If you are like me and always try to find easy ways to earn any sort of currency without changing your daily routine, then you might enjoy the Microsoft Rewards program.
Microsoft rewards you by searching with its very own search engine: Bing. That and a couple of other simple tasks can earn you reward points that can be redeemed for goods in the Microsoft Store or gift cards for a variety of shops.
Before we go into more detail how many points you can earn, how valuable they are and what you can redeem them for, let's first have a look at how to join the rewards program start earning points.
Join Microsoft Rewards
Before you can earn reward points, you first have to create (or log into) a Microsoft account. Therefore you can go to any Microsoft website (below I used https://www.bing.com/). On the top right you can see the Sign in option, where you have to sign in (or create your account). Afterwards click on the trophy right next to it and join the rewards program.
Rewards Homepage Overview
After you joined the rewards program, you can have an overview of your account at the Rewards Page. Below there are five different tabs:
- Earn: List of daily tasks to earn additional reward points
- Redeem: Redeem your points for items in the Microsoft Store or buy gift cards
- Community: Add friends and family to your community to share points with
- Status: Explanation of the two different Levels (will be explained in the next section)
- Winners: List of winners from recent raffles
Levels
The way you can earn reward points differ depending on the Level you are in. By default you will start in Level 1, where the maximum amount of points you can earn per day is lower than in Level 2. To get to Level 2 you will need to earn 500 points in a month. To stay in Level 2 for the next month, you have to earn an additional 500 points while already in Level 2.
If we compare the Points Breakdown in the top right of the Rewards Page, we can see the difference between Level 1 and Level 2, which only effects the earnings from Daily Search. You want to get to Level 2 as soon as possible and stay there to maximize the amount of points you can earn.
Earning and Redeeming Reward Points
The following list gives a short overview of how you can earn points and an approximation of how much you can earn in each category.
- Bing Searches (for Level 1 you can only earn 30 points for Bing searches for Desktop and Mobile combined and 3 points for using Edge)
- Desktop (90 - 3 points per search)
- Mobile (60 - 3 points per search)
- With Edge (12 - 3 points per search)
- Daily tasks (3 tasks - at least 10 points each)
- More tasks (Changes each day - ca. 30 points per day)
- Streak (Finish daily tasks every day - 15 points per day)
- Punch-cards (Changes sporadically)
- Shop at Microsoft Store (1 point per 1€ spent)
- Sign up for rewards newsletter (Sporadically get more tasks or free points)
- Sporadically get 100 points after visiting the rewards page
- Play Xbox games (not tested)
How you can redeem your reward points depends on the country your account is registered in. But in general you can always buy things from the Microsoft Store with it or redeem gift cards for various shops. Hereby 1500 points equal around 1€ (this can also vary depending on your countries currency)
Is it worth it?
It is impossible to tell if this is worth it for you, I can just tell you my (very little) experience so far:
In just four days I made over 1500 points by doing the daily tasks, punch-cards and maxing out on all the Bing search points, as well as getting points for visiting the rewards page. But the main reason why I am able to do all this without changing my routine that much, is the fact that I am working on the computer the whole day. Searching is what I do all day long. So the only real change I had to get used to is using the Edge browser and changing the default search engine to Bing. I also changed the default engine on my phone to Bing to get the reward points for mobile searches. Additionally I do the daily tasks in the morning before I start working, which takes me about five minutes.
But is it worth it? I made around 1€ with these little changes to my daily routine. I lose about five minutes in the morning and have to adjust to Bing and the Edge browser. Personally these changes are not affecting me that much and I don't really have to think about earning reward points besides doing the daily tasks.
Finally it comes down to your willingness to use Bing as your default search engine or not. If the answer to that is a clear no, then Microsoft rewards is not for you. If you think Bing is not too bad then I would definitely recommend Microsoft rewards, because it is (however little) free money in the forms of reward points.
As a last little tip: If at the end of the day you still need some searches, you can utilize the Videos tab. Just search for something, go to Videos and click on the suggestions. Every click will count as a new search.
What is your opinion on Microsoft rewards? Do you know other ways to earn small amounts of money without changing your daily routine? Write a comment and let me and others know.
Though I will never post links that I am not convinced are legitimate and useful, you should always do your own research before signing up on a site. I will benefit if you sign up through one of the below links:
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