OT, but just had to post.

The survey I just completed asked my sexual orientation!

And for "Single" there were three options - 1) in a relationship, but living together; 2) in a relationship, but not living together and 3) not in a relationship.

These times are a changin'.

ooo, you didn't get the 'hotel' questionaire??? lots of questions for what you'd pay for 'entertainment/communications' services? Totally loaded questions, that you couldn't answer without a complete hassle, then last question??? heterosexual, gay, lesian, bisexual, prefer not to answer? and the answer was???? who writes these surveys?

And why do they want to know. I took that survey too & couldn't believe it. Talk about OT. The question certainly was.

They ask for the same reason that they ask about your gender, race, etc.... they want to get a wide sample of the population, and that means various demographic information. More and more surveys are asking that, these days.

It took me a while to realize it, but e-rewards sucks.

Tried redeeming AF/KL points, but the dodos at e-rewards programmed their system to require 12 digits, while AF/KL cards have only 10 digits. Doh!

Tried redeeming "$100" ... but this is inflated currency. $100 gets you 2000 miles. $100 should earn you 10 thousand miles. A penny a mile is the normal currency rate.

So next time you get an e-rewards solicitation that says you'll earn $5 for completing a 15-minute survey, forget it. $5 = 100 miles. Not worth 15 minutes of your time. Especially since the survey will take 30 minutes to complete, will likely have bugs in it, and will also likely exclude you (and you'll get $0.50, i.e. 10 miles, for wasting 5 minutes of your life and being told that your quota was already completed).

The nail in the coffin is that the currency expires one month after the end of each year, so your "dollars" may have a life expectancy of as little as 31 days. Say you get an opportunity to "earn" $5 today, and your "membership year" ends in 8 days. This means only get 38 days to spend the $5 (I mean the 100 miles). And since you're unlikely to get enough survey opportunities that you qualify for to get to a meaningful awards, you're S.O.L. Any airline program at least has points expire after they've been in your account for at least a year, or 18 months, or 36 months+. This is a cumbersome and low-rewarding program, where you can't earn enough points for anything meaningful has points expiring in 31 days after earning them!!!!! This is NONSENSE.

Finally, if you've already redeemed points once on an airline, you can't redeem them again! So you can't use it if you get too many points, like over $100. You can't use it if you get too few points. And if you have "$75" you can't redeem a $50 and a $25 reward ... the program is absolutely inane. Only if you earn exactly 100 or 50 is the program at all marginally useful, but there are far easier ways to earn 1000 miles.

e-rewards will die soon when its "members" realize that it is a bad program where the hype does not match the benefit. Join Ameniti and other duds.

NWA e-certs are available on e-rewards again, hurry, may not last long.

Just finished one that asked that myself.... Can't see that they really need that info for their demographics.

FORTUNATELY, I just got a reprieve and don't have to stress over when my actual expiration is ^

Thank you for accepting our invitation to become a Member of our Preferred Research Panel by updating your Member profile information.

The e-Rewards Currency earned and in your membership account as of June 30, 2007 has been rolled over for an additional Membership Year and will remain available to you for Reward redemptions through June 30, 2008.

Someone mentioned the surveys taking a LONG time....I find they take much less (usually) than the estimate. It's very little time (for me) and free miles, so I'm satisifed

today when I logged in there was an offer to update my profile to avoid the loss of e$ from before the 6/30/07 earn date.

e-rewards is giving some people a way around this.

there is a time restriction true, but that does not mean you can never earn that reward "again."

This is what I find odd. My 82 year old mother gets the reprieve every single year. She doesn't accumulate much by way of surveys, yet they want to keep her as one of their "preferred research panelists." "This panel is comprised of e-Rewards� Members whose stated interests are especially important to our market research clients."

True, there is a limit of "once per calandar year", but if your first redemption was on December 31, 2006, you can redeem again on January 1, 2007! So it's not "never again"!

So do I, and this year I have over $111.00 in my account! (And no, I'm not 82 or a mother!)

Maybe they don't have many members in that particular demographic and want to hang on to the few that they do have?

As other FTers have already pointed out, a number of your "facts" are incorrect.

The biggest assumption you seem to be making is that e-rewards is some kind of recent program that will die as soon as people realize how "worthless" it is.

I've been a member for nearly SEVEN years -- since the year 2000. While the program does have its limitations and annoyances, I've found it to be a reliable source of Hilton HHonors points, which can be redeemed once every 90 days. Also, over the years, the program has actually been greatly improved, with the addition of far more rewards partners, rewards at different levels, etc. It used to be that Hilton points were the only thing I found worth redeeming, but now there are a number of airline rewards, Borders Rewards, etc. that are worthwhile as well. @:-)

Make no mistake, I've been very critical of e-rewards a number of times on some of the numerous threads on it in this forum. But the improvements in the program are real.

And BTW, if you truly think it is "worthless," there is a handy "Cancel Membership" button on the "Manage My Account" page.

Where on Earth did you get that errant idea from? Miles are valued at MUCH more than 1 cent per mile. The actual monetary value for buying miles on AA.com is 4 cents per mile ($1000 for 40,000 miles). However, the actual value of a mile is usually thought of as between 2 and 3 cents. I use 2.7 cents per mile as my baseline.

Your one cent per mile is almost impossible - no one will give you miles for that cheap, and if you find that out, let me know where you are looking.

Imagine, a Europe coach ticket for 40,000 miles only being worth $400 - No, sorry buddy.