I’m not someone who would usually work for points, but after gaining a tiny bit of success with a program a couple of weeks ago, I got hooked and has been searching for a similar one ever since. Turns out, they aren’t always the easiest to accomplish, as you would soon find out in this Points Prizes review. Are these points really worth chasing after? Read on if you’re curious to know.
Points Prizes at a Glance
In Points Prizes, there are many goal conversions to choose from. That means, the accumulated points can be used to redeem cash from PayPal, gift cards from major retailers and even Bitcoin currency. Each has its own threshold, for example, you’ll need 3000 points to receive $20 on PayPal and 3750 points for a $25 Amazon gift card.
Depending on which goal you choose, there are numerous tasks that you can do to gain points and they vary with offers.
- Play online games
- Install and open apps
- Create a user account
- Sign up for free trials
- Sign up as a member and make a purchase
- Answer surveys
- Enter emails
- Watch ads or live streaming – just to name a few.
Easy tasks generally reward smaller values while the challenging ones can yield higher points. Another way of earning is through the referral program where you can place unique affiliate links on social postings, emails or blogs to get new people to use Points Prizes. You then earn points for every referral plus, 10% of their accumulated points too.
Points Earning in Action
One of the toughest things to do with reward sites is the amount of time it takes to actually earn those points. Most of the time, it feels like you need to go through a virtual hurdle, just to get there. But since there are a lot of options with this site, I am hoping that things will be a bit different.
So, I begin by selecting my prize – PayPal cash – because who doesn’t like cold hard cash, right? It is much more flexible than gift cards, in my opinion.
I am guessing that different prizes work with different offers so I went ahead to click on ‘earn points’ and found more than 900 offers available. That looks like a lot of choices for sure.
While browsing, one offer caught my attention which is an audiobook trial from Kobo. I have always wanted to get back to reading, the easier way, so this looks like a good chance to do so. Plus, the reward isn’t too bad either. After several minutes, I earned my points and also have a free audiobook, ready to go. Not too bad, uh.
Moving on to other offers, I noticed that most need specific devices to work on. It has to be either iOS vs Android or mobile vs desktop. Since I am already on Android, it’s only wise to accomplish the tasks through my phone.
So I downloaded the app and here’s where things got interesting. As I attempted several offers, it appears that I may need to start giving out some personal details like my phone number as well as credit card information before I can perform the tasks.
Well, I did offer that info during the audiobook trial sign up, but that’s because Kobo is a trusted brand. With offers linked to other less-known advertisers, I am more reluctant as I don’t want to be charged and get into unnecessarily money trouble. Since I am not willing to compromise, those offers will have to pass.
Then there’s also the survey section whereby I get asked – over again – the SAME pre-screening questions to check whether I am qualified or not. It kept redirecting to several un-optimized pages and in the end, I didn’t even know if I’ve actually completed the survey or not.
The other tasks that had me contemplating were downloading apps. It is pretty straightforward, but they often come with ads that would show up randomly on your mobile screen which I found to be quite intrusive. After what seems like an hour of never-ending clicking activities, I’ve only made 251 points which derived from the audiobook trial and a couple of easy tasks. Not even close enough to redeem my cash prize. Oh well, maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.
The Pros
1 – Unlike most reward programs, Points Prizes is open to people from various countries – not just the US, UK or Canada. As long as PayPal can be used to cash out in that particular country, you are pretty much qualified to join.
2 – The are many ways to earn points and convert them into values that work for your situation. If you don’t like surveys, you can watch videos and vice versa. Even though you don’t complete a particular task, you’ll still earn (small) points for attempting to convert the offer.
3 – Points earning opportunity increases when you refer new users to the site. This can be accomplished by sharing pre-written articles, containing your unique code, through social media channels. Here is what some of the links look like.
The Cons
1 – Getting into the program doesn’t mean you will be qualified for all the surveys. So there’s a bit of false impression there. The only way to find out is to try them.
2 -For some reason, I find the app to be slow as it takes a while to load to other pages. Sometimes, they don’t load at all and I have to close and restart the app all over again. In that aspect, I much prefer the interface of Survey Junkie that works well on both mobile and desktop, even without an app.
3 – As mentioned before, many offers would require the personal information to proceed and this is something that I am not comfortable doing based on some bad experiences. What could happen is that you’ll be getting a lot of ‘spam’ notification on your email, phones and unexpected credit card charges if you don’t pay attention to what you are doing? This can be a nuisance.
4 – Maybe it’s a technical error, but some offer links are expired or have time out by the time you get to them. It would help if they just remove that from the system than showing it on the site.
5 – At one time, I thought I was just answering some simple questions and then is redirected to a page that reveals my IP address and geographical location. I thought that was quite creepy. Apparently, it wanted me to download a ‘protection software’ onto my PC. Obviously, I know better than to do that.
So, Is Points Prizes Worth Your Time?
As I contemplate whether to continue doing this tomorrow, there’s a whole lot of people who appear to be earning a massive amount of points as we speak. These statistics would be visible on the left-hand column of the desktop version.
Most of them are earning within the range of thousands (or more) points, so I am guessing that they must have access to several devices at the same time to be able to accomplish so much. However, based on my short experience, it will take you a lot of trials and errors and probably a few weeks to actually redeem any of the prizes.
Lastly, like any reward site, you need to be constantly working on it to make even the smallest amount of money. I wouldn’t call the offers unimportant, but the majority are trivial and non-productive. The way I see it, it’s not an efficient way to spend time on the internet and it just makes your routine very dull.
If you’re interested to invest in something worthwhile, why not leverage from your pre-existing skills and turn it into an online business? Not clicking ads or answering surveys, but more like partnering with reputable brands or even selling your own products.
Never had any experience doing these? No worries. This robust entrepreneurial platform can help you get started for free and I will also be inside to guide you around. I hope to connect with you soon. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the space below.
Darren says
Point award sites for surveys sounds a good way of earning money online, but it is very time consuming with very little reward.
I would, therefore, prefer to spend my time doing something else. You mention at the end of your article a better way of earning money online such as an online business. What does that entail?
Cathy says
Hi Darren, for those who are inexperience, become an affiliate marketer is a good way to start an online business as it’s low cost and low risk. Otherwise, you could also sell your own products (physical or digital) as a form of an eCommerce business.
By doing so, you aren’t just making money, but also growing an income source that can sustain you for the long term.
alexandra says
I have tried similar things and to get to the minimum points, it will take you hours, if not days. By the time I got there, all of a sudden, the app was not working any more. So I am not for this. It might be a good one though, but I feel like I would be wasting a lot of time for only a few dollars. If you are only doing it for the heck of, then yeah, it might be nice to get a little bit extra on the side. Once you get the points, that is 🙂
Cheyenne C. says
Hello Cathy, this sounds like a nice way to earn a little extra money on the side. How much time does this consume to actually make some decent money. Do your points expire at any point if you hold them and don’t redeem them?Lastly, do you earn points for referring people also?
Cathy says
Well, it depends on how much time you are willing to spend completing all the tasks. The points don’t expire as far as I know and yes, you can earn points referring new users to the site.
aaronspilcher says
Points Prizes seems like a great way to earn money at first glance. Though as you pointed out, it takes constant effort to see minimal return for your efforts.
From what you’ve proposed here, I believe that I am better informed moving forward as a young entrepreneur trying to find a piece of his pie in the make-money-online world. Thanks for the heads up.
Cathy says
No problem, Aaron. Glad you benefited from it 🙂