Something for nothing - eventually (mypoints.co.uk)

Member Name: Retron

Product:	mypoints.co.uk
Date:	31/07/01 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can collect free gift vouchers (eventually)

Disadvantages: Not enough free points, Very poor rewards for spending money, No cheap rewards

Mypoints is a scheme that rewards you with points for visiting web sites, filling in surveys and buying things from online shops affiliated with Mypoints.

Registration is painless - the more questions you answer when you sign up, the more points you're given to get you started (this earns between 25 and 150 points). Once you've signed up, you'll get to see the various ways of earning points, the easiest of which is to click to visit various sites. This doesn't get you many points, though (10 a time), and only earns points for you once a year. You can extra points for sending away for free junk mail from a bed company (50 points) and signing up to Letsbuyit.com (80 points) - the other way is to enter a free online lottery called TheDailyDraw (135 points if you enter enough times). You'll occasionally receive junk mail from MyPoints, with 10 points on offer if you click through to the advertiser's site - with extra points if you sign up or spend money at the advertiser's site.

The problem is that the points are worth very little - 750 points buys a £5 gift voucher for high street stores, for example, giving a cash value of 6.6p per 10 points. This means that you'll earn a pathetic £2 for switching your gas or electricity supplier (300 points), or 3.3p per £1 spent at an online CD store. A 3.3% return doesn't sound too bad, but you'd need to spend £150 before you got £5 back - pretty poor, in my opinion.

Also, there simply aren't that many ways to collect free points - with iPoints, you'll at least get a ferry voucher if you collect all the free points on offer. The surveys section is completely empty, which looks daft - the only survey they've had in the last month is one I've already completed (as part of the signup process).

I suppose if you stick with it for a year or so, you might accrue enough points for a £5 voucher (the cheapest thing on offer) - alternatively, they awa
rd 100 points (the equivalent of spending £20 at the CD store) per friend that signs up quoting your logon ID - so spamming your friends is probably the easiest and cheapest way to earn points, sadly.

Overall, not recommended - stick with iPoints instead.

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