What you need to know
- Microsoft Rewards is a free program that gives you points for engaging with Microsoft products and services.
- Today, I got an email detailing a new sweepstakes program, which is by far the most generous I've seen from Microsoft Rewards.
- You can enter to win up to $1,000,000 USD just for searching with Bing instead of Google, installing Microsoft Edge, and other simple tasks.
- Sadly, the sweepstakes are only valid in the United States and Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Microsoft Rewards wants to know if you want to earn a huge pile of cash for basically doing nothing. Yes? Well, look no further.
Microsoft Rewards is a loyalty program that rewards users with points for engaging with Microsoft products and services. If you ditch Google for Bing, ditch Chrome for Microsoft Edge, play games on Xbox Game Pass, or buy apps and services on the Microsoft Store — you will earn points. As you accumulate points, you can then convert them into a variety of rewards. I often use my points to buy Diablo 4 battle passes and Overwatch 2 coins, for example. But there are also vouchers for a variety of stores, including Microsoft's, allowing you to essentially pay for Xbox Game Pass for you or a friend for free.
Now, Microsoft Rewards is running a new $1,000,000 sweepstakes program, which will offer one lucky person instant millionaire status (or, perhaps a bit less after taxes). If you sign up at the Microsoft Rewards $1 million sweepstakes website, you automatically get 5 entries to win. You can earn up to 200 entries by performing a variety of tasks as detailed on the site therein.
One of the tasks is to simply install Microsoft Edge, while another is to simply search on Bing every day in a score streak. Setting your default browser and default search engine to Edge and Bing should help you maximize the 200 entries passively, without needing to do any of the additional tasks.
Unfortunately for global users, the sweepstakes are only valid in a handful of countries, namely the United States and Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. One person will win a million dollars, while two runners-up will win ten thousand dollars. Microsoft is also donating up to $500,000 to the World Wildlife Fund and Unicef comprised of $5 for every entrant who earns above 50 entries.
You can read the full list of competition rules over here.
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Microsoft Rewards is pretty damn good
Microsoft Rewards is pretty great, especially for people who are already passively within the Microsoft ecosystem. Doing basic things passively like Bing searching, Edge browsing, or playing games on Xbox Game Pass can net you tens of thousands of points without much effort. I logged into my Microsoft Rewards page just now to discover I have 66,000 points without even trying. For reference, 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs 35,000 points. The more you use Microsoft Rewards, the fewer points it'll cost too. I have a 7000 points discount for being "Level 2," for example. That's a value of $60~ for doing basically nothing I wouldn't have already been doing anyway.
The rewards page details the variety of methods you can use to earn points. You can cash them in on the Xbox app on Android and iOS too, which accumulate via playing games and earning achievements and other things of that nature. If you're already in the Microsoft ecosystem, there's absolutely no reason not to sign up and use it. If you're an avowed Google and Chrome user, you should know that for the most part, Bing is a completely viable search engine for most day-to-day searches. It struggles a bit on granular, obscure, and local searches, but for popular search terms, it's basically on par with Google these days. Microsoft Edge is also powered by Chrome under the hood, too, so there's no real difference between using the two.
You can sign up to Microsoft Rewards here for free, with your Microsoft account (same as your Xbox or Windows account).
