*Newsflash* Ebay Eliminating Anything Points Program!!!
 

So much for that great exchange into CX miles,
From ebay's anything points site...
"Beginning August 15th, Sellers will no longer be able to use Offer Manager to offer Anything Points on their listings. All listings that offer Anything Points on or after this date will continue to do so until September 30th, 2005. At that time, these listing will be modified and the Anything Points incentive will be removed. We encourage you to update your listing and remove Anything Points you may have added as soon as possible."

I believe eBay should eliminate anything to do with all Frequent Flyer or Frequent Stay programs period!

Use Ebay anything points by 8/31/06
 

Discontinuation of the U.S. eBay Anything Points® program
We have decided to discontinue the eBay Anything Points program on the U.S. eBay site (www.ebay.com). The process of transitioning certain features and functionality related to the eBay Anything Points program will begin immediately and continue over the next few months, with the program officially ending on February 28, 2006. However, you will still be able to use any points you have accumulated until August 31, 2006 (all points that have not been used by August 31, 2006 will become invalid).

http://anythingpoints.ebay.com/

Very sad. This was a terrific vehicle for getting money back on Priceline transactions. :(

So it seems that the canadian program will not be terminated...i wonder what the difference is???

You can get a 3% rebate on Priceline purchases by going through ebates.com.

3%??? I think I was getting $15 for 4*, right? That's 15% or better usually.

I agree, this is a horrible day for Priceline IMO. The ability to save the company money AND put money in my pocket was a HUGE plus. No one could complain.

I will still use Priceline (I guess), but there is no economic benefit to me by forgoing loyalty programs with Marriott, Starwood, Hilton, etc.

Sam

This is big news. What's the value of the eBay AnythingPoints card w/o AnythingPoints?

How sad.....
 

Well, looks like I better start planning my Christmas vacation now. Get as many Anything points as I can before the program goes down.

This is very upsetting. Guess I better blow all my anything points on ebay now.

From anythingpoints.ebay.com -

For more information about your eBay Anything Points credit card, please contact your respective credit card provider at the number printed on the back of your credit card.

which I assume is a round about way of saying the cards will be terminated and you can discuss with the issuer changing it into another one of their cards.... so were there actually multiple issuers of the cards and has anyone with one called the bank yet to ask what they are doing?

At least we still have Ebates for PL purchases. Don't go through that A-B link! :p

This eBay program was a dud the day they announced it. Just like Diner's Club's MONTAGE (would be high-end card), I and a few others predicted the demise from the day it rolled out. Don't have the thread or feel the need to search for the thread, but its buried somewhere here at flyertalk.

What *are* the DC and eBay execs thinking ?

Yeh, I agree. This stinks. I loved it, to be honest, and it got me to use PL a lot more than I otherwise might have.

Agreed. There was zero incentive for any seller to actually give them - they were totally paid by the seller, with no matching or subsidizing by eBay themselves. And I don't think that eBay did enough to promote the program to the point where very many people actually would want to seek out auctions where the seller offered Anything Points, which made it even less likely for the seller to offer them to a buyer.

They worked for FTers (and others, I'm sure) because of their ability to be earned outside of the venue. And even though they have a great value to people through favorable exchanges via points.com, I think that the program failed to meet its stated objective - to encourage people to use eBay to buy and sell their wares - from the very beginning.

Mike

Check to see if you have enough to get your Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles account up to 60k miles...

Program worked to gain an ebay customer
 

I started out trying to get as much EBay points possible to transfer to AA. Then the double miles rate stopped. Since then, I then used about $100 worth of points actually buying stuff on Ebay.

Prior to anything points, I never bought stuff on Ebay.

This was a deal to anyone who frequently used priceline.. I'll be sad to see it go.

I'd have to say that, except for those who were successfully racking up Uber Asia Miles and Priceline deals, this is a good thing. The program sucked, their Points.com realtionship of last year was a mess and Ebay is hard to reach. I did reach them live a few times, of course, but man, what a shotty program it was!

I am hoping to see better ones come out in place of it, but good riddence, as far as this poster is concerned!

;)!!MM

Another nice simple progie down the drain. I thought it was a good value and fairly straight forward too.

MisterNice

Getting $10-15 back on a $50-60 P/L hotel room, it was bound to end!

So true. But it certainly was rewarding. And Asia Miles, I thank you too. :)

While I was fairly slow to get on the ebay>>AsiaMiles gravy train, it was a good one, and I'm glad to have been along for the ride. I think I earned ~90K through bids (and "random postings") alone. I'm sure others earned much more...

My only regret is that I didn't discover the Anything points program earlier. I only learned about it last December, and was able to rack up just 34,000 points through PL.

All those missed Asia miles.... what a shame.

Wow
 

There is only one upside to this whole sad set of events.
Never having to do business with points.com again ^ :cool:
Goodbye to their awful relaunched Titanic of a site and wild out of control membership fees....

With that said I will really miss the Priceline earnings
While much of what they did was flawed in execution there was a real opportunity here that was missed in my belief by these partnerships.
But the whole program was to difficult for the mainstream consumer to understand in the first place.
Now those of us out of FT school that's another story ;)

And because of this outcome we all stand to lose :(
Consumers and the companies that could have had far more loyalty and revenue over time from this poster and I'll assume many others.

I am surprised they had an exit strategy launched so early in the game........
But I assume may of the parties got cold feet and fled..........
My thanks to Gleffs blog with his report.I wasn't aware until I read his forum today.
Cheers

I have an MBNA eBay Anythingpoints card and called customer service last night. Per the rep, they will be sending out a letter to all cardholders shortly. Anythingpoints earnings will cease for the card in October and all cards will be converted into MBNA Worldpoints cards. At which point I go back to using my Starwood Amex. :)

This is disappointing news.

what a bummer! They actually had a good exchange rate for Hawaiian Air. Got at least 35,000 since November with their bit partner offers and such. I was planning to transfer a few AA miles>EBAY>Hawaiian. :(

They actually owe me and my sister 1,000 points each for a partner offer. Does anyone know if they are still responsible for giving us the points? Guess I better send them an email.

Anybody have an opinion about the next best offer on priceline bookings now that anything points is going away?

My online comparison table lists quite a few offers for priceline bookings.

Perhaps a new suggestion to Priceline management would be better than one of the current possibilities mentioned on FT. Anyone here have any access to Priceline decision-makers? It sounds like it was Ebay and not Priceline who wanted the deal finished off, and so perhaps Priceline is open to other "loyalty-program" related ideas. (After all, PCLN is competing with a lot of players in the travel industry ... especially as the most discounted rates in business centers become increasingly like needles in an economically growing haystack.)

WOW.

I hadn't seen that table before. Looks like I'll be referring to it frequently in the future.

Options
 

For those of us who have collected some ebay anything points AND whose Points.com Gold membership has lapsed, what are our best options to cash out?

1. Use them on Ebay for $.01 per point?

2. Exchange them for Hilton HHonor points? -- appears to be outside the domain of Points.com (For those who have used this, is there a minimum or a certain block of points that have to be converted? -- e.g., increments of 100's, 1000's, 10000's, etc.)

3. Pay $9.95 for a one month membership in Points.com Gold and make a one-time transfer?

4. Other?

Note: Asia Miles probably are not a good option for me since I don't have enough points to earn a stand-alone reward.

i use mine on ebay. there are plenty of travel related things there as well as electronic items.

Can I still earn Anything Points?
 

Has anyone recently tried earning points with partners?
I'm trying to order an Entertainment book for 3rd day in a row and am getting a "The system is currently unavailable; please try again later." message before I'm redirected from metarewards to entertainment site. Is this just a temp glitch, or is it related the elimination of the program?

You can still do and receive eBay Anything Points for Priceline reservations.

Have I lost my mind? I am trying to switch my puny points to Hilton and I keep getting an error message that dumps me on the "Ebay discontinuing anything points" page. I've only bought one night on PL so this would be my first attempt to clear them out.

I asked the question above but got no responses. Perhaps there is a minimum number of ebay anything points that have to be exchanged even though it is not explicitly stated.

How many points are you trying to exchange? I assume it is less than or equal to 1500 ebay anything points.

I have 1500 so I was trying to exchange 1000.

Metarewards seem to be gone, so I can't buy Entertainment book thru AnythingPoints. I can't find a lint to Entertainment books on the new MyPoints site either. What's the best remaining way to buy the book now?

I bought a book through goldpoints.com a while ago. I think you can still get credit through their shopping portal.