Earn Points/Dollars on the Web

There are many ways to earn points or even money online. There used to be a lot more ways and much more profitable ones, but the silliness of the dot.com boom is over and so are many of the handouts.

The simplest methods are to take advantage of online offers involving companies you use already. Every frequent flyer programme has had free points at some stage for signing up for statements via email or making online bookings, so take advantage of them. If you want to buy something at, say, OfficeDepot, order it online through MyPoints (see below) or another portal and get some points.

Many sites give points if you buy things online and/or give you points for reading ads, referring other users to the site, etc. Different amounts are given back by various sites though, so best to join several and then pick the one that gives the best return depending on which site you want to buy from. The really poorly run sites seem to have mostly closed. Here's one of the few left:

MyPoints
Plenty of opportunities to get points from joining various web sites and redeem them for meals, hotel stays, etc.