Bing Rewards Account Levels

The Bing Rewards program added new membership levels to help earn more points and get discounts.  The pictures below are the 3 membership levels: Member, Silver, and Gold.  The left column is the requirements and the right column is the rewards.

The basic member level is where everyone starts.  There isn't much that needs to be said about this level.

The next step up is the silver level, this is what I have achieved so far.  You must complete the welcome to rewards tour, Welcome to Bing tour, and pick a reward to set as your goal.  These steps take about 5 minutes to complete.  You must have also earned 200 credits over the lifetime of your account.  This means that you have done 400 searches and received 200 credits for those searches.  You don't have to still have the credits or have had them all at once.  Once you reach this level you get 50 credits added to your account and can start working towards the next level.

The final membership level is gold and I am almost at this level.  You must redeem credits for your first reward, if you bought some Microsoft points with credits this step is already done.  Over the lifetime of your Bing Rewards account you must have earned 750 total credits, I don't believe the 50 bonus from silver counts towards this.  The biggest hurdle for me is completing 150 rewardable searches, up to 20 per day.  I am almost there for this month, but there is a slight catch.  If you complete 150 rewardable searches in April and then don't use the program as much in May, you will revert back to a silver membership.  Once you receive the gold membership you get 5% discounts on Microsoft Points/Xbox Live Gold subscriptions and 10% off of all other rewards.

All in all the rewards aren't really that fantastic, this would be the difference between spending 500 credits and 475 credits on 400 Microsoft Points.  However, the 25 credits saved could be a day or 2 of earning, so it is kind of nice.  The free 50 credits for earning silver is a nice touch, but you should also receive credits for earning and maintaining a gold membership level.

I hope this helped all of you out there that like to participate in the Bing Rewards program like I do.  All of the multiple Bing accounts that I get points from are currently silver memberships, so I will be getting some free DLC or games soon!

1,000 Views!

I want to thank everyone for helping making this possible, when I checked my blog today I had 1,075 views!  Without all of you this never would have been possible.  I apologize for the break in posting, I had to take care of my family.  My son was born on April 11th, 2012 and I have been taking vacation to spend time with him and my fiancee.

Just a brief teaser on what to expect in the coming days.  I was finally accepted to Key For Cash after scoring in the 99th percentile.  I will do a write up on how it goes once I start doing the work.  Bing Rewards has also made some changes that might really interest some of you guys out there.  Also, I will update you all on Ashley's experiences with Amazon's Mechanical Turk.

Again, I would like to thank all of you for reading my blog!

He Is Here!

I am finally a father!  Tobias Edward Thornton was born at 4:44PM on April 11th, 2012.  I am taking a brief hiatus from Daddy Weight Loss to concentrate my attention towards my new family of three.  I will keep you all updated. For baby news, please head over to my other blog:

http://daddytobe2012.blogspot.com

Baby On The Way

Wont be blogging for a few days.

Social Networking

Sorry I haven't been around much, I was just enjoying my Easter vacation.  Today I want to bring up Social Networking and how it can help with making money online.  Anytime I find a new opportunity to make money, I post it on my Facebook and Twitter.  Every time I post a new post on my blogs I post it on Facebook and Twitter. 

When looking at my blog statistics, Facebook is my largest traffic source.  The one thing to keep in mind is to try very hard not to anger your friends and followers.  The last thing everybody wants is a friend who posts links all the time and fills up your news feed.

These friends and followers you have are already interested in what you have to say, so they are more likely to help than people you don't know.  Just keep this in mind next time you need page views or referrals.

Using Amazon Mechanical Turk Efficiently

Last night, Ashley decided to start working with Amazon Mechanical Turk to help pay for gas, food, and spending money.  She tried quite a few different HITs before finding something she was looking for.  She finally found one and then timed herself doing them.  She was able to consistently maintain $4.50/hour USD, which is pretty impressive compared to the other online methods we have looked at.  She received an email from the "employer" telling her that her progress was exemplary.  I thought this would be a good time to share some of my personal tips on how to be successful at Mechanical Turk.

My biggest tip is that to find something that you like doing and is easy for you, don't worry about how much you get paid per HIT.  Some hits may take an hour and only pay $3.00 and you can't repeat them, while others pay $0.15 to complete, but only take 30 seconds to complete.  These types of jobs usually have tens of thousands of jobs available and you can have very little downtime between jobs. 

If you have the equipment, dual monitors can effectively double the amount of work you can do in the time given.  If you have a laptop, most laptops have a VGA port on the side to add a second monitor.  Desktops usually require a capable video card, but some computers come with the ability from the factory.  A dual monitor capable card can cost anywhere from $30 USD up to... well the sky is the limit with video cards.  Most users can use a low end card, but gamers may need to look at more expensive cards.  If neither one of the options are possible, you may have one more trick available.  In Windows 7 you can use the "Aero" features to split your screen on one monitor.  Simply press and hold the Windows key on your keyboard (Usually between Ctrl and Alt, same icon as the start button) and tap the left or right arrow key and then release the Windows key.  This is called "Aero Snap" and can be a very nice feature in a pinch in that you can have two windows splitting your screen.

A lot of jobs on Mechanical Turk require you to do multiple web searches and then copy the web addresses into the HIT.  If you follow the directions correctly, you will have to type http:// on each address.  Instead of typing http:// each time, type it once and then copy it into each box.  This way the boxes will be ready to accept addresses and you will shave seconds off of your time.

Also, when you first start using Mechanical Turk, make sure to verify your bank account immediately.  This way you won't have to wait 5-7 days to verify it once you reach the payment threshold.  This can be done at the link below.

https://payments.amazon.com/

If I think of any other tips, I will post them as I find them.  I hope that these tips help my readers in their endeavors.

Update: Mechanical Turk/Amazon Payments

My apologies to my readers and myself.  I didn't realize that the money earned on Mechanical Turk, which is tied to your Amazon Payments account, is able to be deposited into your personal checking account.  The minimum payout is $10 and should take about 5-7 business days.  I now wish that I wouldn't have spent the money on Amazon and that I would have waited to hit the threshold.  At least I can help inform my readers so that you don't make the same mistake I did.  The verification is similar to PayPal in that Amazon deposits 2 random amounts into your checking account and then you confirm them on the site.  This takes about 5-7 business days as well.

How are you all doing with making money on Amazon Mechanical Turk?

I Love Bing Rewards!

I love Bing Rewards, now let me tell you why.  I have been doing my "tasks" everyday and so has Ashley.  I have 3 other people doing it just because.  That means that every week on average I receive codes for about 500 Microsoft Points.  By my calculations that is about $6.25 USD every week that is coming in, can't beat it since I am only doing about 5 minutes of work each day.  

Yesterday, while playing Xbox 360, I noticed on the dashboard that a Games on Demand special was running.  I have never looked at these games because they are expensive compared to GameStop and you can only use a credit card, no Microsoft Points.  Well at least that is what I thought!  I have been wanting to play the Mass Effect trilogy ever since I heard about the original Mass Effect.  I have never thought to pick it up at the store and when I do it is out of stock.  Mass Effect was on sale yesterday for $14.99 and it was $19.99 at GameStop earlier that day while I was out and about.  I clicked on Mass Effect and noticed that at the bottom of the screen there was an option to "Pay with Microsoft Points."  I pressed that button and confirmed the purchase for 1200 Microsoft Points.  

The moral of the story is that I probably would have never played Mass Effect if it wasn't for Bing Rewards.  I still haven't actually played Mass Effect as it is an 8gb download and for some odd reason took over 12 hours to download.  I just thought it would be nice to be able to post a success story today!