The Game(th) Sense

As an old video game player, I often buy games and accesories for my game consoles. I own a XBOX Series X, a PS4 Pro and a Switch. But there is a way Microsoft helps me (kinda) to spare money. How? With the Microsoft Rewards Program!

Once you register yourself in this program (please read this FAQ to check if it is available in your country), you can earn Microsoft reward points in many different ways and at the end, trade your points for gift certificates to spend them in the XBOX Store for games, accessories, game pass subscriptions… In this guide I will share with you the best, free and „easiest“ ways to earn the reward points. The only thing you should bring is… a lot of patience, but at the end you will be rewarded.

Before we start with the different methods, some points I need to precise:

• I live in Germany and here the current exchange value between rewards points and Euros is 1000 reward points = 1€. This value may vary in the region of the globe where you live.
• Depending on the giftcard you‘ve chosen and your level (more on this later) the exchange value can be in your favour e.g: 25€ giftcard trades for „only“ 23250 points.
• You can only redeem the points you‘ve earned for giftcards with different values
• Once you‘ve redeemed your points for a gifcard you will have x weeks to use it or else it will expire.
• VPN don‘t work to collect points (if you go on vacation for example)

Okay now, let‘s start to earn some point!

First, use the BING search engine and log yourself in.
For any search query you will earn 3 points for a maximal of 90 points/day on desktop and 60 points/day on mobile. If you use the Microsoft Edge browser, you can earn 12 additional points/day. This gives you allready 162 points/day. But there is more with BING: every day there is a „Daily set“ and „More activities“. With this, you can earn an average of 70 more points daily. So in one day you can earn total of 232 points. If we take a month of 30 days it makes about 7000 points (7€) for just using BING. In 2 months you can buy yourself a DLC of some games!
I spoke about level a little back. Depending on how often you use BING and depending on how many points you‘ve earned in one month, you‘ll get Level 2 and with this level you will get a discount on some gift cards like previously mentioned: a 25€ gift card for 23250 points instead of 25000.

Second, the Microsoft Reward App on the XBOX.
In this app, there is a „weekly challenge“ with 3 tasks with at least 30 points each (it depends on the task). If you complete the 3 tasks, you will earn 100 points on top of them. That‘s 190 points for the week. By the way: everytime you complete the weekly challenge 10 weeks on a row, you will earn a bonus of 2500 points, but you‘ll need to be really consistent for this as it is depending a lot of your private situation (in my case, I‘m on week 93, the pandemic helped).
Also everyday you play and you get one achievement, you can trade that achievment for 50 points. There is also every week a „treasure of the week“ with 100 points.
In total, in one week you have the possibility to earn about 640 points. In a month it makes about 2500 points.
This method is really a tought one. Here you have to be really consistent, start your console every day and get at least an achievement a day. Personally I‘d say I make a maximum of 1200 points a month with this method.

Third, Microsoft Reward with the XBOX Game Pass.
If you subscribed to the Game Pass, you get daily, weekly and monthly challenges. With differents points varying between 3 and 150 points depending on the challenge.

• Daily challenge: this one is easy, start one game pass game (even on xcloud) and you‘ll earn 3 points.
• Weekly challenge: this is also relatively easy, there are some particular games you‘ll need to start and / or accomplish some tasks in them. Points vary here from 10 to 25. If you complete all the weekly challenges you will earn a 1000 points bonus.
• Monthly challege: here you have to accomplish enough weekly challenges and some (rather though) tasks in some game pass games.

I recommend the Website PureXbox if you are a quest hunter and want to complete all of them.
Again in 30 days you can earn about 1500 points, but this is really for hardcore players with a lot of time.

So, if we sum up, at the end of the month, with these 3 methods you can earn up to 11000 points. Personally, I come to about 8500 points / month. Since I‘m in the programm (I couldn‘t find how long exactly, but it‘s been years), I‘ve earned as of today a little bit more than 413000 points just by using BING and playing on my XBOX and now I still have 68000 points left. What did I use those points for? I redeemed them for gift cards and bought myself (and I‘m pretty sure I‘m forgetting something):

• One XBOX Elite Controller serie 2
• One XBOX Design Lab Controller for my daughter
• Mass Effect legendary edition
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Binary domain (XBOX 360 retrocompatible)
• Dolby Atmos for Headphones app
• Game Pass Ultimate monthly subscricptions

As I said in the beginning, you‘ll need patience as it is a lengthy process. BING is by far the best, easiest and fastest method to earn points and this is the one I use everyday. I even have a daily reminder at 9:00 PM to check if did not forget the „Daily set“ and „More activities“.

So feel free to subscribe and earn some points, you can only win!