Fitness Rewards

As a quick follow up to my recent ‘Get Rewarded When you Exercise‘ post I thought I’d let you know that the Bounts scheme has been working well for me. I’ve been gradually amassing points and rather than cash them in when I reached enough points for a £5 voucher decided to hold out for a £10 voucher instead. I reached the required 2778 ‘bounts’ yesterday and therefore cashed them in this morning for a £10 Amazon voucher. It all worked well and I immediately received a code in my email inbox that I was able to redeem at amazon.co.uk adding £10 to my giftcard credit.

Bounts Reward

Bounts Reward

Not bad really. I signed up with Bounts on January 28th, and by February 18th I had amassed enough points to earn £10. Admittedly I’ll amass more points in the first month or so as I was also able to gain points for referrals and had quite a big initial bonus too. But, as far as my exercise and day to day regime is concerned I haven’t done anything that I wouldn’t normally do. I’ve worked out that I can probably average around 200 points a week on the Premium plan. Which means that I should earn enough points for a £10 voucher every 14 weeks.

Bounts Tips & Tricks

I have worked out a few little tips and tricks to make sure I’m maximising my earnings:

  1. Leave an hour between exercise session start times. You are rewarded for any exercise session that is more than 20 minutes long. I quite often do a bike session followed by a run session, or a short 20 minute bike session followed by a weights session. If the 2nd session starts less than an hour before the first one started then you don’t get credited for it. I have therefore on occasion jumped on the bike for a 20 minute cool, down session after the run or weights just to get a 2nd session recorded.
  2. Double dipping with Steps and Running. Not really a tip as this just happens, but you can get points for both exercise sessions such as a run and for the number of steps you have done over the course of the day. A run session not only counts as an exercise session but if you have your step tracker with you at the same time it adds to your daily step total as well. You are therefore gettign credited for the run session and the additional steps at the same time.
  3. Split long sessions Up. On a long bike ride I accidentally stopped my watch (and therefore exercise activity) during a coffee shop stop and then started a new session for the journey home. This created two sessions, both more than 20 minutes long and split by more than an hour so I got two credits, one for each session. It might therefore be worthwhile splitting any long exercise sessions that you do into several smaller chunks (as long as there is more than an hour between the start time of each ‘segment’. I could do this with my longer runs as well, but it then messes up my data a bit. I guess its a balance between getting Bounts points and getting useful training data!
  4. Choose the correct Apps to pair with. I’ve noticed that certain apps and devices record your steps differently. So, make sure you have Bounts paired with the device / app that gives you the highest step count each day. Mine actually varies depending on what I’m doing. Sometimes my Fenix 3 records more steps per day simply because it’s always on my wrist. Other days Healthkit on my phone might record more just because it seems to count more than Garmin does. There is rarely a huge difference, but there could be between certain apps so choose wisely when pairing with Bounts.
  5. Pick the correct plan. Bounts has a free membership plan and then two premium plans. You can gain more points per activity on the premium plans and get credited for more activities each day as well. If you do enough activities then the Premium or Premium+ plans will work out more lucrative, but they do cost you (£9.99 and £14.99 respectively) in the first place.

The Correct Bounts Plan

I decided to upgrade, but did make a mistake whilst doing so, so here’s the mistake so that you can avoid it.

If I stayed on the Free plan the most you I could get is 15 Bounts points per day, so 105 points per week. However, 10 points of that each day is for a gym check-in which I don’t do, so I’d only get 10 points per day. That’s £10 every 40 weeks, so around £13 per year profit. Although there may be some days where I wouldn’t get even 10 points so it would in reality be less than that

As mentioned above, I think I’ll average around 200 points per week on the Premium Plan (assuming I can keep running and cycling as I do at the moment). That’s a £10 voucher every 14 weeks, or £37 a year. The Premium plan costs £10 a year so that’s £27 a year profit. Not a huge amount. but better than nothing and better than the free plan too.

However, the Premium+ plan would be better again. On this plan you get 20 points per activity, so twice as many as on the Premium plan which should mean that I’d get around 400 points per week. You can also log more activities per day, so I might get a few more credits than that now and then as well. It only costs an extra £5 over the Premium plan, so double to points, for half as much cost. That would work out as £10 every 7 weeks, or £74 a year, by the time I take off the £15 subscription cost that’s £59 a year profit. I should therefore be on the Premium+ plan.

The mistake I made was upgrading to the premium plan first, as there is currently no upgrade path from Premium to Premium+. If you have already upgraded to Premium then you have to pay the full £15 to upgrade to Premium+ which is a total cost of £25. So, if upgrading, it’s likely that the Premium+ plan will be a better fit than the Premium plan, so upgrade to it straight away. Don’t think you can take baby steps and upgrade to Premium first and then upgrade again as you can’t.

And if you’ve yet to sign up to Bounts, then do so now and get rewarded when you swim, bike, run, go to the gym or simply track your steps. Sign up here: https://bounts.it/registration?getme100points=alynyslas885 and use my referral code: alynyslas885

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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