August 2006 Archives
On Tuesday, E-Rewards.com sent out a member satisfaction survey with some questions about how their program compares to other survey sites. Some questions included, "How many other survey sites do you do? How does E-Rewards compare to these other programs?"
One question that was long overdue, and the answer should be glaringly obvious to their staff already, was about member satisfaction with the redemptions available from their program.
E-Rewards pays its members in "E-Currency," redeemable for airline miles, discounts on purchases from several merchants, magazine subscriptions, or free Blockbuster rentals. Though the magazine subscriptions are a nice recent addition, the selection is weak and the value for the E-Currency spent is pretty poor. Many of the magazines up for redemption (Maxim, Stuff, Blender, Latina, Cruising World, EGM) are frequently available for free through promotional links on other sites. (I post them pretty frequently on TipBlog.) Bassmaster, which goes for $20 in E-Currency for 11 issues, can be purchased through Netmagazines for $5 for 33 issues. See MagazinePriceSearch for other magazine cost comparisons.
The purchase discounts offered in many cases still require a high purchase amount to receive the discount -- $50 in E-Currency will get you $50 off at AbtElectronics...but only on a $250 purchase. Rewards that require you to spend a lot more money...aren't much of a reward. So for the longest time, the Blockbuster redemption, which gives you one free movie rental a month for six months, for $25 in E-Currency, has generally been the members' favorite. Its real dollar value actually exceeds the E-Currency cost, and it doesn't require any additional spending on the member's part.
If you're an E-Rewards member, please look for and complete the member satisfaction survey and help get the message across to E-Rewards that we need some improvements in their rewards selection.
Today Sallie Mae announced it has completed the purchase of the 7-million-member uPromise rewards program, initially announced in June. The uPromise name will remain, as will uPromise's CEO, Tom Anderson. SallieMae's CEO, Tim Fitzpatrick, said, "We are excited to help families save and pay for college through our partnership with Upromise. This transaction advances our mission to increase access to higher education and to educate students and families on how best to meet college costs."
The full press release is here.
Yesterday MyPoints started a new game for members, the Find Your Way Back to School game. Every day through 9/14, a backpack banner will be hidden on one page of the site, and clicking on it will give you an entry into their daily prize drawing plus an entry into the grand prize drawing. Two additional grand prize entries can be earned daily by clicking on each of the two banners that appear after clicking the backpack banner.
The prizes are as follows (which day they'll be offered on will be chosen at MyPoints' discretion):
12 Bose Sound Dock Digital Music Systems (ARV $300 each), two $5000 United Vacations Travel Spree Gift Vouchers, 50 $100 "Filler Up!" Shell Gas Card, 10 60GB Video iPods (ARV $400 each), 20 TiVo Packages (Includes 180-hour TiVo Series2 DT DVR - Dual Tuner and one (1) year pre-paid service contract, ARV $350 each), 5 Apple MacBookPros (15.4 inch 2.0 GHz, Intel Core Duo and a one-year subscription to MacWorld, ARV $2019.97 each), 16 $250 JCPenney Shopping Sprees, 20 SDAT DF7 7-inch Digital Picture Frames with Video/Music Playback (ARV $170 each), 24 $100 Oriental Trading Shopping Spree Gift Cards, 20 $250 Gap Shopping Spree Gift Cards, 8 Pioneer Elite EX- 500 DVD Home Theater Systems (ARV $560 each), 20 $500 Target Shopping Spree Gift Cards, 50 $100 Omaha Steaks Gift Cards, 12 xBox 360s (ARV $400 each), 10 Motorazr V3i Dolce & Gabbanas (ARV $475 each), 4 Dell TM W4201C 42" High Definition Plasma TVs (ARV $2000 each), 20 $250 Macy's Shopping Sprees and a one-year subscription to Lucky (ARV $262 each), 10 $250 "Take 'em out to Dinner!" Brinker Gift Cards (ARV $250 each), 2 Vespa GTS250s (ARV $6000 each), 15 $250 Overstock Gift Cards, 50 $100 Barnes & Noble Gift Cards, 25 $200 Old Navy Gift Cards, 5 Dell Inspiron E1705s (ARV $1200 each), 25 2GB iPod Nanos (ARV $200 each), 20 $250 J.Crew Gift Cards, 20 one year subscriptions to Netflix (ARV $220 each), 20 Sony PlayStation® Portable Value Packs (ARV $250 each), 50 $100 iTunes Gift Cards, 10 Kodak EasyShare 6.1- Megapixel Digital Cameras with EasyShare Series 3 Printer Dock plus a one-year subscription to Digital Photographer (ARV $412 each).
The grand prize is your choice of a BMW Mini Cooper S model or S Model convertible (MSRP $32,000).
In total, $200,539.85 worth of prizes will be awarded. There will be 1,063 daily prizes. You can win more than one daily prize (just not more than once in one day).
Today's prize is the Pioneer Home Theater System worth $560; they're giving away 8. The backpack can be found in the Outlet Center today.
Good luck to all! (If you're not a MyPoints member and you'd like to join, please email me so I can refer you...thanks!)
If you've been thinking about joining uPromise and just haven't gotten around to it, there's a promo code out for new members: during the signup process, enter the code ELM3 to have $3 deposited into your uPromise account by Elmer's Glue.
ClubMom Rewards is offering 1,000 free points (enough to cash out for a free $5 Blockbuster GC) for attending a free Do-It-Herself Workshop at Office Depot on Monday, August 21. At 6:30pm they'll have a class on Customizing a Space for the Active You, and at 7:30, Creating a Retreat for the Quiet You. Home Depot will give attendees a coupon good for 10% off your next in-store purchase (expiring 9/4).
Click here for more information. If you're not a member yet, click here first to join.
In their regular quarterly conference call with stock analysts, United Online execs yesterday said that they were "very pleased" with the performance of MyPoints under United Online's ownership. "MyPoints relative to expectations definitely outperformed," said Charles Hilliard, United Online's President and CEO.
The execs (which also included UNTD's VP Scott Matulis and CEO/Chairman Mark Goldson) went on to discuss how they feel their company could benefit greatly from AOL's decision to make their email and content free, as they feel many people have only stuck with AOL to keep their email addresses. A strong UNTD can only be good for MyPoints' members, so I hope they're right.
Thanks to SeekingAlpha for the conference call transcript.
