Cash in your Scour points by the end of August
August 4th, 2009 | by mbhunter |Scour is changing the way it rewards its users. Not for the better, unfortunately.
I received my third $25 Visa gift card from Scour today, and on checking out the site I found this link on the front page:
“Upgraded Rewards System Coming Soon!”
Uh-oh.
The social search engine site has had a point-based system for earning free gift cards for searching the web: search, vote, and comment, and you work your way toward $25 Visa gift cards.
That’s all going to change as of September 1st, 2009. Searches, votes, and comments will no longer accumulate from day to day. After this month they will only be good for entries in a daily $25 giveaway.
All point accumulation will stop on September 1st, and if there are unused points in your account, they will be “upgraded” to extra daily entries in the daily $25 giveaways for the month of September. Then they vanish into the Scour bit bucket. Here is how your current points will be converted to September daily entries:
- 1 – 1,500 points: 25 daily search entries for 30 days
- 1,501 – 3,000 points: 50 daily search entries for 30 days
- 3,001 – 4,500 points: 75 daily search entries for 30 days
- 4,501 – 6,000 points: 100 daily search entries for 30 days
- 6,001 – 7,500 points: 125 daily search entries for 30 days
- 7,500 + points: 150 daily search entries for 30 days
This is very unfortunate. Scour was a decent ride while it lasted but now it’s aspiring to be a watered-down version of iWon. Giving away $25 per day is nothing. This “upgrade” is an upgrade only for Scour. It is an obvious, and harsh, downgrade for everyone else.
Here’s how I’d make the best of it:
- If you’re around the 4,000-point mark, I’m really sorry. Getting 2,500 points in four weeks is a lot, and they might just think you’re cheating by getting so many points so fast. But it’s always worth a shot, I suppose. Just be careful in how you search and comment.
- If you’re around 6,000 points, you have time to reach the magic 6,500 points. Pace yourself (maybe 50 points/day) and get past 6,500 to cash out your $25 gift card.
- If you have over 6,500 points, you had better cash out your points, or I’ll hire somebody to pluck the petals off of all your flowers. Trading a sure $25 for chances at $25 is dumb. Cash them out right now!
- If you want to just get into the drawings for the September gift cards, join before the end of the month and earn 1 point. You’ll get 25 entries each day in September with no more work on your part.
After this turn of events, Swagbucks is looking much better. It’s the same idea but you can still earn your way toward gift cards rather than forfeit your effort each day if you don’t win.
(Oh, by the way, the Swagbucks link is a referral link. The Scour links are not. They’ll go away sometime in September when I get around to it.)
