Getting anything for free always too good to be true, but this time it’s totally real. It’s surprisingly easy to learn how to earn free Amazon gift cards. Many companies either give them to you outright or allow you to earn points that you can trade in for gift cards.
This is a great way to get extra funds to use towards Christmas gifts or make your normal purchases more affordable. It’s not going to turn you into a millionaire, but it’ll help regardless.
These methods are easy and require little effort from you. After all, most companies use this as an incentive to get users to do small tasks or use their apps and want a low barrier to entry.
Given their easy nature, it’s best to sign up for multiple programs that give you gift cards. Individual companies only allow so many gift card points per month. The more you’re signed up for, the more you’ll earn free Amazon gift cards.
Take Surveys to Earn Free Amazon Gift Cards
Taking surveys is one of the quickest and simplest ways to earn free Amazon gift cards. Some sites offer sign-up bonuses that give you a bulk set of credits. Others will reward you specifically after doing surveys.
To earn points with each site, you’ll need to create an account for each one. Make a dedicated email address specifically for this to avoid getting a constant stream of follow-up emails.
Surveys are matched to users based on demographics, so it’s incredibly helpful to completely fill out your profile. That may be annoying starting out, but it will save you time overall. Having a completed profile allows the site to match you automatically with relevant surveys. Otherwise, they’ll give you pre-survey questions every time that you’ll often fill out only to be disqualified because you’re the wrong demographic.
Swagbucks
Swagbucks is practically an all-in-one source for earning online points towards free gift cards. Completing surveys is their primary program, but you’re not limited to just that. You can also earn points for online shopping, watching videos, playing games, or using their search engine.
Completing tasks earns you points, called Swagbucks. Once you accrue at least 300 Swagbucks, you can cash out for a $3 Amazon gift card. However, they’ve expanded and now give you options to get gift cards from dozens of retailers, like Target, Starbucks, Walmart, or even PayPal.
You’re further incentivized to download their app with a $10 sign up bonus that you get just for starting out with them.
InboxDollars
InboxDollars is one of the older programs, having launched in 2000. They’re partnered with key retailers, like Target and Walmart, to gather consumer feedback about everyday items.
Completing surveys is their primary task, though they occasionally offer rewards by watching videos or playing games. Other tasks involve reading promotional emails or shopping online.
Their surveys can take up to 25 minutes but are often as short as 3 minutes. Standard pay is between $0.50 and $5. If you’re part of the key demographic they need, you can earn up to $20 per survey.
Rewards can be redeemed for gift cards, prepaid Visa cards, charity donations, or a simple check in the mail. New members are eligible for a $5 sign-up bonus.
Survey Junkie
Survey Junkie is one of the few sites that exclusively offers surveys for rewards. Their surveys are assigned different point values, as well as estimated times to compete. You can redeem your credits once you have 1,000 points, which equals $10.
When you redeem, it immediately sends you an Amazon gift card code. You won’t have to wait at all and can use it immediately. You will have a choice to get gift cards from other sites, like Starbucks or Sephora, or to upload it to PayPal.
Opinion Outpost
Opinion Outpost is a great way to earn credits towards shopping while giving back. Every month, Opinion Outpost donates $10,000 to the American Red Cross.
Their surveys usually take 10 to 15 minutes to complete. They’re more flexible with their rewards and will give you either a cash payout or free gift cards.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey is perfect for earning on the go. They keep their surveys at 5 minutes or less. You’ll never sit for 20 minutes to complete a survey.
SurveyMonkey puts in a lot of effort to match demographics. You’ll have to answer questions when you sign up to fill out your profile. If you share your location, they’ll offer you more surveys based on where you live.
You can redeem your free Amazon gift card when you’ve earned at least $5 from their surveys.
Harris Poll Online
Harris Poll Online is a survey platform backed by the market research firm, Harris Interactive. They offer you credits for completing surveys about products. Even if you start opening questions and find out you’re ineligible for a survey, they still give you the credits for it.
This is one of the most trustworthy of the survey sites. Harris Interactive has been around since 1975 and has a massive international presence.
Once you’ve earned points, you can redeem them for a variety of rewards, including free Amazon gift cards.
Play Games to Earn Free Gift Cards
If you’re not interested in surveys, certain apps allow you to play games instead to earn free gift cards. The points you win in-game can be exchanged for cash or gift cards.
Some games reward you with points as part of a loyalty program by playing and getting better at the game. Others give you points if you refer friends with your unique link.
Mistplay
Mistplay markets itself as a loyalty platform for gamers, which is also their tagline. You play games through their app and earn points, called units or gems. You also earn points by making in-game purchases.
Points can be redeemed for free Amazon or Apple App Store gift cards, but they also offer gift cards for video game outlets.
Different retailers require a different amount of points. Use your best judgment to get the most value from sites offering deals.
Lucktastic
Lucktastic offers a different type of mobile gaming experience since it doesn’t focus on trivia or matching games. Instead, this app offers virtual scratch-off lottery tickets. Prizes are either cash rewards, gift cards, or tokens to play more of their games.
It’s free to join and has no in-app purchases. It is ad-supported, and you will have to sit through a bunch of 30-second ads. However, that’s not much considering cash prizes can earn you anything from $2 to $1,500. On rare occasions, you can win up to $10,000, or even more during promotional sweepstakes (where a Las Vegas man won $1 million).
You get tokens upon signing up and for referring friends. The app’s increasing popularity makes it unlikely you’ll become a millionaire from their program, but you’re still likely to win a gift card here or there.
AppNana
You earn rewards through AppNana by interacting with partner apps. You get points for logging in and watching videos. You’ll also earn points for downloading and using other apps. Sometimes these are games, often they are consumer apps. For games, you receive points by reaching a certain in-game level through playing. Consumer apps, you just need to keep open for a certain amount of time.
Points can be redeemed for gift cards or as a cash payout to PayPal.
Shopping Apps that Offer Free Gift Cards
Shopping apps are one of the best ways to earn free gift cards. You’ll often need to simply sign up and it will do the rest. These act like rewards programs, giving people credits for using their site or apps. As they accrue, you either get on-site coupons or credits that can be used elsewhere.
This allows for a more passive rewards experience if you don’t have the time or inclination to fill out surveys. You’ll often be rewarded for things you already do.
Shopkick
Shopkick is the perfect app for people who love to shop. They have 8 ways to earn points, which they call “kicks.”
It’s an all-encompassing shopping rewards program. You earn points for walking into certain stores with their app open, and for scanning barcodes of specific opens with the app.
There are many online ways to earn points. You can link a credit card and earn points by making purchases with it. Visiting online store sites or viewing products online will also give you points.
Points can be redeemed for items like free Amazon gift cards. You get a $5 bonus if you sign up and make an in-store scan within a week of installing the app.
Honey
Honey is a browser extension that automatically applies coupons to your online purchases. You can also track prices within the extension by telling it to track items for you.
Honey’s Gold Rewards program will give you points for purchases you make with participating retailers. Once these accrue, you can redeem them for free Amazon gift cards or other rewards.
Drop
Drop is a mobile rewards platform that focuses on flexibility and personalized experiences. Members earn points by shopping through their app. You select which stores you want to earn cashback with. There’s a huge selection to choose from and most major retailers are on the program, like Target and Starbucks.
Shopping with a linked credit card earns your extra points. You get $1 of credit for every 1,000 points you earn, which can be redeemed for a free gift card to Amazon, Uber, and even American Airlines.
You receive 5,000 points for referring 10 friends to their app.
Grocery Shop to Earn Free Gift Cards
A more specific subset of shopping apps gives you free gift cards just by grocery shopping. These sites want to know which grocery items are the top sellers. You get points or credits by uploading your receipts or otherwise sharing the items you purchase.
Ibotta
Ibotta gives you points for submitting your grocery receipts after purchasing. However, they’ve expanded to include other retailers, including Walgreens or Apple. Occasionally, you’ll be prompted to answer poll questions or watch a video.
For ease of use, you can link store loyalty cards to automatically track purchases, instead of having to remember to upload receipts each time.
Points can be redeemed once you earn $20 of credit. They can be sent as cash through PayPal or Venmo, or as a gift card to places like Amazon or Uber. If you don’t already have an Amazon Prime account but are interested in getting one, Ibotta gives you a $20 Amazon gift card free if you use their app to purchase the membership.
Receipt Hog
Receipt Hog is a more exclusive app since it only allows a certain number of people to be a part of it. There is occasionally a waitlist to join. If you download the app, it will alert you when a spot opens up.
If you successfully join, you earn points by taking photos of your receipts through the app. You can upload any receipt from anywhere. Receipt Hog rewards you with either coins or spins.
Coins can be redeemed for prizes, like free Amazon gift cards or magazine subscriptions. Spin lets you gamble your coins to earn more coins. However, you can also take surveys to earn further coins.
Earning Free Gift Cards Directly Through Amazon
While many companies partner with Amazon to help you earn free gift cards, Amazon itself allows a few methods to earn credit. Some of them are incredibly simple.
Reload Your Old Gift Cards
If you reload an Amazon gift card with at least $100, they’ll give a free bonus of $10. If you use Amazon regularly, reload old gift cards to use on their site and you’ll get free credits.
Amazon’s Trade-In Program
Amazon allows you to trade in old electronics and books for Amazon credit. Amazon lets you send in anything, and they’ll cover the shipping costs to do so. If you have any old smartphones, tablets, e-readers, or even gaming consoles and books, you can send it in.
Once arrived at Amazon, they appraise the items and send you credits equal to their assessed value. However, they might not accept your items, in which case they’ll ship them back to you.
Work Online With Amazon’s MTurk
Amazon has a lucrative side market for small, odd jobs through a program called Mechanical Turk, or MTurk. The name is a reference to an early robot precursor, “The Turk,” which was a fake chess-playing machine.
It’s a crowdsourcing program for minor, often one-time tasks people or companies need to have completed. They vary wildly but include data entry, video processing, and data transcription.
You have the option to either receive payment as Amazon gift cards. Since it’s more legitimized as a job, you can also link a bank account to receive funds directly.
Use Amazon’s Affiliate Program
If you’re a blogger or want to become one, look into Amazon’s affiliate program. Affiliate marketing allows you to post links in your blog, then you receive commission based on the number of people who purchase through that link.
You can sign up for it through Amazon Associates. It gives you the option to either earn free Amazon gift cards or get cash directly in your bank account.
Tips for Joining Sites
Most of these sites pay very little. It’s recommended to sign up for more than one if you want to actually see a benefit from these programs. Depending on the amount of time you have, you can sign up for all of them. However, it’s up to you what activities you feel are worth it for you.
Start Small and Build From There
Start small with the easier programs. If you like shopping, the online shopping programs, like Swagbucks, Rakuten, and Ibotta, are probably your best option. Earning points with them is as simple as creating an account and letting it work automatically.
Once you have a handle on these programs, you can steadily do more of them. Check out the apps that offer rewards for playing their games. Games can still be time consuming, though. Many surveys offer free gift cards and can take as little as 5 minutes per survey.
If you don’t like an app or program, stop doing it and try something else.
Make a Dedicated Email Account
Keep in mind that these survey programs do rely on your data. It’s a good idea to create a separate email account dedicated to cash-back programs and survey sites. You will definitely be spammed with emails. Having a specific account will prevent your personal email from getting overwhelmed with spam or promotional emails.
Watch Out For Scams!
Unfortunately, there are many scam companies out there too that you need to watch out for. However, these are typically pretty easy to spot.
Unlike other programs, they don’t offer you gift cards and usually request that you send them gift cards. Scammers will often send you messages that you owe money, like unpaid debt or taxes, and ask you to pay in gift cards. That’s not real and definitely a scam.
Other scams are fake listings for products that need to sell quickly. The trickiest ones come from electronic devices that got hacked. If you receive a panicked message from a family member about an emergency that can only be solved with Amazon gift cards, give them a call first before doing anything. It’s most likely a scam.
There’s a language to scam posts and messages that you need to look out for. Trust your judgment. If it doesn’t sound real or makes you uneasy, it’s probably a scam. If you’re unsure, look it up online. Anything legitimate will have information online to back up its authenticity.
Conclusion
It’s incredibly easy to learn how to earn free Amazon gift cards. Many companies offer it as an incentive to either use their apps, take their surveys, or use their sites.
While you won’t get rich off these programs, they can make necessary purchases a little more affordable. If you have birthdays or Christmas presents you need to buy, this will take the edge off and let you have a happier time celebrating.
Even without that, these are incredibly easy and often require almost no effort from you to see a return on your effort.
It may seem too good to be true, but these programs are totally legitimate.
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