There is a trick to using these programs without getting annoyed by them. Most of them take a little time (a few seconds to half a minute) to down load anything after you click on something that gives you miles or money. If you simply stare at the screen waiting for the down load to happen, you will quickly conclude that it's not worth your time to do so. The trick is to always be doing something else while the down load is happening. I do all of my clicking while reading and acting on my e-mail. I have at least two screens open. I go the site and click, then instantly go to my e-mail. After doing something there, I instantly switch screens and click again. Etc. So the clicking costs me virtually no time, and I earn a free ticket or a few dollars every once in a while.

You can convert points to United Airlines starting at a ratio of 3,200 points for 1,000 miles. There are other travel awards, including some from large hotel chains like Marriott Bed & Breakfast, plus a huge list of gift cards and merchandise for which you may trade your points, including those from American and Delta Airlines. You can also use points to get Amazon.com gift cards, Visa gift cards, or even cash to your Paypal accounts. To look at the rewards offered, travel or otherwise, click on the Rewards tab on the MyPoints site, and choose the category the interests you.

There are lots of very easy ways to earn those points:

• The easiest is to sign up for their BonusMail program and tell them you want to receive advertising e-mail for as many categories as they list, and as frequently as possible. I receive about 10 - 30 mailings a week. Simply click on the button at the bottom and you are given 5 points. Many of the offers are incredibly good and offer hundreds or thousands of points in addition to the points you receive for just accepting the email and clicking on the button.

• Shopping sometimes offers very good offers, like mega points for first time purchase, or double points for certain periods of time. There is a very large list of merchants on this very successful shopping portal. Sometimes the best or only deal for a merchant is found here.
• The Easy Points section is particularly lucrative. Many points are offered for simply registering at a site.
• Log into your account and update your profile in 12 categories for 5 points each. This may be important for receiving the maximum number of Bonus Mails.
• MyPoints has a travel center page wherein you can receive points for booking flights, hotels, and car rentals.

• Enroll here (best to do this in a private window) to earn 750 United Airlines miles for registering and activating your MyPoints account, and enjoying your membership for 30 days. Then earn an additional 1,000 MileagePlus bonus award miles when you make one or more qualifying purchase(s) totaling $25 in your first 30 days of membership.
• You can ask me to refer you (750 or 1,750 points after spending $20 in your first 90 days as of January 25, 2014 - contradictory info on the website). I get some points at no cost to you. After you join, you can start referring, too. But first read the items below:
  • Before sending your request, check my What's New page to see if I am traveling, so you will know when to expect a response.
  • I need your first and last names, and your email address.
  • In the past, some people I have referred have attempted to defraud MyPoints, probably by enrolling more than once under different email addresses. MyPoints is very good at detecting this. Alas, they have threatened to close my account because too many of my referrals have tried this. So, in order to refer you, I must have your written promise that you will sign up for MyPoints only once.

This looks like a very good program, but I have no way of monitor it, since I do not live in the U.K. So you are on your own with it.

On February 27, 2008, a reader wrote:

"I see you still have Eurmiles shown on your site. They are a disingenuous company who does not provide what they say at all, NEVER provide the additional points for any transaction, and take 4-6 weeks to respond to any e-mail to customer services. All comments I have seen about them are very negative. I have canceled my account with them. It was a waste of my time and I strongly suggest you remove them from your site."

Please use the links I provide to join the programs, as I get some money for your doing so, at no cost to you.

• A very large number of gift cards from Amazon and a great many others - $5.00 for 500 "bucks". But note that Swagbucks discounts your first $25 gift card of the month to 2,200 SB. To see the list of gift cards, click on Rewards at the top of the page, then on Rewards Store in the pull-down, then on All Rewards. I found 542 of them on March 17, 2015.
• A PayPal credits priced at 100 Swagbuck per $1.
• Gift cards are put on sale regularly.
• Please tell me if any of the specific prizes I mentioned disappear, or if a good one of general interest is added. Thanks.

Not all searches result in bucks. This seems to be random, with some limit on how many successful searches will give you credit each day.

• When you see the usual notice of award for a search, sometimes you must enter a 3 letter code to actually receive the buck. You must do this promptly, or the offer of the Swagbucks will expire. The code is case sensitive.

As of October 10, 2023, you can buy 2,000 Swagbucks for $21.95 (1.1 cent each). You can use a credit card that gives you something back, like miles, or perhaps 2%, or maybe just to reach your spend requirement for a bonus. Once a month you can use those SBs to purchase a Visa gift card($25 for 2175 SBs) or an Amazon gift card ($25 for 2200 SBs) at a discount - less than the usual 1 cent per SB for most gift cards. To buy the SBs, either click here or click on Rewards at the top of your Swagbucks home page, then on BUY SB. Caution: The address for your credit card must match the address on file with Swagbucks.

Be sure to provide a date for your birthday in you profile. They have been sending out an email giving you Swagbucks on that date.

Be sure to sign up for Member Recognition to get extra worthwhile goodies, like an extra 2 hours to grab a swagcode, or extra points for redeeming for a gift card. The link was in the left menu on December 17, 2020. Very easy.

• Entering Swagcodes found at various places on the website is a very easy way to earn Swagbucks. Fortunately there is a very easy way to find these. You can subscribe to email or text notices of swagcodes at Swag Codes Spoiler. Sign up at its notifications page. Enter the code by hovering on the number of points you have on the Swagbucks home page and clicking on Redeem Swag Code. I am finding that the code works even after Swag Codes Spoiler says it has expired.

Swagbucks now has a credit card that might be of interest to you.

A reader provided me with a list of many other easy ways to earn Swagbucks. He says he gets around 20-25 bucks/day from these.

• Click on Daily Polls, answer the single question, and receive 1 SB.
• Click on Trusted surveys - 1 SB even if you don't do any.
• Click through the NOSO link - decline everything [between 3-6 pages] - get 2 SB [currently requires a code that they provide on the final page].
• Click through 'Special offers'. They have several sites to try in turn to play videos.
  • Ad Rewards gives you 5 videos per day to watch. Watch for the numbers and key them in. You get at least 1 SB per video, often more
  • Click though the other sites and press videos, or free. Click on any videos. You get 1 or 2 SB per video. You do not need to watch these; just let them run.

Whenever you successfully refer someone, you earn 10% of the Swag Bucks they earn for life, plus you and your referral get a 300 SB Bonus when your referral earns 300 SB within their first 30 days. Click on Refer and Earn $3 at the top of the home page. This, of course, is why I hope you will use my referral link to join the program. Thanks. Also, get an extra 100 SB when someone you refer adds the SwagButton on their laptop or desktop. Here is my referral link to the SwagButton.

I have not checked out the validity of any of these causes. Presumably the businesses financing the causes have done due diligence.

I also list a nifty way to contribute your unused computer power to do some very useful research.

If you find other good causes I might want to list here, please tell me about them. Thanks.

Greater Good. Eleven causes to which you can contribute just by clicking.

EcologyFund.com. Save rainforest, coastal habitat, and Wilderness, protect endangered species. Click on a brown button. Click on an ad on the page you get to increase the contribution. Then go back and click on the next brown button. There is a a way to register, but it is not clear if this is necessary.

Brother Earth. Choose one activity you want to support and click the "Donate" button daily. Brother will make a donation of one yen (approximately equal to one cent U.S.) per one click on your behalf.

ClicAnimaux (In French). Help to animals, mainly cats and dogs. I click on the yellow box and don't worry about the daily details.

Free Rice. Answer multiple choice questions on vocabulary as often as you like. Whenever you get a correct answer, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to help end world hunger. A caution from personal experience: My S.O. found this website. Now I must use it regularly, or soon I will not be able to understand a word she says.

TheNonProfits.com. A huge list of websites on which to do good by clicking. Categories are Hunger & Poverty, Health, Education, Environment, and Animals. Many are in languages other than English - perhaps one you can read?

The first and most famous of the projects was SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), but currently there is a huge number of them. Categories on March 31, 2008, included

• Science (22 projects)
• Life Sciences (22 projects)
• Cryptography (7 projects)
• Internet (9 projects)
• Financial (2 projects)
• Mathematics (44 projects)
• Art (4 projects)
• Puzzles/Games (5)
• Miscellaneous (2)

I have been using this type of software since 2001 and have had no problems with it. It is a very smooth, easy way to contribute to valuable research at no cost to you.

Click here to read about the process and find the links to the various programs.