A few weeks ago we reported that users were receiving mobile credits for Bing searches on their Windows Phone 8.1 devices. At the time, Bing Rewards still had Windows Phone listed as “coming soon” on their site, but starting a few days ago that has lifted as Windows Phone 8.1 is now listed on their support page.
Bing Rewards is a program from Microsoft that rewards you for using Bing search. The more you use it, the more points you can collect. Those points can then be used to redeem gifts from the site, including Amazon.com gift cards, OneDrive extra storage, entering contests and more.
There were two issues though with Bing Rewards. For one, it didn’t work on Windows Phone (yet it did on iOS and Android via their apps) and two, it’s not available in a lot of non-US regions. The former issue is fixed, though we’re still yet to see Rewards expanded elsewhere. Launched back in 2010, Bing Rewards is a neat little promotion that hopefully helps some users switch from Google to the better Bing experience.
With Windows Phone 8.1 support ‘enabled’ officially, users should be able to start to collect Bing rewards every time the use Cortana (Bing) on their phones. You can always head into your Bing Rewards Dashboard settings to see the ‘Mobile Search’ under Rewards and in theory, under History too (we don’t see a distinction between web and mobile though).
Of course, with that new designation being official, it looks like Windows Phone 8.0 users (or those with 7.8) won’t be able to get in on the Bing Rewards action. If you want to see the Bing Rewards for Mobile page head to www.bing.com/explore/rewards-mobile on your PC or phone for more information.
Thanks, Atif A., robnhl, Jeff C. and others for the tips!
