Review of E-Rewards Opinion Panel & Delta Skymiles Prizes

Summary of Post
E-Rewards is a legit survey site, but their E-Rewards Dollars are not the equivalent of real world dollars, because rewards offered are inflated in value. However, E-Rewards pays about $2.30/hr, which puts it on par with some of my favorite survey sites, but not as high as Toluna ($7/hr, read my review here). Customer service is excellent and reward redemption is hassle-free.

The above is the e-Rewards logo

About E-Rewards Opinion Panel
E-Rewards is a survey site that awards $$ for completed surveys, that can be redeemed for Delta Skymiles, Hilton Hhonors points, magazine subscriptions and discounts off purchases from a variety of retailers. Between $0.50 to $10 is awarded for a completed survey (longer surveys earn more), that's if you 'qualify' for the survey, which is determined in a short screening survey. Non-qualifiers are awarded $0.25, which is nice. The $ accumulated in your account during your membership year expires a month after your membership anniversary. Redemption is a painless process, and e-mail enquiries are answered courteously and promptly.

My Experience with E-Rewards
I signed up in March 2009 and was happy with my year-long experience. I received 105 survey offers, and qualified for 21 of them. About 12 surveys paid $4 or more each. So as of yesterday I had a gloat-worthy $100 sitting in my account. Oh yeah... Unfortunately, as I relate below, my $100 was not really worth $100...

A Closer Look at E-Rewards 'Rewards'
The rewards selection looks pretty good until you really scrutinize it. Many of the discount coupons require

Review of Lightspeed, Ipsos I-Say, NPDOR, Nielsen Homescan, Opinion Central, Toluna, etc

Summary of Post
A review of my year-long experience with these survey sites. I really liked some of them but there were some that I never got anything back for my time. Taking surveys isn't going to pay enough to feed the family - I ended up with less than $50 for my foray into the world of surveys. Survey-taking isn't for everyone, but many people enjoy it (myself included sometimes!). Read on then decide for yourself if you would like it...

What I did
I signed up for a bunch of the more popular survey sites around April last year and was an active participant for a year. Here's a signup call/blurb example: "Your opinion matters! Tell us what you think about the products and services we use every day, and have an impact on the future. Plus, we'll reward you with cash, gift certificates, and other great prizes for completing surveys! Click Here". I responded to all the survey invites that poured into my inbox. As I suggested in a previous post reviewing Mypoints, Inboxdollars etc, it's best to have an email account dedicated solely to survey emails. Expect between 1 to 10 emails a day from each survey site... Now although I responded to all the survey invites, I didn't 'qualify' for all of them. It was a drag sometimes having to fill in the preliminary screening info (e.g. ethnicity, income range) then being informed 'Sorry you did not qualify for this survey'...

What's reviewed
Programs offering cash or points that can be redeemed for gift cards, cash, stuff: Lightspeed Panel, Ipsos (Ipsos I-Say), NPDOR Sweepland, National Consumer Panel (formerly Nielsen Homescan Panel), Opinion Central, Opinion Outpost, Surveyspot, Toluna (formerly Your2Cents) and Zoompanel. For my calculations on 'worthwhiledness', I assumed 10 minutes per survey.

Thumbs up (listed from biggest pay/hr)

Review of Mypoints, Inboxdollars, Sendearnings, Pandaresearch and Memomail

Hey folks,
As promised here is the long-awaited, highly-anticipated review of my year-long experience with a whole bunch of cashback / points back programs. My other blogpost: "Review of Cashbaq, Fatwallet, Shopathome, Bigcrumbs and Ebates cashback rewards" received great feedback, with requests for more. So here's one more - my honest-to-goodness opinion on which programs I liked (the ones the paid!) and the ones I didn't.

Summary of Review
The programs were legit, and I actually got back slightly under $200 in cash (mostly), gift cards, and stuff. Pros: Got to try new products and services (and got $ for that), got some $$$ kickback for buying stuff online that I was planning to buy anyway. Cons: Was time-consuming, needed to read lots of Terms & Conditions fineprint and keep track of trial offer end dates. Some programs were more worthwhile than others, having a bigger payback for surveys or offers completed. For some, I haven't yet gotten anything back for my time spent - read on for the lowdown...