Want two free cinema tickets? (ipoints.co.uk)

Member Name: Retron

Product:	ipoints.co.uk
Date:	31/07/01 (172 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can collect over 160 points for free, ...even more if you sign up with WebRewards

Disadvantages: Takes a long time for some points to be added

IPoints is another company that gives you points for visiting sites and buying things from its advertisers, in the same manner as Beenz, MyPoints, WebRewards etc. Like hundreds of other users, I started collecting points once I won 20 points playing a game at Lycos.

Signing up gives you 20 points if you answer all of their questions. Once you've done that, you'll then be able to accumulate over 140 more points simply by signing up to various free sites - I'd suggest using a Hotmail address to avoid all the spam you'll get. Even if you buy nothing, you can get over 160 points for free - enough for 2 free UCI cinema tickets or a box of Thorntons Continental chocolates.

Of course, you can get extra points if you can put up with spam or spending time filling in forms - 50 points if you're lucky for filling in Consumerlink surveys, 2 points for receiving 3 junk mails, 1 point per competition you enter at another site. The drawback is that it takes literally months for the points to show up - iPoints could learn a lot from WebRewards and MyPoints who pay up within a week. To date, I've managed to collect over 350 points without spending a penny - all in the last 3 months. 200 points currently buys a £20 gift voucher, meaning each iPoint is worth 10p. As usual, you're better off trying to get as many free points as you can, as the payout rate is quite poor, ie 3 points per £10 spend at 101cd.com - basically 3% off.

IPoints has also been varying the amount each point is worth, from 70 then 80 points for 5 pounds, to 150 for 10 pounds to 200 for 20, which is the current value. IPoints say this is subject to change, so keep this in mind if vouchers suddenly become more expensive. As usual in these schemes, you can get widescreen TVs, rent a capsule of the London Eye, have helicopter flights, pony trekking and drive an F1 car - for several thousand points a time. IPoints has got the most affilates of the UK programmes, me
aning that there's always new free points becoming available. Sadly, they've removed the free points for clicking on banners each day, but there's still plenty of other ways left to get points, providing you're willing to wait for them.

Until the end of August, you can convert 3 Webrewards to 1 iPoint, which means that you can get extra iPoints via WebRewards (4 iPoints worth a week for free currently, plus special one-offs) - well worth signing up for a WebRewards account if you plan to collect or are collecting iPoints.

If IPoints would settle on a value required for gift vouchers and pay out faster, it would be ideal - as it is, I've knocked off a star for its lethargic and variable performance.

Summary: