freeride was breaking the rules, it says something about their integrity.
As a general rule, it's not a good idea to focus all your efforts on any one rewards program -- we know from experience that they come and go -- but I urge you to use special caution to not put all your eggs in Freeride's basket.
I just completed a survey for JCPenney. They were asking for opinions on a proposed new rewards program -- if it was a good value, how it might affect your likelihood to shop at JCP, etc. This is NOT definite, but this is what they proposed (cut-and-pasted from the survey):
JCPenney is considering launching a new program to enhance your shopping experience with us. Please read the following program description and answer the questions that follow the description.
Reward Points: The more you shop, the more savings you earn
Welcome to Reward Points. As a member, every time you shop at JCPenney you’ll earn points for every dollar you spend. Each calendar quarter, you can redeem your points for Cash Savings certificates and other great rewards. Or save them up for an even better end of the year reward.
Here’s how it works. Earn 10 Reward Points for every dollar you spend. You can begin to redeem for exciting rewards once you’ve earned 1000 points. The more points you earn, the better the rewards. For example:
Points Rewards
1000 $10 JCPenney Savings Certificate
2500 $30 JCPenney Savings Certificate
4000 $50 JCPenney Savings Certificate
Plus, you’ll receive special member communications and bonus value opportunities to help you stay in style and save even more. And we’ll give you additional Reward Points just for reading and responding to the email member communications we send you.
Reward Points. Making shopping with us an even better deal.
Yup, every six months or so somebody comes along and does a news article on these...we've known about these programs for years!
Anyway, here's another article, this one by ABC News, discussing the similarities and differences among the big 3 college savings rewards programs: NestEggz, BabyMint, and Upromise. (Make sure you read on to page 2, I almost missed it.)
I've been with BabyMint for several years and have been happy with them. I'm signed up to receive my rebates via check instead of going into a college savings plan, though.
Your comments are always welcomed!
