Memolink Promises Free Gift Certificates but It Is Time Consuming

Recently, I signed up for Memolink http://www.memolink.com - a rewards program that promises gift certificates if I complete enough surveys and purchase enough stuff from affiliate sites. This website also sends me email and if I click on the email link I earn additional points. As of last count, I racked up 3285 points but it says that I still need 7915 points in order to qualify for a prize. That being said, most of the good minimum rewards are $10 in value, such as $10 gift certificates from Amazon.com or from Best Buy, and each of these requires 19,200 points.

The reason that it's taking me a while to amass the points is because I want to earn the points the free way. This means that I have to fill out the online surveys and wait for the points to get creditted to my account. Each survey is tedious and takes 30 to 60 minutes to complete and the survey only pays between 600 and 1200 points. As you can imagine, this is more of a hobby than a serious way to earn money or earn free gift cards.

The other way to earn points faster on memolink is to buy stuff from Memolink partners but I have avoided this route because 1) I buy most of my stuff in real world stores and 2) I wanted to earn the points free by doing surveys. I'm one sixth of the way to getting 19,200 points so I still have a ways to go. I might just start buying stuff from affiliates such as JC Penney and Target in order to speed up my points accumulation.

Memolink is quite popular and I'm told that many college students use it. However, I see it more as an amusement (it sends me "read for points" email daily) than a serious money-making venture. However, if you do a lot of online shopping at JC Penney, Overstock.com and other big online e-tailers, Memolink is a great way for you to earn extra gift certificates while you shop.