Audience Rewards-Points Play Trivia

Update on Auditing Best Buy Reward Zone Point Conversions

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Let me preface this article by saying no wonder Best Buy is a sinking ship of consumer electronics. So lets take a look at some of the latest developments in the Best Buy Reward Zone program, and what you can do to minimize the impacts.

Our family collect Best Buy Reward Zone (BBRZ) points as part of the Audience Rewards program. Answer some simple Broadway trivia questions approximately every 10 days, which we give you the answers; then convert the points out into a mileage or other reward program of your choice. The result is more airline miles for you, less likelihood of the miles expiring due to inactivity, and the ultimate goal of getting you to your favorite travel destination, all for FREE!

Upon our discussion in early January showing you how to get the BBRZ converted out, we discovered their Facebook page was handing out free points for taking one question surveys and entering some simple contests.

Then we started to see some real potential for growing your BBRZ account balance exponentially more than that through the Audience Reward program, and the waterfall of free points worked like a charm. In our post “Why You Should Add Best Buy Reward Zone Points to Your Mileage Portfolio?”, we elaborated on how the BBRZ program could be a mile-cow. The key was making sure your redemption for certificates was set high within the BBRZ program, and making sure to liquidate old points before Best Buy deleted them for you.

Sure enough, people started experiencing issues of their balances being cleaned out by Best Buy. Even after people had moved out all of their points, Best Buy was proceeding to issue certificates on points earned this year at lower levels than their accounts were set up to redeem.

For some reason, we were immune to that process, presumably because we cleared out all of our 2012 points. That is until this week.

Feb 2013 BBRZ Balance

Upon logging into my BBRZ account via Facebook to earn today’s 25 free points, I noticed my account balance had gone from a hefty 685 down to 175 points. Best Buy had taken the liberty to issue me a $10 certificate (500 BBRZ points) and remove 10 of my points.

This makes zero sense, because if they were removing points above the certificate threshold, why would they have not just deleted all 185 extra points? My experiment on how BBRZ conversions would all work out came to fruition.

So what to do?

Well I decided to call Best Buy (1888-237-8289) to see what I could get resolved. After running around through a complicated automated system, I eventually got a live agent. You would think you were accessing your deepest, darkest secrets when discussing your account with Best Buy, as there were more security questions than even my bank asks.

After briefly explaining that my points were automatically converted into a Best Buy certificate, and going over how we already move old points out and set the redemption level to 1000 points = $20 certificate, the agent set off to work. Within minutes my certificate was reversed, and I was told the 500 points would be back into my account; however, due to the auditing process of the program, I would not see the balance show up until after February 23, 2013.

I thanked the agent and proceeded back to check into my BBRZ account online. Sure enough, 500 points were credited back to my account, although the overall balance was still off. Talk about a ridiculous way to run the program! Note: The Best Buy Facebook app and points.com shows me the correct point balance; only the Best Buy Reward Zone site shows the incorrect balance.

The moral of this story is that if you want the points back in your account, do not be shy about calling Best Buy and having them reverse the conversion.

So what does this mean now?

As of right now, we have 700 BBRZ points in our account (200 balance + 500 “pending”). The coming days are going to be packed full of free BBRZ points. On February 17, we will be able to select a new members choice item, earning 25 points. Also on February 17 we will be able to virtually design a kitchen, earning another 50 free points. Then the daily survey questions will earn 250 points (10 more days * 25 points). By then the Best Buy Reward Zone program should have their auditing complete and everyone’s accounts updated. However, this also means I am going to approach the 1,000 point mark in the coming days.

That means I need to pay careful attention to our balance so that we do not get issued another certificate at the 1000 point level. This also means you need to be really cognoscente of your real point balance. If the balance shows 200, but you really have 500 points, you need to pay attention to when you are getting close to the 1000 point level and move the points out.

For reference, 1000 Best Buy Reward Zone points is equal to 474 US Airways or Hawaiian Airlines miles; 263 American Airlines or United miles; 279 Frontier Airlines miles; 340 Aeroplan miles; 249 Alaskan Airline miles; 400 Amtrak points; 510 Asia miles; or 215 Virgin America miles.

Besides the whole ridiculous aspect of Best Buy deciding a customers point balance should expire each year, if Best Buy can not design a computer system to handle their reward program, how are they to be a trusted resource to sell electronics?

Come on Best Buy, your auditing process of accounts is costing you more money than just letting the customers point balance grow. If you must take away from your “loyal” customers, then maybe adopt an expiration policy similar to airlines (i.e. the points expire after 18 months of inactivity).

With a little bit of effort, we will be sitting on the beach somewhere, thanks to Best Buy.

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Audience Rewards Trivia Update for All Accounts (2-4-13)

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Good morning fellow Audience Rewards (AR) fans! Today the Audience Rewards (AR) program updated their Broadway trivia questions, which in turn means you can earn FREE airline miles and points in various programs.

All questions/answers were updated on our official Audience Rewards page.

Now, without further ado, we proudly present this week’s trivia questions.

  • True or False? Stephen Schwartz won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album for Wicked. True
  • What NYC Casting office casts The Lion King? Binder Casting
  • True or False? The Behind the Emerald Curtain tour has been offered in regional venues where Wicked has played as well as the Broadway company. True
  • The theatre where Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark is playing is owned by what organization? Live Nation
  • Brenda Braxton of Cougar, the Musical starred in Chicago with what famed hip hop star? Usher
  • What is the address of the Banks’ house in Mary Poppins? No. 17 Cherry Tree Lane

For all things Audience Rewards, including all the latest free points and miles from the Points Play trivia questions, see our Audience Rewards page.

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Best Buy Reward Zone

Earning Free Best Buy Reward Zone Points & Converting Into Certificates

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Best Buy Reward Zone

There has been a huge amount interest lately in Best Buy Reward Zone (BBRZ) points due in part to their genius marketing campaign via their Facebook page. As I discussed in my article Why You Should Add Best Buy Reward Zone Points to Your Mileage Portfolio, BBRZ has been handing out free points like crazy. On a daily basis, you can earn 25 points for answering a single-question poll. Then periodically, there are additional features allowing you to earn additional points.

While this program means nothing to those that have no interest in ever stepping foot into a Best Buy store, it means great things for those of us that enjoy traveling for free with miles and points, as the Best Buy Reward Zone program is a great hedge to keep accounts from losing value or topping off an account. Yes, we are talking small denominations here and nothing that will get you on a beach with a single action, but there is some value to us that do not opening tons and tons of credit cards.

It is no secret Best Buy’s business has been hurting for years, making it tough for a brick-and-mortar to compete with the online sites. I think this Facebook program is really smart because it gets the customer in front of the Best Buy brand. Then lets say every week they give the customer enough points that can be redeemed for $5 off of electronics or other items in store. This is great marketing on behalf of Best Buy because then the customer gets into the store, where they hopefully spend their $5 on an item costing significantly more. Long live those that need the latest and greatest electronics.

While us mile collectors have no interest in actually redeeming points at Best Buy, I hope many others actually do use them for their intended purpose and that it becomes a successful venture for all.

I bring all of this up though because I was contacted this week by a reader who created a new BBRZ account, set their earning preference to the highest level ($20 = 1,000 points), yet their points were recently converted into certificates at the $5 = 250 points level. Upon notifying Best Buy, they were told that points earned via non-purchases are treated differently and will automatically convert at the lower threshold.

Interesting, because no where in the terms of the program does it state there are different rule for points earned based on purchases versus those earned for free or via partners. What the terms do state though is that any points earned in a calendar year are automatically converted into $5 segments and any remaining points are forfeited.

In our experience, what this means is that if you earned 300 points in 2012, at the end of January of each year, 250 points will be converted into a $5 certificate, and the remaining 50 points will be forfeited. So if you have 499 points, you will still receive a $5 certificate, yet lose out on 249 points. Make it above 500 points by the end of January, and your points will be converted over into 2-$5 certificates or a single $10 certificate.

So now here we are at an interesting predicament at the end of January. As you may recall, a couple of weeks ago we converted all of our BBRZ points earned in 2012 and early January 2013 into US Airways miles. Since converting out all of our points, we have since earned an additional 300+ BBRZ points over the course of a couple weeks.

As of right now, all of our BBRZ points are still in our account and have not been converted into certificates. There is a possibility that some people’s accounts may be impacted based on the conversion process mentioned above, particularly if you have points left over in your account from last year.

So what can you do?

First, your earning preference should be set as high as possible if you have no interest in spending BBRZ in store, and would rather convert them out.

Second, if you have any points left over from last year, you need to convert them out now, because at the end of this month or early in February, your points earned to date will automatically be converted. Head over to points.com, and convert the BBRZ points into any of the mileage programs you would rather have the points.

Third, if you have any worry about even the points earned this year, you can always convert them out now, and any other point of the year when you approach 250 points. This is a play-it-safe move.

While I can not say for sure, I venture to say our account is safe from conversion this year since we already converted out points earned in 2012. However, we will keep an eye out for what develops over the next couple of days or weeks. I am going to keep my BBRZ in there for right now to see what happens.

Please add any commentary below on your experience with the Best Buy Reward Zone conversion process, and thanks again to all those that contacted us on this potential issue.

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