Well over 30 days had gone by and my MyPoints points from the 150 points OpenSky promotion still had not posted. I called the corporate office, sent them a message on Facebook, emailed them through the “missing points” request and still nothing happened. I was promised the points on multiple occasions, but nothing happened.
I then decided to contact OpenSky directly. I chatted with them through their website chat feature and a day letter the points were posted. This was the case with both a family members account and mine. While it could have been just luck, I do think this helped get my points posted quickly. If your points have yet to post, I highly suggest going this route.
So now I have 75,000 MyPoints points to cash out on. Since I haven’t read the best reviews about this online portal, I will probably be cashing out sooner than later to ensure my points do not magically vanish. UPDATE: New users to the site received double points, so instead of 75,000 points I earned 150,000 points!
So what are the best redemption opportunities for MyPoints points? (I am going to assume most of you have only the 75,000 points, so will cater my recommendations towards that)
Merchant Gift Cards
- Tier 1: 11,850 points for a $100 gift card:
- Macy’s
- Express
- Banana Republic
- Bed & Breakfast
- Spa Finder
- Omaha Steaks
- Tier 2: 12,100-12,600 points for a $100 gift card:
- LL Bean
- Finish Line
- West elm
- Saks Fifth Avenue
- Pottery Barn
- Pottery Barn Kids
- Motherhood Maternity
- Williams –Sonoma
- Marriott
From the Tier 1 list, you can cash out for 6 of them for a total of 71,700 points. That will then give you enough leftover points to redeem for another $25 gift card out of a longer list. Some will require an additional 50 to 100 points, which can be easily done by many quick activities (i.e., downloading the toolbar, finishing your account profile, etc.). In total you will end up with $625 worth of gift cards.
If you prefer the gift card options in Tier 2, you can redeem for 5 of them, and giving you enough points to redeem for a $100 gift card in Tier 1. This will give you a total of $600 in gift cards.
For the merchant gift cards, the list above is the best of the best. There are other options, but they will require more points and not as good of value. However, redeeming for gift cards that you will not use is pointless, so redeem for the merchant you will shop at anyways.
Aside from that list, you can redeem for Hyatt gift cards at a slightly lower value, but still might be good for some. You can get 7 $75 gift cards for a total of 67,200 points. This will give you 7,800 points left over which can get you 2 $25 gift cards from many other merchants. Or if you are able to get another 200 points in your account you can redeem 8,000 points for 2 $25 Hyatt gift cards. In total, this redemption will give you between a $550 and $575 value. Only slightly less than the best merchant redemption options.
United Miles
- If you’d prefer United miles over a merchant gift card, you can redeem 10,100 points for 5,000 United miles. This means you can redeem your 75,000 MyPoints for 35,000 United miles. This will give you 4,300 MyPoints left over, which can be used for a $25 merchant gift card.
My Strategy
I spent $530 to receive these 75,000 MyPoints. I personally don’t love buying miles speculatively without a need in mind, so I will be redeeming my points either for $600 or $625 in gift cards. This redemption will be for stores I shop at anyways. So ultimately I spent $530 and got $500 worth of items (Le Cruiset pans), and $600 of gift cards to stores I shop at anyways. I personally think of this as the items were free and I made $70-$95. Not too bad! Although it did take some effort to get those points posted.
Did you get in on this promotion? How will you be cashing out?
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I submitted a missing points request 2 weeks ago. I now see the points pending in my account. I assume I should be able to redeem them after they’ve been in a ‘pending’ state for a week. Once they become redeemable, I’ll either go for $600 in gift cards or 35K United miles.
[…] to push your cost down further. Deals We Like‘s points didn’t post on their own, but she followed up and they’re now in the […]
Can’t you also redeem for a credit to your paypal account?
A note to be made with regard to mypoint redemption for Hyatt. In my experience, the Hyatt gift cards were actually a certificate with an expiration date. The expiration date was about 9 months from issuance. That was a surprise. The Marriott gift cards are actual gift cards with no expiration.
They do now offer paypal transfer or VISA gift card as a form to convert to near cashable item.
i got mine w/o doing the inquiry. opensky is doing 50pt per dollar now.
I am still waiting for my points to post. I heard that new members can get double points. Anyone have experience with that?
Congrats!
You do NOT need to deposit to UA immediately, you can leave them at mypoints. Therefore you are NOT buying miles speculatively. You are holding the option to buy miles later and deposit to any UA account you want. This is very similar to holding UR. Yesterday you claimed UR were worth 2 cents minimum. Today you are cashing out depositable miles for less than 1.5 cents of value, using a very flawed rationalization. If you really value depositable miles at 2 cents you should be holding the mypoints and buying gift cards for cheap via the secondary market.
@HikerT – Whatever works best for the individual is good for me! I personally like to think that I got the items for free plus made money instead of purchasing miles at a discount.
i did $100 macys $300 amazon $110 gas
Mine scheduled to post tomorrow. I’ll be going for the United miles, as 5000 miles retail for for $188.13 plus the 7.5% excise tax on United’s own website, so for me, it’s probably a better value than a Tier 1 gc redemption (however, I’ve done those with MyPoints in the past), seeing as almost all of those gift cards can be purchased at a discount at one of the many used gift card websites.
points are showing up as Pending now after speaking with OpenSky rep through chat.
@BenjaminN – Glad to hear!
Any thoughts of what redemptions are best for people planning to sell the gift cards through a cardpool or plasticjungle type site? I agree with not liking to pre-purchase miles at a discount unless I have a plan for how to redeem them, so I’d like to “liquidiate” in the greatest sense of the word and have some cash in my pocket. Sadly I don’t shop at any of those retailers, but I do think that reselling the gcs may lead to more money in my pocket than simply redeeming of Paypal.
@Nicole – A $600 Macys’s gift card resells on Cardpool.com for $498. That is the highest value I see compared to the rest of the gift card options. This is much better than redeeming for PayPal credit or a Visa gift card.
Visa = 9,000 points for $50 gift card. This will give you a total of $400 in gift cards, plus 3,000 points left over.
PayPal = 8,900 points for $50 credit. This will give you a total of $400 deposited into your PayPal account, plus 3,800 points left over.
Does anyone know an easy process to convert the points to UA miles? Online it seems like you have to fill out some form with your address? And no MP #, do they mail you a certificate? I wanted to get the points ASAP for an upcoming flight – anyone have any experience on the smoothest way to redeem?
Any blogger want to post a nice step by step? 🙂