eRewards: The Turtle of Earning Miles/Points

eRewards is a site that pays you for taking surveys in miles/points. This is not an easy way to earn miles/points. It can take months just to earn 2,000 airline miles. Why bother you might ask? In the past, airlines have offered bonuses for transferring miles from partners like eRewards.

The first step is to register with e-Rewards. My recommendation is to search your email for e-Reward offers. Many times airlines and hotels will send emails inviting you to join e-Rewards and included in that email is sign-up bonus offers. A quick search of my email turned up offers from JetBlue, Southewest, and Priority Club in the past 60 days.

Jetblue:

Southwest

 Priority Club:

Also in my email account was an offer from United Airlines offering 250 miles for setting up your profiles and completing a survey in 3 months:

If you can't find an offer in your email box, United has the same offer available here.

After registering for e-Rewards, the next step is to fill out your profile. It is important to be honest in this step as it will determine what surveys are sent to you. If you stretch the truth in your profile, you might start noticing that you don't qualify for any surveys they sent you. There are 9 different sections that you need to fill out to complete your profile:

Here is a sample of the questions you will have to answer:

After filling out your profiles completely, sit back and wait for eRewards to email you invites to surveys. I typically get at least 5 invites a week. Each email looks something similar to this and lets you know the subject of the survey, the time commitment, and payout:

Click on the link within the email and you enter the landing page of the survey. This page will have the same information as the email except it also has the amount you will be paid for testing out of the survey. Being paid for testing out of the survey is one of my favorite parts of eRewards. They give you something for trying. That is why I always attempt to take surveys, nothing to lose.

After completing or testing out of surveys, your account is typically credited immediately; however, some surveys have taken a few days to credit. Once your account has at least $25 in it, you have the option to cash out in exchange for miles. Currently, eRewards allows you to transfer to the following airlines: Air France/KLM, AeroMexico, AirTran, Alaskan, AA, Emirates, Etihad, Fronteir, Hawaiian, Iberia, Jetblue, Southwest, Spirt, US Airways, United, Virgin America and Atlantic. Here is a list of all the partners:

As we have been talking about earning Mileage Plus miles this month, here are the redemption options for United:

After choosing your redemption level, you will be asked to enter your MileagePlus number and eRewards password. Typically, the miles will show up in your MileagePlus account within 3 weeks, but eRewards warns it could take 6-8 weeks. Therefore, this is not a way to transfer miles to your account for an immediate award purchase. Here is some important information about transferring miles to MileagePlus:

Overall, eRewards is a great way to earn a handful of miles. It's time consuming and the payout isn't huge. However, if United has another partner bonus like they did in December, it would be nice to be ready. A little bit of time now can payoff later. 

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Earning My Southwest Companion Pass

In my most credit card churn, see here, I got both the Southwest Personal and Business credit cards. Both cards earn 50,000 miles after spending $2,000 in three months. The reason I got both cards is to get the Southwest's Companion Pass. You can learn all about the Companion Pass on Southwest's website here. In short, the companion pass allows your chosen person to fly with you free on any purchase or free Southwest flight.

One can earn the Southwest Companion Pass by earning 110,000 miles in one calender year. The key term here is "earn." One does not need to earn the miles by flying alone.

Therefore getting the two Southwest Cards puts be almost 95% the way to a companion pass:

50,000 Point Sign-Up Bonus for Personal Card
2,000 Earned by Spending $2,000 on the Personal Card
50,000 Point Sigh-Up Bonus for Business Card
2,000 Earned by Spending $2,000 on the Business Card

So far, I have earned 104,000 Southwest Miles leaving me 6,000 miles short of the Companion Pass. I could spend $6,000 more on either or both cards and be finished, but that will divert my spending ability from other cards that I value more. Therefore, I need to find other ways of earning 6,000 Rapid Reward Miles and quickly.

Here is my plan (so far):

1,000 Filing taxes through TurboTax (Southwest Merchant Portal here)
2,000 eRewards Transfer ($100 eRewards = $2,000 Points)

I have no plan for the last 3,000 Rapid Rewards. Here are some of my ideas:

1) Transfer 5,000 Choice Privilege Points = 1,800 Rapid Reward Points
2) Transfer 5,000 Hyatt Points = 2,400 Rapid Reward Points
3) Sign Up for Southwest Dining Rewards and spend $25 = 300 Rapid Reward Points
4) Stay at a Wyndham Hotel =1,200 Rapid Reward Points

As you can see,there aren't really any cheap slam dunk ideas to get that last 3,000 points. These 3,000 points are very violable. The sooner I earn them the sooner I earn the Companion Pass.

After looking at my options, I might need to just spend the extra $3,000 on the credit cards. Not what I want to do, but what I may need to do.

Am I missing some great way of earning 3,000 Rapid Reward Points asap and cheaply?




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