September 2006 Archives
As I mentioned in a post here on 9/2, Freeride.com blamed a "technical problem" for their failure to send out redemptions in a timely manner, and they announced they would instead substitute Virtual Visas for those redemptions. These redemptions were promised in 7 business days. No one is reporting having received theirs yet.
On Tuesday evening, Freeride sent out an email to all members with outstanding redemptions, apologizing for the delay and blaming it on yet another "technical problem," with the new promised delivery "no later than September 30th." (Click "Continue Reading" for the text of the email.)
Message to Endai Worldwide (Freeride's owner): Get it together, people. You're lucky people are willing to give Freeride a second, no make that a THIRD, chance to begin with...now you're mucking it up. You best better make that 9/30 deadline. And say, when did Corey Newhouse leave as Director of FR? About the time people started having problems with redemptions? HIRE HIM BACK. Back up the money truck if you have to. Freeride needs strong leadership, and Corey provided that. Do what you gotta do.
Notice that I didn't title this, "The Most Popular Rewards Programs." This is a ranking of rewards programs based on their traffic rankings at Alexa.com. Alexa ranks websites based on the number of site visits they receive, on average, in a 3 month period, along with some other factors like the average number of pages on that site that the visitor views. (More info here.)
This does NOT mean that Alexa ranks the sites based on the number of active users. A site might have more traffic if it's running ads -- people could visit the site and not join. It might also have an artificially inflated traffic number if it's running some kind of daily promotion, like the MyPoints daily backpack game that just ended -- people who don't usually visit the site may do so just to play the game. And I do want to stress that just because a program has high traffic, that doesn't mean it's necessarily *better*; some of my favorite rewards programs are those that are smaller and can give more personalized service.
So, for what it's worth, here are the Alexa rankings for the rewards programs I checked today:
MyPoints (1,025) -- this means it's the 1,025th most visited site on the 'net
Ebates (4,468)
Memolink (6,671)
Upromise.com
(7,016)
ClubMom (10,994)
Freeride (27,357)
FusionCash.net (46,829)
QuickRewards.net (54,972)
CreationsRewards.net (61,002)
Milesource (62,201)
FreestyleRewards (225,515)
Greenpoints (234,813)
BabyMint (429,701)
PointPool (812,863)
ClickToTheMagic (1,698,676)
For comparison's sake, CompareRewards.com comes in at 403,014. I get around 300 site visits per day and about 2 pages per visitor on average.
Last week, the PointPool rewards program eliminated daily points for site visits and since then, there has been a lot of concern over the site's future.
In a message to members posted on the site today, PointPool's management stated, "Our sponsors expressed that the daily points are not effective in generating their sales and we have lost all our sponsors. We had to pull daily points until we get other sponsors." They are actively pursuing other partners to provide daily points.
PointPool says this is all business as usual and they're not going anywhere. You can still earn points by shopping through the site, and shoppers will get priority in the delivery of their rewards. Those who have earned points by shopping through the site can expect their rewards within 2 weeks, while those who have site visit points only will receive theirs some time after.
While the disappearance of free daily points is definitely a disappointment, it shouldn't be a complete shock to any of us. This has been the ongoing trend over the last few years. Think of it from the program's side: fewer advertisers pay just for site visitors -- advertisers want some kind of return on their advertising investment. If people click through but don't purchase from the advertiser, the advertiser's not going to stick around for long. It's pretty logical.
If you're a few points shy of cashing out at PP, why don't you give their shopping section a try? I like buying magazines through rewards programs -- they're cheap, there's no shipping charged on them, and they make great gifts. For example: buy Redbook for $8 at ValueMags through PointPool's link and get 30 points per dollar plus 25% bonus, for a total of 300 points. How many days of getting 6 free points a day would it take to earn 300 points...50? Oh, but no. I don't have that kind of patience!
Bottom line: all hope is not lost for PointPool; they're not closing up shop but until more sponsors are found for their daily site visit points, you will need to do some kind of shopping in order to reach cashout.
If you haven't visited RewardsDB lately, you might want to stop in again and check it out. The site has always been a great tool for rewards program members wanting to find out which rewards program pays for purchases at a particular merchant. But about two weeks ago, the site was revamped to include coupons, a search-by-merchant pulldown (or you can use the old spreadsheet view), AND -- I think this is pretty cool -- a price comparison tool with a sidebar to show you the participating rewards programs and available coupons.
Check it out! Go to http://www.RewardsDB.com and click on Shopping, then Find the Best Price.
Looking for the 2007 "Backpack Location - Found It" Link? Click here for the locations of the 2007 MyPoints Back to School Game combination lock icons.
On the left side of the MyPoints homepage, under Shopping Categories, click All Merchants for today's MyPoints Backpack! Today's prize is 1 of 50 $100 iTunes GCs! Remember to click the links directly underneath the two banners on the right hand side after you enter the contest, to get two more entries into the grand prize giveaway (a BMW Mini Cooper S Model worth $32,000).
Note: All winners have been posted -- see the winners by day here: http://www.mypoints.com/emp/u/backtoschool.vm
p.s. If you've just found my site by searching for info on the backpack location, please be sure to check out the rest of CompareRewards for more info on MyPoints and other rewards programs similar to it! And if you're into freebies, please visit my other website, TipBlog.com!
If you're a member of the Opinion Outpost survey program, make sure you log in and complete the two new profile updates available (on Shopping and Travel). These will help to qualify you for future surveys.
If you're not a member yet and would like to join, please click here -- thanks!
On Friday, SearchChips introduced an updated look and feel to the site, with a completely different setup for earning and winning.
SearchChips Beta 2.0 eliminates monthly drawings and wins when your referrals win. And you now have to register to be eligible to win. That's the bad news. But the good news is that there will be "more prizes than ever before." In addition to the instant win prizes, you can earn chips in a variety of ways (including doing searches), and then cash them in for the prize of your choice. And if you do have friends you can refer to the site, you'll get a $25 GC when they cash out!
For more information, see the SearchChips Blog, or SearchChips's Glen's blog. My previous review of SearchChips is here.
To join, please click here and then click Join with CompareRewards!
Visitors to PointPool.com today found that there was one major aspect of the site that was missing: the points for website visits. At one time, there were 8 daily points available between the hidden banners and those listed in the Visit Websites section, worth around 4 cents total. While there are no longer any free points available, you can still earn for shopping at over 300 popular online merchants.
Freeride has been the subject of a lot of member complaints in the past year from members waiting months for redemptions (some recent forum posters have complained that they're still waiting on prizes from April and May), and with no response from Freeride's customer service. Finally, about two weeks ago, Freeride began emailing back some of the more vocal complainers with the explanation that there had been some sort of system glitch that delayed their prizes, giving them the option to continue waiting or to opt instead for 500 points to their account "as a token of their appreciation" plus a Virtual Visa, which was promised within a week.
In the last few days, however, members with long outstanding redemptions have been sent an email saying they were getting the Virtual Visa instead -- without making it an option...plus 250 points (not 500).
Meanwhile, the redemption costs for their GCs that have to be sent by postal mail have gone up. A $10 GC that used to cost 12,000 points is now 13,000. Obviously Freeride is trying to provide an incentive to members to cash out for emailable GCs, which don't incur a shipping cost on their end.
At the current redemption rates, Freeride's Virtual Visas are cheaper than snail-mailable GCs by 500 points for $10 GCs or 1,000 points for $25 or $50 ones. It seems to me that the bonus should be at LEAST the difference between the requested redemption and the VV cost.
The buzz on Freeride from the message forums is overwhelmingly negative, and it has been for months. Freeride is showing many of the classic signs of a rewards program in trouble: longer waits for redemptions, poor communication with members, and now, increased redemption costs. Until we get word that Freeride is making good on these old redemptions, and is sending out redemptions in a timely manner going forward, I'd suggest you do any shopping or spending offers on another rewards program.
FWIW, you can click Continue Reading to read the full text of the Freeride redemption substitution emails.
