8/28/11

Daily Feats Site–A First Review

Check-in your good deeds at the Daily Feats website and and earn points towards free gift cards or coupons.  After using the site for 3 weeks, I just requested my first gift card.  Here are 1) a review of the Daily Feats site - with advice to get more points, and 2) a list of pros and cons of the website.

1.  Daily Feats Overview and Tips

At heart of the site are Feats; you choose your own.  For example, I have “Pack a lunch”, “Have a healthy snack”, and others on my list.  Click “did it” to check it in, and you get the points listed – often between 1 to 50.daily_feats_featsWhen you accumulate enough points, you can request gift cards or coupons, paying with your points.  The best rewards are $10 gift cards to Staples, Safeway, Home Depot, Best Buy, Starbucks, etc.  For most, you need 5,000 points; there is a limit of one per month.  It took me about 20 days of fairly active participation to get 5,000 points.  I just requested my first gift card (Safeway) and will update here when/if it arrives.

You can also request some great coupons on Daily Feats, many are buy-one-get-one meals or museum admission, some are for yoga or other exercise classes.  Coupons require less points than the gift cards.daily_feats_couponsMy biggest tip for earning points is to join challenges.  When you do all Feats listed in a challenge, you automatically get bonus points, from 10 to 75 points.daily_feats_challengesMore specifically, when you log in to Daily Feats each day I recommend signing up for challenges before you check-in Feats.  I’ve noticed that if you check in a set of feats first, then sign up for a challenge that includes all of those feats, you’ll get a message “Won the Challenge” but you won’t get the bonus points.  If you sign up for the challenge first, you get the points.

2.  Pros and Cons of the Daily Feats Site

First the Cons:

  • Growing Pains.  When I started, only 2,000 points were needed for a $10 gift cards.  Within three weeks, that number increased first to 3,000, now to 5,000 points.  Lately, “script errors” have been appearing on some pages.  You can tell the Daily Feats site is growing fast, and there are pains.
  • Slow Site.  This may be related to fast growth, but deserves its own bullet. The main reason I will use the site less often is that the site is very slow as you sign up for challenges or check in Feats.
  • Time.  Time spent checking in all the good things you did that day means less time to actually do them. 

Now the Pros:

  • Encouragement. I am encouraged to do better as I log in Feats, especially seeing the notes from others who are reading to the blind, eating spinach salads, hugging their friends, etc.
  • Free Gift Cards. Great rewards.
  • Coupons.  The coupons can save you money and don’t require many points.  They are similar to those in an Entertainment Book and give similar savings compared to Groupons.  There are about 100 Daily Feats coupon options in my city.
  • Positivity. Have to give props to a website that looks to improve people’s lives and the local community.

Stay tuned for an updated Daily Feats review at some point in the future.

Update 9/11/11:  The $10 Safeway gift card from Daily Feats arrived about 2 weeks after requesting it (pic below) – thanks Daily Feats!

daily_feats_giftcard

Update 3/26/12: The Daily Feats site has undergone many changes since the last update.  The local rewards and challenges are gone and gift cards are now quite difficult to earn.  Personally, I use the site much less because of the reward changes, but the site still has merit for its positive focus and for those wanting some structure to help make changes in their daily life.