Finally, it's F r i d a y! I don't know why I'm so ready for the weekend; I only worked four days week this week. . .
This week has been "gift card week" for me. Okay, so that sounds like I got 32 gift cards. Not quite. I got one $10 Pinkberry gift card, and I received my order from Macy's, which I purchased with a free $25 gift card. I ordered two hoddies on clearance plus an 15% extra off for Presidents Day-- I still have a little over $2 left on the card!
I received the Pinkberry card from a "daily deal" website called Plum District, but I was more excited about my $25 gift card from Macy's. I love Macy's. I earned the gift card via an online survey site called e-Rewards. I just did a Google search on e-Rewards and got a wide variety of opinions. A lot of sites called it a "scam," others called it a "waste," and others categorized it as "typical." I would have to agree with the "typical" category. It is not a scam; I redeemed my points for what I wanted, I promptly received my Macy's gift card in the mail, and I had no problem redeeming the gift card. Two drawbacks that were mentioned on other websites were that individuals were not accepted to complete entire surveys, and that there are not very many options to redeem your points for.
I regularly do not qualify to complete entire surveys (you don't as many points for uncompleted surveys). I will answer the first 5 evaluation questions and then be told I do not match the criteria they are searching for (I still get a few points for at least trying though, which is better than other sites that host surveys). In my mind this standard to meet criteria in order to complete the survey made e-Rewards more valid. If I am really taking "research surveys," then they need to make sure the appropriate people are providing the information. The other most common complaint about e-Rewards was that there were few rewards to choose from. This is true. There are several magazines you can select for 1-year subscriptions, there are several frequent-flyer programs you can obtain points for, and there are a few gift cards you can select from. I had to earn $40 worth of e-Reward dollars in order to "buy" the $25 gift card, but this is typical from what I have experienced in online rewards earning. Last fact about e-Rewards: it is an "invite only" survey site. I originally was invited through Macy's credit card account. I later received another invitation to join through a different store credit card I had.
There are only a few other survey sites that seem to be deemed "worth it." One highly recommended survey site is Pinecone Research. Of course this site is also "invitation only." I actually tried to join them a long time before I started with e-Rewards but I could not join. I am happy to say that this past week I was able to join them! I have only received one survey from them thus far and that was just a basic "profile" survey so they can know a little more about me and what kind of surveys I can qualify for. One of the most favorable things I've read about Pinecone Research is that you can actually have the points/money you earn sent to your PayPal account. Again, it will take a while to accumulate a notable amount of money; I read that the average payout for a completed survey is $3.00. I will let you know how it goes. :]
There are a few more sites I am looking into that claim to pay cash for surveys. I will discuss those in a later post. Last thing: Survey Police is a website that has rankings of survey sites. Remember this one thing: NEVER give out sensitive information (SS# or credit card #); any real survey site will not ask for this information.
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