E-Rewards: worth it or walk away?
If you’re a Points and Miles Playa (pronounced PLAY-ah), at some point you’ll face off with the great and terrible e-rewards. What is e-rewards?
Try to keep an open mind here.
Basically, e-rewards is a survey broker. It’s free to join e-rewards, but it’s an invitation-only program, which means that you have to figure out how to trigger an invitation. Normally, you will eventually snag an invite if you make sure to check the little box agreeing to receive lots of juicy emails from relevant sponsors when you are filling out your account information on a website.
I’ve received invites from Southwest, US Airways, Hilton, and Priority Club, but there are lots of other program sponsors as well. There is a full list on the e-rewards website. The program is shrouded in mystery, so I’m not sure if all the program sponsors listed can actually send out invitations, but if you want to get in on the action, it doesn’t hurt to go wild and sign up for all of them!! However, beware: each invitation to join the program is unique and features different partners to choose from. In other words, while one invite will offer a bounty of partners offering a wondrous, wide variety of point and mile redemptions, another invite might be restricted to only a handful of partners offering a limited amount of rewards that you aren’t that interested in.
Once you’re in, e-rewards sends out surveys from many different companies about topics ranging from which brand of razor you prefer, to where you like to buy office supplies, to which radio stations you listen to. For each survey you complete, you get a dollar amount of e-rewards currency. I’ve had surveys offer anywhere from $2-$15.
Average time it takes to complete a survey is ten minutes or so, although sometimes it takes two minutes and sometimes it takes forty-five minutes (yes, you read that correctly). I am typically able to access the surveys from my phone, so I knock them out while I’m on the go (in line, at kids’ soccer games, etc.) and it’s relatively painless.
Once you’ve amassed at least $25 of e-rewards currency in your account, you can redeem your savings for a reward.
A scan through my current rewards offerings shows a sample what I can get for $100 of currency:
- 7,000 Hilton Points
- 2,000 Points in Southwest Rapid Rewards, United Mileage Plus, Virgin Atlantic, Jet Blue, Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Delta, US Airways, and a handful of others.
- 1,000 Hertz Gold Points
I’ve got 2 accounts, so I’ve got multiple options in terms of rewards. My first account is sorta limited in terms of choices, while the second account is a goldmine. I signed up through Southwest for the first account and US Airways for the second, and used different email addresses for each account.
So, is e-rewards worth the time and effort? Let’s review the pros and cons.
Pros
- A great way to bulk up your Points and Miles balances without using credit cards
- Free!
- Easy/does not strain your brain (you can answer surveys on the go or while watching TV)
- A possible US Airways Grand Slam Hit (more on that later)
Cons
- Takes time/can be tedious
- Can be frustrating trying to get an invitation
In my opinion, e-rewards is worth the time and effort if you’ve got little bits and pieces of time built into your day. If a survey takes more than 10 minutes, I usually pass it up because I don’t have time to settle in for the long haul answering questions about my grocery shopping preferences. But if a survey shows up in my in-box while I am waiting for the barista to call my name at Starbucks…sure.
What are your thoughts on e-rewards? Anyone have any helpful hints to share?
how do you know it’s a legit survey and not spam?
Great question! Each survey you get from e-rewards originates directly from their website. In other words, they pre-screen the surveys. Surveys are typically from very well-known brands and companies such as Office Max and Gillette.
have participated in e rewards for over a year and now believe some of it’s surveys are nothing but info gathering devices and scams. have had numerous surveys, mostly high dollar ones, kick me out after completing survey but before info transmitted. always receive some kind of error message-timed out, unable to connect, something resulting in no reward for me. has happened enough times I believe it’s a way to get info for free. am canceling membership and trying to figure out who to report possible internet scamming to. this has happened enough times that I believe it’s more then just a ghost in the machine. unless you like frustration, stay away from the unrewards!!!
I agree! Often I get kicked out on the last screen.
The most recent survey I did has estimated 10 minutes, but it took 25! on the last screen, it said “sorry you do not qualify for this survey, please try again.” !!
I didn’t get any credit for the survey.
Also, 90% of the surveys are not available after I open the email. The whole site is a waste of time. I quit them this week.
I also agree with this. Have had a few of the longggggg surveys get right to the “and finally” questions and then crash after 40 minutes of work and after giving them all the information they wanted. Came here to check if anyone had similar experience,
Also, now that I am within 400 points of redeeming surveys have dried up.
100% true. I’ve done half a dozen surveys – accumulated 1 dollar. Many ask you a ton of questions then rule you out. Others allow you to complete then suddenly don’t work when it’s time to “submit”. Don’t waste ur time
I recently got an invite. It appears because of some investment institutions I use. I tend to get 15-20 minutes into a survey, and then it seems to lake buttons to select something, or for some strange reason it won’t accept any answers I give. I’ve got an email off to their support, but I’m expecting a bit of a run around, and for them to tell me to try yet another survey. At this point, it’s mostly looking like they gather as much info as possible, and then do their best to not give you credit.
Lol. If you do contact support which i have done several times for missing survey credits , in about a week or so you will receive an email explaining how to reset your password. Im owed at least $20.00 in rewards cash that i was scammed out of in the last three weeks
I too am an e-rewards. I’m very nervous about giving out too much info. So I usually answer “other” a lot of the times.
I feel nervous that so much info is being sent out. So I try to control it with generic answers.
I feel better that Kendra is part of it. *whew!*
I just got an offer for 750 points for a 30 minutes survey!!!! for $7.5!!! In e-rewards currency!! That’s a huge chunk of my life lol!!!!!! and hardly palatable rewards lol 🙂 needless to say, its still u done… 🙂 30 mins?? Really???
That is $15 bucks an hour, twice minimum wage. I would not be whining.
I’ve gotten all kinds of stuff and haven’t got a huge noticeable difference in spamish emails. Mostly free magazines I’ve earned but am working on my 2nd $25 Macy’s card. I’m 10 cents away in reward $. haha It is time consuming but well worth it to spend a couple of hours in Macy’s and get free clothes. Yew. If you are lucky enough to get an invite, go for it. Can we do referrals?
Lol i use it for the macys gift cards too
I think so. My invite says I was referred and asked it I wanted to share my registration info, Of course I’m clicking “NO” because I have no idea who it was from. (LOL!) Think I’ll check it out for a bit & see how this goes. 🙂
I have found that many surveys take far longer than stated…or maybe I am just actually considering my answers where I should be zooming through clicking randomly 🙂
eRewards might have once did most of what they claim, but the current situation is that you will rarely get to complete a survey, but instead have to answer a dozen or more questions (which look a lot like a survey to me) only to be told you don’t qualify for the full amount so you get credited twenty-five cents — but that isn’t even really 25 cents because redeeming your eRewards is like a Reverse Groupon — you get to give them back $50 of their Rewards to get $20 off on a product (and most of the offers available are over-priced junk like magazine subscriptions that you can get cheaper from Publishers Clearing House or even from the post cards that the magazines have inside).
I have yet to see a survey with an honest time estimate — although I suppose you might get through a survey in the time they say IF you skip reading the questions and the answers but just click on things randomly.
$1 in e-Rewards points is only worth about a third of a real dollar. So it’s really about $5 an hour, less than minimum wage.
I have been a e-rewards member for a while now and YES it is legit. I have received over 20 subscriptions to several different magazines. I have also sent subscriptions to friends and family. I have tried other survey sites, with little success. They have a good variety of magazines to choose from. I have never had a problem with them sending me to unwanted sites, or sending me unwanted e-mails. I highly recommend e-rewards.
E-rewards has good payoff if you can get on a survey. I don’t know that E-rewards has a lot of control over the surveys since they appear to be a broker of surveys. As a result, you will find that you are half-way through a 20 minute survey for 5-7$ and answered a lot of questions (well beyond what it would take to determine if you are a likely subject) and you are suddenly dropped from the survey with only a quarter in you account. It appears that you have just taken a mini survey are were not well compensated for it. The survey company walks away with a lot of information but you are left with nothing.
I have complained to E-Rewards that they need to monitor the surveys and be more professional about this dubious /unscrupulous behavior but they haven’t fixed those glaring issues.
There is a lot of secrecy and not much information about E-Rewards. The surveys need to be well organized and protected but there isn’t much info and no internal blog for this company.
How often do you get surveys to fill out? I just signed, up and I’m already out of survey opportunities. Are they pretty regular?
I have been trying to join erewards, but it asks for a primary post code with 6 to 8 digits and my post code is not accepted. I live in Melbourne and our post code is only 4 digits. Does anyone know anything about this.
Hi Doris
I live in Melbourne Australia and earn e rewards for Virgin velocity points so if that interest you just sign up for a free Velocity membership and you will find a link to e rewards on their website .
I have not had any issues and you get 750 Velocity points after your first survey i get invitations most days sometimes i don”t qualify or am too late or just don;t have time to look at.
We did not get the redeemed Velocity points and after contacting them 3 times, we have given up. There is no reply and I suspect it is getting people sucked in to do honest surveys for nothing.
I joined eRewards last year with the intention of kill some time and receive some gift cards in the process. it all started pretty good since i was receiving surveys almost daily and getting ”E rewards currency” which let me tell you that its not equivalent to dollars, i started noticing that in some surveys even though i qualified for the full survey amount i was not receiving any credit at all. i started by sending some emails to their FAQ and contact emails, ’cause there are not phone numbers, and up to this date i have not received any email whatsoever about this issue. on top of that a few months ago (3-4 months maybe) i stopped receiving surveys. i was looking forward to reach at least $75 e rewards currency to exchange it towards a $25 Macy’s gift card. since i was not receiving any surveys anymore, i decided to change it for a least a 10 us Macy’s gift card, for my surprise, it seems that the Erewards company has no longer any gift card agreement with most of the brands that they advertised on their website (Starbucks, Game stop, Kohl’s) whenever i click on them its impossible to exchange your rewards, it keep telling you to log in…log in and log in.
in conclusion, don’t waste your time, at least if your intention is to receive some sort of compensation to fill surveys, E rewards does not work!!!!
I guess they’re working again, i used my currency to get 10$ off my 50$ purchase
I would submit a help ticket to the website, they usually reply within 48 hours if you’re experiencing a problem. I had an issue one time and they corrected it within a couple of days.
i am an e-rewards member an was asked to review a product i never received. i have tried to fill out the help form, but it will not send. there is no telephone number to call. is is worth sending them a letter?
I can’t seem to get a Macy’s gift card. I have $187.20 but can’t find anything to buy with it.
Although the process of getting invited can be annoying, I actually got into this program before I had ever heard about it anywhere else, and I think it’s the most legit paid survey site that there is. I’m able to fill most of them out on my phone while I’m waiting at doctor’s offices, on connecting flights, or just watching tv, and although the surveys can be lengthy, I rack up the dollar amounts pretty quickly. I’ve been a college student for 9 years now and I can’t begin to describe how valuable these sites are when you don’t have time for a 9-5 job. I’m able to cash in enough to pay for a couple overnight trips a year. Between this and MyPoints I save myself close to $500 a year in purchases, which might not seem like a lot, but I don’t know many people that would turn their nose up at $500 for the most minimal effort in earning it.
I joined and was instantly inundated with survey offers. However, I was usually rejected for the survey, I think because I am retired and too old for their criteria. Most of the time the survey said, “5-10” minutes, then I would spend that much time just qualifying for the survey. After being rejected, they would “reward” me with 25 cents. Not worth the time in my opinion.
I had a decent relationship with e-rewards up until the present when I had problems with a Starbucks e-gift card that they issued. The code yielded an empty card. I contacted Starbucks and they sent me back to the issuer. That is when a number of frustrating e-mail messages ensued from e-rewards. They sent a boilerplate answer which did not address my problem and then asked me for information that they already had access to in their database of my account (information they later accessed so I know they had it) and then sent the same original boilerplate reply and I had to start all over again. After a series of frustrating e-mail messages, they ended up finally putting money on the reward card and then claimed that it was my error (that I was trying to redeem the previous reward card). The runaround was bad enough, but the lying to cover up their mistake and blame it on me was the absurd part. I no longer trust that they will issue the rewards they say they will and they will make you waste enormous amounts of time trying to get them to pay you for your efforts.
I like this program a lot. I wish I could get my boyfriend into this but since it is invite only, I am affraid I cannot 🙁
Same with my girlfriend. She wants in on this bad.
I shared the skepticism about e rewards. I wondered if it was a set up. Until I used some credit towards my Gamestop card. Everything processed without a hitch. Now I’m saving up for even more points so I can buy a $60 game controller all paid by e rewards surveys. Being disqualified from bigger money surveys sucks but it doesn’t happen all the time to me. In my opinion, free money in any form is worth the effort if all they’re asking is for you to lift your finger.
This is not true. My partner did not receive the Velocity Points that she redeemed. To get your $60 game controller, you would have done a lot of surveys, probably in a year. Hopefully this site does not carry ‘promotional’ comments from the e-Rewards staff.
I’ve been a member of e-rewards (invitation courtesy of Gamestop) for at least 8 years now. I get surveys regularly, and I have gotten to the point where I get a $25 Gamestop gift card every three months (can only redeem for one Gamestop prize per quarter, which is about how long it takes to accumulate $75 in e-rewards currency anyway). Yes, sometimes the surveys take 45 minutes, but those are also worth ~$20 in e-rewards currency. I would say I fully complete maybe 50% of the surveys, and I get the partial credit amount for the rest. I am usually notified pretty early on (~5 min) in the survey if I am not qualified. I always noticed the reward amount added to my total immediately , and when I do redeem a reward, it comes to my email inbox within minutes. I currently have five $25 Gamestop gift cards saved up, which I can use at any time. I might eventually use them to get a greatly discounted WiiU bundle.
I do feel for the people who fill out a huge chunk of a survey just to get the “you don’t qualify for this survey” message. It doesn’t happen to me too often thankfully but I hate it when it’s a 25+ minute survey paying out 8$+ (or even 6$+) and I’ve filled out anywhere from half to 90%, quite happy thinking I just added a nice little chunk of $, just to find out I don’t qualify and they just got a huge chunk of information from me while only having to dish out .25 in E-Rewards currency.
On the other hand I do manage to rack up 100$ in currency to trade for PowerUp Rewards from GameStop (30,000 points) every 4’ish months (can only cash out for PowerUp points once every quarter, only ever got GS points from them before so dunno how it works for other rewards) Depending on how often I respond to survey alerts I can rack up that 100$ in as fast as 5 days or as long as 2-3 months. Since I have to wait 3-4 months anyway I’m usually not in a huge hurry, until I’m like only 1 week away from being able to get it again and notice I only have 25$ in currency. Also everytime I cash out it has gone down without a hitch, it claims it can take up to 14 days to show up in my Gamestop account but is usually in within 2-5 days. I think my first time ever it took like 7 days but never that long since then.
The invite only sucks too as my friend who loves games as much as I do wants to get in on the program and all I can ever tell him is it’s invite only. Actually was searching Google on tips to get invited for him when I found this article and decided to drop a reply. Anyway, cheers
The kindest thing I could say about e-Rewards would be to call it a Bait & Switch operation — but calling it a complete scam would be more accurate. The company builds its profits by cheating both participants and clients. They tell clients they are paying participants to take the surveys but that is a scam. They tell participants that they have a survey, then AFTER the person competes the survey THEN they say you aren’t qualified so they can pay just the trivial amount rather than the full amount or they simply fail to pay at all. e-Rewards has 99% of the qualification information already in their database, so there is no excuse for having anyone take a survey THEN telling them they aren’t qualified due to age, gender, or occupation that was already in the e-Rewards database. Even when the qualification is something that they need to ask (such as whether or not you shop for a specific kind of product), there is no excuse for their habit of putting such questions at the middle or end of the survey so they have already collected a ton of responses before they suddenly ‘discover’ that you “don’t qualify” for the survey they just had you take. e-Rewards is a fine way to collect rewards if you assume that your time is worth less than fifty cents per hour, because that’s the best rate that you can expect to receive for taking their surveys (you will never actually see the $2.50 to $7.50 that they claim you will be paid for taking a 20-60 minute survey.
I agree. I have been doing it only for three months and keep getting the “you do not qualify” message after going through 75% of survey. I only did a few short surveys and this happened. There is no way I would attempt a long survey. They would totally screw me over. I was hoping for something better. But live and learn.
Ive been with E rewards for years. I liked them better when they had Applebees giftcards . I usually get a $25 giftcard for AE or Macys bout every 2 months. Even though they used to say theyd credit my account in a week or 10 days they used to do it within hours. Ive waited over a month for a $12 award and a $5 award and 2 $4 rewards. So I emailed them they sent an email saying theyd check it that was 2 weeks ago. im about at $45 im thinking to end my long term relationship because now I believe theyre scamming.
Agree with you. The Velocity Points that they promised to credit were never received although my e-reward points were deducted. This is since May 2016.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on E-Rewards. My husband has been a member for a few years now, so I can vouch for their legitimacy. I’m just on the hunt for a way to get an invite. 🙂
1. Redeems only a fraction of the money earned i.e. earn $5 get $2-$3 actual dollars applied to the reward.
2. Spend minutes filling out part of the survey to then learn it’s only partially useable; reward is usually 0.25 cents.
3. Primarily offer low value or not popular or just junk rewards. Not near the value of what was earned. Same rewards can often by found elsewhere for less time investment.
4. Surveys usually take longer than listed, if listed at all.
5. If you travel a lot or want low value magazines then what you redeem is equivalent to selling your life’s time for a few dollars per hour.
I have stopped doing surveys after finding that they don’t give you the velocity points that you redeemed. When you redeem, they send you a nice email with the subject heading “Your e-Rewards Reward Fulfillment – Velocity Frequent Flyer”. However, you will find that your velocity account will never be credited with anything but your reward points have been deducted. I have not received any reply after 3 emails through their web page contacts to chase up. I then checked up EREWARDS Australia and found that the firm was wound up in 2014 (financial). It could be the same firm but now operating from overseas to Australia.
So far I have had good luck – after 2 1/2 months I have $216 and they never expire. I am using mine for IHG hotel points and Jetblue . I do go in everyday though. You usually get 4 chances to complete a survey .25 if you don’t but once you complete a survey that’s it for the day. Jetblue’s Points for Surveys is better but if you don’t mind putting in 30 minutes a day it’s not that bad. I figure $300 = a free night with IHG, I don’t travel often so by the time my next trip comes up I figure I can potentially earn 3 free nights. Unless issues develop I am sticking with it
cash card dont seem to always work so i “buy” it for points to other legit companies IHG Jetblue etc.
at least you can deal with a big customer service oriented company
I have been using erewards for YEARS and have had no problems. I usually redeem for Alaska Airlines miles but most recently I redeemed $100 erewards for 4000 IHG hotel points. They posted to my IHG account the same day.
I find that if I want to know my updated erewards balance after I’ve done a few surveys, I need to log out, close my browser and then log back into erewards. Only then will it show me the new balance.
I think of E-rewards as part of my long term points and miles strategy. All of the airlines redemption are limited to one per month. $100 worth of e-rewards currency is worth (depending on the airline) between 2,000 miles (for most) to 3,000 Avios for Iberia. I feel that if I take one $4 (10 minute) survey a day I’ll have between 24,000-36,000 miles per year. I live in Los Angeles and it takes only 7,500 avios on British Airways via American Airlines to fly to Cabo San Lucas for example. Yes it does take time but if you’re like me (without good credit and living paycheck to paycheck) you have to get creative. There are some very good redemption such as Le Club Accor points that are directly transferable to Iberia and thus British Airways. Le Club Accor points also transfer to other hotel programs and there’s not limit on redemption. So if you have some spare time and wanna hit it hard you can load up on points fairly fast.
SPAM
They sell off info to 3rd parties and you will get bombarded with calls from India
Stay Away
I have signed up for lots of survey sites. I completed lot of surveys.
Most surveys were from $0.25-$6.00 There were a lot of them that l participated in and when I was close in finishing it tells me I don’t qualify. It was very frustrating. I never made enough to check out. I feel a lot of surveys just take your information to tell you that you don’t qualify half way through the survey. I would love to find a decent one that pays the dollars they say for completing the survey.
This started off well the first year, I got a number of iTunes cards and e-restaurant certificates. However, it has changed in the past few months. many of the e-rewards surveys ask a lot of questions and then say you don’t qualify or they have enough participants. Also now you have to earn $75 before you can redeem anything and itunes is limited to 1 per quarter.
How do you get an invite to e-rewards? I am very interested.
Can someone send me a invite Please
There is a link on the American Airlines webpage:
https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/partners/financial-and-business.jsp
I was going to redeem $100 for 2000 Southwest miles but then I noticed that if I register as a new user via Southwest’s Rapid rewards E Rewards, I can redeem $100 for 2400 miles. Why is there a difference from my current account? Obviously I can’t transfer my balance or else I would be getting thousands more points!
I absolutely love e-Rewards. I have been hooked up with them for one month now and have racked up $148.00 in e-Rewards currency. I have yet to exchange any of the rewards, so I can’t speak for the reliability of that side of things, but I can tell you that the surveys are generally entertaining if you enjoy that sort of pastime and they seem to keep coming daily if you answer truthfully. Also, be sure to completely fill out your profile answers and it will get you into a bigger survey pool. Have fun!
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