Rewarded for Searching with Bing.com

Bing.com Search Engine by Microsoft
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For the longest time, I've used Google as my default browser search engine. The results have always answered my questions and I never considered switching to other major search engines such as Bing.com, Yahoo.com, or DuckDuckGo.com. But things started to change when learned Microsoft was offering rewards for simply searching using Bing.com. I had to sign up and give it a try.

To start, I didn't have any Microsoft accounts. Anything I used to have with Hotmail (Microsoft old email service) had already been automatically shut down. Thankfully, I could create an account using my Google email address. And from there, my journey with Microsoft started.

I have no intentions of retiring by searching with Bing.com, but I figured it could earn a bit extra for simply switching my search provider, why not?

Gift Cards from Bing.com

The easiest way to cash out points earned from Bing.com is to get an Amazon gift card. There are many other gift card options, but Amazon offers the most flexible way to buy almost anything. But they also have other gift card options such as Starbucks, Chipotle, Microsoft, Target, and Walmart.

Rewards for Searching

The easiest way is to start earning rewards is to conduct some of your search queries to Bing.com. To prevent fraud, Microsoft limits the number of searches per day via different methods:

  • Computer: 30 searches (150 points) per day
  • Mobile: 40 searches (200 points) per day
  • Edge Browser: 4 searches (20 points) per day

Rewards for Answering Polls

Additionally, you can earn points by answering questions and clicking links. Some of the polls simply answer questions like a traditional poll. Others have you answer questions about what's going on with the world, which link to Bing search results. All in all, that comes out to around an additional 50 points per day.

This process is rewarding because it also creates trivia questions to current news and events. So the time I spent answering questions also keeps me current with the news.

Rewards for Daily Streaks

The more days you use Bing.com and answer the daily polls, you'll also get additional points. On average, you can rewards for about 150 points for every 10 days of continuous use. Given that I work in front of a computer everyday, keeping the streak going was easy. And I do a lot of searches during the day, so switching some queries from Google to Bing wasn't a big issue.

One issue I noticed is that because Bing.com is localized, I'm unable to login to the proper Bing.com account and site to earn my daily rewards with travelling internationally. Ironically, its when I'm travelling when I do many searches too.

How Long will it take to Cash Out Bing.com Points?

For a $5 Amazon gift card, you'll need 5250 points. At maximum efficiency, you can get around 370 points per day plus another 50 points per day for answering questions. At around 420 points per day, it would take around 12.5 days to reach 5250 points. And since nobody is perfect, it's at least possible to get at least $10 in Amazon credit per month.

How did Microsoft's Reward Program Changed My Behaviors?

I've actually come to like this program a lot. Though I admit the search results from Bing don't come close to what Google returns, it's not terrible and gives a different set of answers. I still consider Google as my primary search engine on Google Chrome. But what I do now is I have a second browser (on both my computer and mobile phone) where I set the default search engine to Bing. I've experimented with my secondary browser being Edge, Firefox, and Brave.

Additionally, all my search queries aren't stored in a single location provider anymore. With all the news of Facebook selling personal data, I recognize that keeping all my data in one place can be dangerous. So splitting out some of my searches is an added benefit.

Since the writing of this article (May 2019), I've earned 90055 points. It only comes out to $85 in Amazon credit, but that's much better than zero than if I stuck with searching with Google.

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