Ok, I really need to talk to someone else who plays the Rewards game by using Bing every day.
First of all, to the people who don’t follow this stuff, Xbox Live Rewards has been folded in with Microsoft Rewards. You can earn a bunch of points each day by doing Bing searches. Most days I can earn about 330 points, sometimes more. You also earn points for streaks, but there’s always a day or so here and there that I forget to do this, and I lose my streak.
So anyway, let’s talk rewards.
At level 2 (which is pretty easy to reach in a couple of days), here’s the interesting rewards:
Xbox Live Gold 1 Month = 6800 points
Gold 3 Months = 15,000 points
Gold 12 Months = 29,000 points.
So clearly in this case, the 12 months is worth waiting for. It’s less than twice the amount of points it costs to get 3 months. No brainer there.
How about Game Pass though?
Game Pass 1 month = 6,800 points
Game Pass 3 months = 17,000 points
Now, clearly you get a nice discount for going bigger, since 6800 x 3 = 20,400 points.
However, someone mentioned in the Xbox thread that they get one month at a time and have it ready, and use it for the month of a big release (like Forza Horizon 4, for instance). This is actually a pretty smart use of time, I think.
If I got the three month Game Pass, and cashed it in, I’d probably use it with gusto for a month, and then get busy. So maybe just from a time management perspective I’d make better use of three 1 month game passes than I would a 3 month game pass, since I could spread the first three out over months where I have more free time, and am not subscribed to other services like Netflix or Hulu.
@divedivedive, which ones do you aim for?
The other thing that’s possible to buy is Xbox Live Gift Cards, and here we get a more direct comparison for the value of points in terms of money.
$1.25 Gift Card = 1,600 points (1280 points per dollar)
$3 Gift Card = 2,900 points (967 ppd)
$5 GC = 4,650p (930 ppd)
$10 = 9,300p (930 ppd)
$25 = 23,000p (920 ppd)
$50 = 46,000p (920 ppd)
$100 = 91,000p (910 ppd)
So not THAT much of an bonus for buying the bigger denominations. Where do people fall on these? Do you wait until $25 to get 920 ppd? Or just to $5 to get to 930 ppd? It doesn’t sound worth it to wait for $100 just to get 910 ppd.
Edit: Oh, and they do have ways to spend it on other organizations outside Microsoft too. Chipotle Gift Cards, Burger King, AMC, Amazon, Hulu, Target, Walmart. Regal, REI, Sephora, Dominos, NFL Shop, etc.
The going rate for all those seems to be 1050 points = $1. So not too much more than spending the points within Microsoft’s ecosystem.