best practices for MyPoints?

Hi Everyone!

I just signed up for MyPoints and got an email from them with an offer for magazines and CDs. It seems like the magazine offer might be good (if you remmeber to cancel them after 3 months) - but the cds seems like a rip-off.
Anybody have experiences with these points?
Do you need to sign up for offers like these to build up your points or are there better offers out there?

Does anybody have some good practices they employ, like keeping a diary of what you sign up for?

Thanks!
Pamela / wbflyer

Absolutely I keep a spread sheet listing my acct# for the sign up, its Ph# and email, what program, pts due and when i need to cancel.

If not, you might have a mental meltdown or worse.....Pay for a service you dont want.

Welcome aboard, wbflyer!

Very nice, Ken. I find myself in a constant state of "mental meltdown"!


[This message has been edited by afrugal1 (edited 04-15-2003).]

Perfect place to post this!

I had an experience recently where I requested credit for a trial subscription (Ancestry.com) that never posted. After a series of e-mails (never the same person in customer service on any response), I was instructed that the only way Mypoints can give retroactive credit is if the client pastes a copy of the confirming, "welcome" e-mail from the company in question to customer care. I did so on a Sunday evening; Monday, I had a reply accepting the paste as "proof of enrollment" and advising me that the points should appear in my account within 4 - 5 days.

SAVE THOSE CONFIRM E-MAILS!

My "strategy" is to never sign up for "free magazines", book clubs, CD clubs and the like. Usually they are not interesting at all (in general or compared against the points to be earned) and I don't want to run the risk of forgetting to cancel one of them and being stuck with an expensive and useless magazine, etc. Only exception I make are the (rare) offers where you don't have to give a credit card at signup.

What I will do occasionally are single purchases like books and of course the (in)famous Amtrak and Tupperware offers.

Whenever my point balance reaches a redemption level I redeem my points. You never know what those guys at MyPoints might be up to or do to my account, so I get the points out as soon as I can.

I always take advantage of the "free" points for clicking on their partners in the emails. I am impressed with the spreadsheet idea for cancellations, but I am probably to lazy to keep it up. I do not always get credit for my clicks either.

After the Amtrak deal, someone posted something the jist of which was: "Wow, I just made more mypoints with a single $2.50 purchase than I have in the past 3 years of clicking on emails!"

So for me, the only reason I have a mypoints account is the next time a massive points opportunity arises like Amtrak or Tupperware. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to me to click on 5-point and 10-point emails for 3 years when you can rake in the points on the great deals like Amtrak and Tupperware with very little effort.

Mypoints has proven itself incapable of preventing these opportunities, so it's only a matter of time before the next one comes along!

Can't wait for the next windfall! Let's all find one soon!

I'm waaaaaaaaay too lazy to use a spreadsheet.. I tried once and never kept it up. So what I do instead of the emails that I click on is create a new folder in my email account. Once I've clicked on something, I toss it into my "MyPoints" folder. Every once in a while I go through my account on the site and compare it to the saved emails I have to make sure I've gotten credited. I then delete those emails.

Yes, they are for measley points, but since I'm too chickens**t to do things like the tupperware offers over and over (I only did it 3 times) these points really REALLY add up. Even without purchases, I usually end up with atleast 300 points, usually more. That's worth it for me!

Oh.. one thing I'll do for the BIG points that take a while to credit is make a floating 'to do' event in my PDA's datebook for about a week after the points should be credited. That way it appears as a reminder when the time is up... if I've been credited, I mark it as done.. if I don't have the points yet, I just let it sit there and it moves forward each day till I mark it as done. Works as a great reminder to go check my account now and then.

Theres my tips!
J.

------------------
Where are we going...? And what's with the hand basket?

artsygal, I'm with you. I don't sweat it over a few points here or there - a single 800 point score probably makes up for everything I've lost anyway.

I just checked and over the years I've earned (and pretty much cashed in) over 128,000 points so Mypoints has been pretty valuable, though it isn't nearly as good as the old days when the 20k vacation miles award was worth $500 in Marriott and/or Hyatt certs!

128,000 points - that is amazing!!
It seems hard to get that many points with the offers they have now.
I noticed that the smaller award points are good if you are close to 1000 points and want to cash out sooner - like today I was at 960 and did a few survery and site visits.

I like to insert calendar reminders (I use MS Outlook) about a week after I sign up for a trial. I also definitely keep screenshots and welcome e-mails of sign ups.
I'm also still waiting for the ancestry.com and my points movie club points!!!

Boo --

You need to send an e-mail to [email protected] pasting the welcome e-mails from those two trials. Otherwise, you'll never get credit; they're not going to post on their own.

They told me it would take up to 5 days from receipt of the pastes for those points to appear in my account(in my case this past Monday). We'll see.

Points

bump

My Ancestry.com trial posted overnight: 250 points! I have e mailed them inquiring why not the full 300?

Yes, I had sent 4 e-mails re: ancestry.com and finally got the points.
The movie club points have been difficult to get since they don't send out confirm e-mails and member care isn't allowed to view e-mail attachments.

Be wary of some trial offers and keep records of everything!



[This message has been edited by boobeary (edited 04-18-2003).]