Rating
4.2
Sign up bonus
Pros
- Variety of ways to earn money
- Multiple payout methods
- Easy to use website and mobile app
Cons
- Limited customer support
- Survey options may be limited
Full MyPoints review
MyPoints was founded in 1996 as one of the original online rewards programs. Since then, there are over 9 million active users who earn Points on MyPoints.
MyPoints was purchased by Prodege in 2016 for $13 million in cash. It has since seen steady growth, new features, and an abundant growing community.
The whole idea behind MyPoints is to earn Points (get it, my points). You earn Points by doing things like shopping, taking surveys, watching videos, playing games, searching the web, reading articles, and several other things.
Points can then be redeemed for a number of gift cards, cash, and even travel miles from American Airlines and Delta.
From my experience, the best way to earn Points is by using the MyPoints browser extension called Score.
Score allows you to shop online like you normally would without first going through the MyPoints website. Whenever you visit a website, say Nike.com, the Score browser extension will notify you that there are Points to be earned at that store.
After you make your purchase on Nike.com, your Points (plus any Bonus Points) will be awarded to your account.
Other than shopping, there are many other ways you can earn Points—11 other ways to be exact. I go into detail about those later in this review.
If you have extra free time, you can earn more Points by completing surveys, watching videos, and reading online articles. However, from my experience, this won’t earn you a lot of Points, so it may not be the best use of your time.
In saying that, MyPoints still has many great features and ways for you to earn real rewards.
Overall, MyPoints is a legit service. It’s a great way to find deals online and in-store, save money by earning cash back, and getting paid to use the internet like you normally would.
MyPoints is best for you if
- You use the internet a lot to watch videos, browse, and shop — Why not earn cash and gift cards while doing these activities using MyPoints.
- You have free time to play games and take surveys — Most only take a few minutes and if done consistently, can earn you decent rewards.
- You want to earn some extra side income in addition to your job — MyPoints can give you some nice additional side income for doing everyday tasks on the internet.
Ways to earn with MyPoints
What’s great about MyPoints is that you can earn rewards for doing things that you normally do anyway.
MyPoints has 12 ways for you to earn Points. This means you have a lot of opportunities to earn rewards like cash and gift cards. Let’s go over each one briefly:
- Shop online — Through MyPoints, shop at over 1,900 retailers—such as Walmart, Target, and Amazon—and earn Points for your purchases.
- Take surveys — Answer survey questions and earn Points. Surveys can be as short as one minute or as long as 30 minutes. The longer the survey, the more Points you can earn.
- Watch videos — Earn Points while being entertained by watching curated videos. If you have ad-blocking software on your browser, you’ll need to turn it off to earn Points.
- Play games — Earn Points playing fun games like Angry Birds, Solitaire, and Bejeweled.
- Print coupons — Save money on your groceries and earn Points for printing and redeeming coupons.
- Search the web — Earn Points by using the MyPoints search engine powered by Yahoo!
- Find deals — Earn Points by finding and redeeming exclusive deals. For example, sign up for a free Acorns account and earn 1,000 Points.
- Discover content — nCrave is a service integrated with MyPoints that allows you to discover new videos, articles, and websites. You earn Points while browsing.
- Read emails — BonusMail allows you to earn Points by reading emails. Many times, you can earn Points for just clicking the email.
- Local deals — Earn Points through Groupon and LivingSocial goods and voucher purchases
- MyPoints Score — MyPoints Score is a browser extension that allows you to never miss out on Points. MyPoints Score will automatically apply coupon codes and notify you if you are shopping online and have a chance to earn Points on your purchase.
- Refer a friend — MyPoints Refer-A-Friend allows you to earn Points when you invite your friends to MyPoints. You’ll also earn additional Points when your friend spends and earns Points.
As you can see, MyPoints has plenty of options to earn Points that can be redeemed for cash and gift cards.
For example, you could earn Points passively just by searching the web and shopping online through MyPoints. These are both things you’re already doing, why not get paid for them?
If you have extra free time to earn more Points, you can do additional tasks such as taking quick surveys, playing games and watching videos.
MyPoints alternatives
Although MyPoints is the best in its class for earning rewards while browsing the internet, you may be interested in trying some MyPoints alternatives. Here’s a list of rewards services that are similar to MyPoints.
- Survey Junkie (See full review here) — Best for earning money taking surveys
- InboxDollars (See full review here) — Best for earning on your everyday online activities
- Swagbucks (See full review here) — Best alternative to MyPoints
- Vindale Research (See full review here) — Best for high-paying surveys
- Rakuten (See full review here) — Best for earning cash back while shopping online
- Ibotta (See full review here) — Best for earning cash back on in-store groceries
MyPoints top features
Let’s take a look at some of MyPoints primary features that help it to stand out from the crowd.
Cash back
MyPoints has partnered with over 1,900 stores to bring you the best cash back deals.
The cash back feature allows you to earn Points while shopping online and in-store.
For example, purchasing a new pair of shoes from Nike.com would earn you 1 Point per dollar spent plus 1,750 Bonus Points.
Say you purchased a pair of shoes for $100. That’s another 100 Points for a total of 1,850 Points for something you would have purchased regardless. 1,850 Points would be equal to a little over $10 cash or gift redemption.
MyPoints cash back is a feature that you don’t have to go out of your way to use but can still earn decent Points doing.
Want more cash back? Try Rakuten.
How to get cash back online
There are two ways you can get cash back while shopping online.
Let’s say you wanted to shop and get cash back at Walmart.com.
The first way to make sure you earn cash back is by clicking through to the Walmart.com website from the link on MyPoints (while logged in to your account).
For example, if you go to the shop option on the menu, and then search for Walmart, you will be able to see all the current coupons and cash back offers for shopping at Walmart.com. You’ll also see a link that says Earn Points that when you click on will bring you to the Walmart.com website.
From there, you can continue shopping as you normally would. After you complete your purchase, you should see the Points appear in your account soon.
The second way to earn cash back while shopping online is to install the MyPoints Score browser extension.
This extension will detect whether or not you are on a website that has cash back offers. If you are, it will prompt you so that you can earn cash back.
The second option is a lot easier and requires fewer steps. However, you may like going through the MyPoints website to see all the other offers currently available at other retailers.
How to get cash back in-store
If you want to earn cash back while shopping in-store, you’ll have to link your credit or debit card to your MyPoints account.
If you go to the shop option on the main menu of the MyPoints website, then in-store shopping, you’ll see hundreds of offers with buttons that say add offer. When you click the button, you’ll be prompted to add your credit or debit card.
MyPoints will track your purchases from your credit or debit card and apply your cash back Points whenever you shop in-store using the card linked to your account.
Another app that’s worth checking out is Ibotta. Ibotta has great cash back deals on regular grocery items.
Bonus Points
Bonus Points are extra Points that are added to your account when you shop online through MyPoints.
For example, if you wanted to shop online at HomeDepot.com, you could earn 15 Points per dollar spent plus 1,750 Bonus Points.
These Bonus Points are added to your account on top of the points you earn per dollar spent.
Not every online retailer has this Bonus Points offer through MyPoints, and all of them have expiration dates.
MyPoints Score
The MyPoints Score browser extension allows you to easily earn Points while shopping online.
Instead of earning cash back Points by first going through the MyPoints website, you can just go right to the website you are wanting to shop at, and MyPoints will detect if you can earn Points on that site or not.
The browser extension will also automatically check coupon codes and apply the one that saves you the most money. Another service that does this is Honey.
Featured Offers
Featured Offers are some of the best ways to earn large amounts of Points on MyPoints. For example, there’s currently an offer that allows you to earn 5,000 Points if you install the free investing app Stash.
The only thing that you have to do to earn the 5,000 Points bonus is to make your first investment of $5 into your Stash account. After that, you’ll earn 5,000 Points, which is equal to about $30.
That’s a great deal considering the $5 that you deposit into your Stash account is technically still yours. It’s just being invested for you.
The Featured Offers are updated daily, and there are plenty of amazing deals that can earn you huge amounts of Points.
Dining Deals
Dining Deals is an awesome feature that checks for deals at local restaurants in your area. Here’s how it works.
You first add your credit or debit card to your MyPoints account. After that, when you want to earn Points for buying food locally, you simply go to Dining Deals, type in your zip code, and find local restaurants.
Many restaurants will earn you up to 50 Points per dollar spent. This can add up really fast, especially if you are eating out often.
Spending even $20 at a local restaurant will earn you as much as 1,000 Points, which is equivalent to around $7.
Daily Goal
Daily Goal is a cool feature on MyPoints that helps make earning Points a lot more fun.
Daily Goal gives you daily challenges that, if completed, will earn you Bonus Points. In addition to earning Bonus Points for Daily Goals, you’ll also earn Bonus Points for streaks.
For example, if you complete your Daily Goals every day for 5 days, you’ll earn 10 additional Bonus Points for a 5-Day Streak. Complete your Daily Goals 7 days in a row, earn 25 Bonus Points for a 7-Day Streak.
This streak bonus continues the entire month. If you complete your Daily Goals every day for an entire month, you’ll get 300 Bonus Points.
Daily Goals are just a way to make earning rewards on MyPoints more fun. In most cases, the Daily Goals are very easy to accomplish, so it shouldn’t be hard to hit streaks and earn Bonus Points.
Redeeming Points for cash or gift cards
MyPoints offers three different ways to redeem your Points—cash, gift cards, and travel miles. Let’s go over each one.
Cash
The first way to redeem your Points is to redeem for a PayPal deposit or Visa prepaid card.
The PayPal deposit will (obviously) require you to have a PayPal account. If you don’t already have one, they are 100% free to sign up for and use.
To move your redeemed cash from your PayPal to your bank account, you would need to link your bank account to your PayPal.
Once that’s done, whenever you redeem your Points for a PayPal deposit, you can immediately transfer your money from your PayPal to your bank.
The transfer takes 1-3 business days. If you need it transferred instantly, you can do that by paying a 1% fee. On a $25 instant transfer, you would only have to pay $0.25, which means you would receive $24.75 into your bank account.
Alternatively, if you would prefer to not use PayPal, you could redeem your Points for a Visa prepaid card. Using the prepaid card is not much different than transferring the money to your bank account and then using your debit card.
You’d be able to use the Visa prepaid card to pay for virtually anything. Groceries, gas, and even bills. The only thing you likely wouldn’t be able to use it for is a rent or mortgage payment.
Gift cards
The second way to redeem your Points is to redeem them for gift cards.
There are close to 100 different stores and restaurants that you can use your Points on. Just about every major retailer, restaurant, and fast-food chain has a gift card. To help give you an idea, here are a few of the options:
- Walmart
- Target
- Amazon
- Starbucks
- eBay
- CVS
- Cracker Barrel
- Home Depot
- Best Buy
- Bath & Body Works
- Apple Bee’s
- Olive Garden
These are just a few of the many options. If you want to see all the current gift card options, you’ll first need to sign up and then go to the Rewards page.
Travel miles
This is the last way you can redeem your Points, and likely the least popular method unless you travel a lot.
At the time of writing this review, there are currently two options for travel mile redemption:
- American Airlines — Starting from 15,880 Points
- Delta Air Lines — Starting from 15,880 Points
If you frequently fly any other airline, you are out of luck.
American Airlines travel miles can be used to pay for flight products, hotel reservations, and car rentals at your destination. Unfortunately, they cannot be used to purchase tickets.
However, Delta Air Lines travel points can be used toward airfare through Delta.com.
How to get started using MyPoints
Signing up
Signing up for MyPoints is easy. There’s a very simple one-step process. When you land on the MyPoints website, you will see a box that says Join Now For Free. You can choose between an Amazon gift card or a Visa gift card as your welcome bonus.
You then type in your email and password (which has to be between 6 and 12 characters) and then click on the join now button.
You should receive a confirmation email. Click the link in that email to confirm your email address. If you didn’t receive it, try checking your spam.
After you sign up
Once you have completed the registration process, you’ll be taken to a page where you can immediately begin earning Points.
Alternatively, you can click on the take me to the homepage link if you prefer to explore first.
From this point, it’s up to you to begin earning Points to redeem toward gift cards and cash.
Start earning points
At this point, it’s pretty much up to you to decide how you can begin earning Points.
From the MyPoints homepage, you’ll see dozens of offers, deals, coupons, surveys, games, and more that you can begin completing to earn Points.
There are always easy ways for you to earn Points. For example, you can earn 100 Points just for downloading the MyPoints Score browser extension.
Under the more menu option, there is something called Daily Poll. This is a daily question that you can answer to earn 1 point. The question takes all of 3-seconds to answer. Or, between you and me, it can take 1-second if you just quickly choose a random response and click submit.
Under the deals menu option, there are hundreds of daily deals that you can use to earn thousands of Points. However, within all of these deals are deals called click & earn!
These deals will earn you 2 points, but all you have to do is click on the deal. That’s it. You can close out of the deal once you’ve clicked it, and the Points should arrive in your account soon. Sometimes it can take a few days.
There are plenty of other easy ways to earn Points, you just have to browse the homepage to discover them.
To learn more about how you can earn Points, scroll up to the Ways to earn with MyPoints section of this review, where I go into detail about each method.
Is MyPoints worth it?
While there are other options, MyPoints is definitely one of the best rewards sites to sign up for. But, is MyPoints worth it?
I would say yes, MyPoints is worth it.
Shopping online or browsing the internet through MyPoints is pretty much passive, as in, you don’t have to think much about it. You can earn additional rewards for doing these tasks that you otherwise wouldn’t receive, so why not use MyPoints?
If you have some extra free time to spend taking surveys and watching videos, go for it! If you would prefer to not spend your free time earning cash taking surveys, then don’t. You can still use MyPoints to shop and browse.
Overall, MyPoints gives you several fantastic ways to earn Points, has a variety of ways to redeem your Points, and is very easy to use and setup.
Get started using MyPoints today and earn a $10 sign up bonus when you use this link or the link below.
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