It looks like some major changes are coming to our favorite Bing Rewards promotion. For those that don’t know, Bing Rewards offers gamers a chance to earn points—which can then be exchanged for currency like GameStop coupons or Amazon gift cards—by using the search engine.
The change to Microsoft Rewards is mostly an evolution which gives you more ways to earn rewards. Like Bing Rewards, you’ll earn points for searching with Bing, but soon you’ll be able to earn in more ways—and faster—when you browse the web with Microsoft Edge and shop at the Windows and Microsoft stores—just make sure to stay signed in with your Microsoft account.
Bing Rewards credits will become Microsoft Rewards points. Points work exactly like credits, but one Bing Rewards credit is worth ten Microsoft Rewards points. Microsoft will automatically multiply your credit balance by ten the current value. So let’s say you have 700 Bing Rewards credits—you’ll have 7,000 Microsoft Rewards points. Your earning for Bing searches, as well as redemptions, will adjust to reflect the conversion.
Microsoft Rewards has two member tiers: Level 1 and Level 2. Level 2 members can earn more points on Bing, save up to 10% on rewards from Microsoft brands, and get access to exclusive offers. Existing Bing Rewards members get a free boost to Level 2 through October 31, 2016. After that, keeping Level 2 status is a cinch—just collect 500 points each month.
Hopefully the rewards will be more affordable after they rework the prices. Currently it takes too long to save up for even a simple $5 Xbox Live gift card. While I don’t expect that to be the case, it’s great that they’re adding more ways to earn Microsoft Rewards points because just searching on Bing doesn’t cut it anymore.
Additionally, a few weeks ago I was using Microsoft Edge and option to earn points by using the browser for six hours showed up. The option later disappeared and I’m not sure what happened but it was definitely related to the change to Microsoft Rewards. From what I experienced that day, it seems like it’ll be quite easy to earn rewards from now on and save up for those amazing rewards. In my case, the gift cards.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.