MyPoints Offers New Gold Membership Level w/ Perks

Good morning, readers!

I have blogged about MyPoints a couple of times–namely a post about how you can get 500 free United Miles for signing up and a post on what MyPoints is and how to leverage it to earn miles–so certainly this email message caught my eye when the subject line read “Upgrade to Gold at MyPoints and get all the perks!”

Earlier this week, MyPoints had actually sent out an email announcing that they were introducing a Gold Membership Level with bonus points earning capabilities. I had slightly disregarded that earlier email since the perks didn’t look too appealing, and I also had no idea how to get to Gold Level. But then this email arrived:

So spend $20 or more via a MyPoints offer to get Gold Status for about six months. Okay, that’s definitely doable since there are so many offers and ways to spend on things you would normally do. But is it worth the extra trouble or even going out of your way for the sole purpose of getting Gold Status?

It takes 5,200 MyPoints points to redeem for 2,500 United Miles. I value the 2,500 United Miles at $20 per thousand miles, which equates to a grand total of $50. Based on that, I value MyPoints points at roughly 1 cent a point. Sadly, this quarter’s MyPoints Gold benefits are pretty meager.

• The 25 bonus points for every 500 points is a nice little gesture, but in the grand scheme of things doesn’t make much of a dent unless you’re planning on gaining tens of thousands of points.
• The 750 bonus points per referral is worth spending 30 seconds to refer a friend, but unfortunately since you only score that bonus if they go Gold, this will definitely not be an option for everyone and is probably best leveraged during a good promotion/sale offer.
• The exclusive offers for Gold members only is too vague for me to speculate anything about it.
• These are just this quarter’s benefits–it’ll change again in January. This is good since there is potential for just about anything to happen with this sort of program.

The bottom line is that it doesn’t seem worthwhile to go out of your way to qualify for Gold Membership for MyPoints, but if there is an active promotion that you like and it’s $20 or more, then this is a nice little gesture to reward you even more. For example, I’m buying a $50 gift card to Panera Bread via one of their active offers. In return for getting a gift card to a cafe I frequent (and will end up spending $50 there anyway), I’m getting some additional points and scoring Gold Membership.

Since this is a new membership level program, I do expect some kinks and problems in the system. I’ll be keeping an eye out on this program, and hopefully it’ll grow with worthwhile benefits.

If you still have not yet joined MyPoints, you can join for free by clicking here.