Posted 21 November 2023
Microsoft Bing Rewards: Anyone had any issues redeeming them?
I've been collecting Microsoft Bing Rewards (rewards.bing.com/wel…ome) points for a while now and have saved up enough to get some money off an Xbox on top of the Black Friday deals currently on the MS Store.
To make sure I could stack the store credit and use it with the BF discounts without potentially wasting my points I bought 2x £5 Xbox Gift Cards and confirmed £10 showed in my MS account which could also be used as payment against the discounted price.
I then purchased a £25 Xbox Gift Card and my account was immediately suspended pending a 24 hour investigation. During this time the points had been taken from my account but the transaction in limbo. The suspension was lifted and the £25 credit added to my account.
I've now attempted to redeem another credit and the transaction just declines stating I need to get in touch with support to discuss this with them. I've now logged a ticket with them and waiting to hear back from hoping I'm able to redeem the majority of my points against Xbox Gift Cards before the Black Friday discounts end on the MS store.
So the timeline has been so far:-
Monday: Purchased 3x Gift Cards (2 Credited) + Account Suspended
Tuesday: 3rd Gift Card Credited + Further redemption blocked
Wednesday: No response within the 24 hours suggested
I've checked the T&Cs and there doesn't seem to be any obvious restrictions or rules in place which would prevent me from doing this, apart from the standard one where MS state they can do whatever they want at any time. The only limit seems to be $1,000/day, or 150€ in France, which I'm nowhere near or a country I live in.
Has anyone else had an experience like this?
EDIT: The 24 hours has now passed and still not response from their team.
To make sure I could stack the store credit and use it with the BF discounts without potentially wasting my points I bought 2x £5 Xbox Gift Cards and confirmed £10 showed in my MS account which could also be used as payment against the discounted price.
I then purchased a £25 Xbox Gift Card and my account was immediately suspended pending a 24 hour investigation. During this time the points had been taken from my account but the transaction in limbo. The suspension was lifted and the £25 credit added to my account.
I've now attempted to redeem another credit and the transaction just declines stating I need to get in touch with support to discuss this with them. I've now logged a ticket with them and waiting to hear back from hoping I'm able to redeem the majority of my points against Xbox Gift Cards before the Black Friday discounts end on the MS store.
So the timeline has been so far:-
Monday: Purchased 3x Gift Cards (2 Credited) + Account Suspended
Tuesday: 3rd Gift Card Credited + Further redemption blocked
Wednesday: No response within the 24 hours suggested
I've checked the T&Cs and there doesn't seem to be any obvious restrictions or rules in place which would prevent me from doing this, apart from the standard one where MS state they can do whatever they want at any time. The only limit seems to be $1,000/day, or 150€ in France, which I'm nowhere near or a country I live in.
Has anyone else had an experience like this?
EDIT: The 24 hours has now passed and still not response from their team.
Community Updates
14 Comments
sorted byWorth noting I did the following in the meantime:-
1.) Added a phone number
2.) Tidied up my addresses
3.) Ensured my location was set to United Kingdom
Thankfully this stress is over, and hope this helps anyone else who may be stuck!
This is what they told me and others in /r/MicrosoftRewards, even though leaving it for a month or so and then trying to redeem again worked, once, and then I was back to being 'suspended' again. (edited)
I am guilty of using the automated Bing search plug in. However after about a week of not using it my status was restored. I now manually redeem points which isn't that much of a chore. A few things I have noticed though is that they don't like VPNs and the don't like it if you change the country options on the search page. As soon as my account restores I am going to attempt to redeem enough for the Xbox Series X, however it looks like I will miss out of BF deals... (edited)
I’ll see if I can give them a call today, check out the subreddit, and see if I can redeem more via my Xbox when the suspension is lifted. Hopefully I can get all my points converted to credit before the Black Friday sale ends…
Feels like MS are making it harder to redeem these for sure! A shame they’re resorting to these tactics if it is indeed on purpose.
I should note that I don't use any scripts or VPN, the only thing they might say I'm guilty of is repetitive searches. Shrug. (edited)
I then went to buy an Elite controller on the Design Lab... only to find that they do not accept Microsoft store credit purchased a full-price controller instead and still have £60 to use up...