I have heard that Points.com will increase the renewal fees for PointsPlus members starting April 2nd. Currently it is $19.95/year.

It will be about $8-$10 a month. Better hurry up and renew.

Wow, $8-10/month? What a ripoff. They already kill you in the conversion process, now they want over $100 a year for that privilege?

I'll burn your miles/points for you for free

(Except eBay -> Asia Miles - that's a good one.)

That's just adding insult to injury

I got a free membership and made use of it once to get some miles from an airline I rarely use to one I use a little more than that. I don't see renewing on the horizon.

Too true. Were they getting so much demand that they thought they needed to raise prices to cool it off?

I guess next they'll blame it on fuel price hikes. Or 9/11.

Thanks for posting. I searched for the info and found it on their press release.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050310/nyth085b_1.html

<snip>We also took important steps to prepare for the launch of our feature-rich reward management portal, which will provide consumers and loyalty partners with numerous advantages. We are on schedule to commence launch of the new Website next month."

The new Web site will include broader consumer offerings, and present each consumer with a comprehensive personalized view of their entire reward program universe. New management tools, such as Join, Earn and Buy, will help consumers realize more value from their favorite reward programs, to help them "Get More Rewards, Faster(TM)". These tools will also add additional revenue streams for the Company. The system will be driven by an ATG Marketing Enterprise System that will use the consumer's unique reward program, reward goals and point balance mix to suggest ways to use the Join, Earn, Buy and Swap tools most effectively.

In connection with the expanded offering, the Company will change the pricing and structure of its current PointsPlus membership. The enhanced pricing model, which will be unveiled during the second quarter in greater detail, will include a recurring subscription model and higher price points, supported by pricing research and market comparatives.

i just transferred out all my ebay points in fear they will also screw around with the exchange rate.

Remember back in early January when they offered 100 AA miles for doing a 15 minute survey to members? It came to both me and my DH. It was all about this kind of thing. I remeber thinking then that the types of programs they were asking about were awfully expensive. Of course, we have yet to receive the 100 miles....

Before panic sets in, does points.com set the exchange rates or do the airlines? Should I be moving my ebay points to Asia Miles now? Any advice appreciated.

I finally got mine about a week ago. May have been because of the e-mail I sent them--they never replied but at least the miles are there now.

BTW, a PointsPlus membership is $29.95, some time within the past year they raised it from $19.95. At $29.95 I didn't plan on renewing. Will be interesting to see what their new "enhanced pricing model" will be.

It would be cool if points.com could evolve into an e-market for points. Where points.com takes a reasonable commission on each deal -- but there is no such thing as point devaluation. Now that would serve a market need.

A while back PointsPlus was offering a year's renewal for 4500 USScareway Dividend Miles. I don't know if that offering is still active. It was a good use for some orphan miles for me

I got the survey offer too and took the survey indicating that these additional features would not be of use to me.

My 100 miles posted about 2 months ago:
01/31/05 POINTS.COM MBR SVY 1Q05 0 100 100

Not advice, but I wonder how that eBay thing is doing, whether the take is good or it's another turkey like Auction for America. I do some selling of low-dollar items and haven't yet had a buyer mention those points.