KathyWdrf

MyPoints didn't "willfully hide the link to redeem." It is in plain sight in the upper right corner of the home page! Granted, they recently did a major website redesign which took getting used to, but "hiding" the redemption link is NOT one of the issues at all!

It doesn't sound like you used the full range of MyPoints features, either. I use it for surveys (most of the time you still get 10 points even if you don't qualify to complete the survey for 50 or more points). Some hotel chains are bookable for MyPoints (including ones that aren't on ebates, etc.). There are also a number of other shopping opportunities for points. As for the email ads, if they offer points (usually 5, sometimes 10), I click through. No points offered, I don't. I get 100 points/month just for using "Search and earn" (41 or more searches/month). It doesn't take me anywhere near a year to earn a $10 gift card. I usually redeem for $25 Amazon cards, multiple times per year. (By the way, I haven't seen any recent huge increase in the number of points required for redemption -- when did this happen? Amazon is currently 4,000 points for a $25 card. It's been around that, or slightly less, for a long time.)

Bottom line: if you only use ONE feature of a multifaceted program such as MyPoints, you won't get as much out of it as you could.