MyPoints Review: Rewards and Cash Back For Shopping, Surveys, and Other Easy Everyday Activities

MyPoints is a rewards website. Members shop through the MyPoints website and earn points to redeem for rewards. Besides shopping online, members can also earn points by playing games, watching videos, reading emails, taking surveys, signing up for new services, and even applying for some jobs. Read our MyPoints review to find out if this is an app you want to check out.

Bottom line: MyPoints offers several ways to earn points without any spending, and many ways to earn points when you shop.

At a glance

Rewards: 1% to 15% (and more for special deals)

iOS app rating: 4.3/5 stars

Android app rating: 4.0/5 stars

Cost: Free to use the app; free to earn some rewards; spending required to earn other rewards

What is MyPoints and how does it work?

MyPoints is a rewards portal that is free to join. Members can earn points to later redeem for gift cards, cash back, or airline points.

Top perks

Earning points

You can earn points in many different ways, so long as you click through directly to the merchant or partner from the MyPoints website, or you use a coupon you've printed from inside your MyPoints account. Here are some ways to earn points:

• Shop
• Play games (if you fund your game account)
• Watch videos (if you complete the playlist)
• Open emails
• Open a new deposit account
• Open a new investment account
• Open a new credit card account
• Sign up for a monthly subscription box (meal kits, perfumes, etc.)
• Sign up for a streaming service
• Get an insurance quote
• Install an app
• Apply to become an Uber Eats driver (and get approved)
• Refer friends and earn a percentage of their qualifying points

As you can see, there are several ways to earn points without spending a single dollar. Those strategies generally require some of your time, or that you complete simple tasks like opening a daily email.

The number of points you earn will vary. For example:

• For purchases, you will generally earn between 1 and 15 points per dollar spent.
• With partner offers you can earn larger numbers of points in fewer transactions. The Uber Eats partner offer is currently worth 40,000 points.
• New members earn bonus points after making two qualifying purchases during the first 30 days on the site.
• Completing surveys and opening emails might earn you a few points or a few hundred.

Redeeming points

When you have enough points to redeem, you can choose from gift cards, cash back via PayPal or a prepaid Visa card, or airline points (currently Delta or American).

When we checked, each dollar of redemption value cost between 145 and 160 points. For example:

• $3 Amazon gift card offered for 480 points (160 points per dollar)
• $10 gift card to AMC Theaters offered for 1,470 points (147 points per dollar)
• $25 gift card to Williams-Sonoma offered for 3,970 points (159 points per dollar)

Earnings rates and redemption options change regularly.

Partner offers can be lucrative

Certain partners offer outsized rewards on a one-time basis. Besides the Uber Eats offer mentioned above, there are several opportunities to earn several thousand points in one transaction. A few examples:

• Open an account at an advertised bank and set up direct deposit (27,500 points)
• Open an account at an advertised bank and deposit $25 (20,000 points)
• Sign up for a meal delivery service from a partner provider, purchase the initial meal kit, and maintain the account for at least 30 days (8,000 points)
• Purchase a teeth whitening kit from a partner merchant (6,000 points)
• Open an account with an advertised investment app and fund the account with $5 (3,000 points)

Good selection of redemption options

You can opt for a gift card to one of the nation's most popular retailers, or go for good old-fashioned cash. (To redeem for cash, you need to have a PayPal account set up and linked.) Frequent travelers will appreciate the ability to convert MyPoints to airline points and redeem them for free flights, upgrades, or other airline benefits.

What could be improved

Value can sometimes be beaten by other sites

In some cases, your purchases could be made through a different rewards site for potentially greater rewards value. For example, on the day we checked, MyPoints was offering 3 points per dollar for Walmart purchases. At the same time, competitor site Rakuten was offering 6% cash back on any photo center purchase at Walmart. So if you were planning to shop in the photo center, you might earn more by shopping through Rakuten.

Value can be hard to determine

Since the price to earn and redeem is all over the place, there is no way to pin down the value of a point. For example, if you shopped online and earned 3 points per dollar spent, you will have spent $480 to earn enough points for a $3 Amazon gift card.

On the other hand, if you open an investment app account and deposit just $5, you can earn 3,000 points. If you redeem 1,590 points for $10 cash back into your PayPal account, you've earned back twice what you've spent and you still have points toward your next redemption.

Data mining and heavy advertising

Nothing's free, even redeemable points you earn for taking surveys or opening emails. A big tradeoff for the rewards you get on MyPoints (like any other cash back app) is you are giving up a mountain of data about yourself whenever you use the site. Your data will be shared with third parties. Even if it is anonymized, there is so much data on each shopper that it's not difficult for third parties to identify individuals, especially if you share your location.

If you want an app for cash back: Rakuten is an online shopping portal that offers cash back. Nothing fancy or confusing. No gift cards to choose or airline miles. You shop through the site, and the cash back is sent to your PayPal account. There is a new member offer similar in value to what MyPoints offers.

If you want clarity when it comes to point value: Try Swagbucks, another place where you can take surveys to earn redeemable points. A Swagbuck point is worth $0.01, or 100 per $1 in redemption value. No mystery about the number of points you still need to earn to reach a reward.

MyPoints is free, but some earnings opportunities require a purchase.

Someone looking for ways to earn money online for free. You can do surveys and open emails to earn points.

Someone who regularly shops major retailers online. If you're already planning to buy something online, why not get a rebate in the form of points that can be redeemed for cash?

Someone who is already thinking about one of the partner offers. If a new bank account or money app is on your radar, or you're interested in trying out a robo advisor, or you were thinking you'd like to drive for Uber Eats, check the MyPoints partner offers before you sign up. You could earn cash back if one of the offers works for you.