Swagbucks: New Policy Change = One Account Per Member (Not Household!)

Hip2Save may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you via trusted partners and affiliate links in this post. Prices and availability are accurate as of time posted. Read our full disclosure policy here.

Wow!  According to the Swagbucks Blog, they’ve made a few important changes to their current policy!  The Swagbucks.com standing policy has always been “One Account Per Household”, meaning that if you’ve tried to refer a roommate, spouse, or sibling previously, you were probably unsuccessful and would be subject to the possible deactivation of that account. However, the new Swagbucks policy now allows each member of your household to have their own account!

A few things to keep in mind:
*Swagbucks won’t be linking accounts if one of you doesn’t refer the other.
*This policy is in effect moving forward, and doesn’t retroactively apply to older situations where multiple accounts in a household were discovered.
*Swagbucks is still only allowing one account per individual. Multiple accounts per person are still expressly prohibited and will be shut down.

SO, with all that being said…be sure to tell your spouse, brother, sister, roommate, live-in aunt or any other person in your household to join in on the Swagging fun! 😀

If you’re new to Swagbucks, here are a few ways to earn Swagbucks…

* Searching the web
If yours is a winning search, you will see a “Congratulations” screen featuring your Swag Bucks award immediately above your search results; you will never be directed away from your search. You can win multiple Swag Bucks every day; Swag Bucks can be won in denominations ranging from 1 – 1,000.

* Taking Surveys
Each survey that you chose to engage with may have a different Swag Bucks payout. Completing “deeper profiles” helps Swag Bucks alert you only to surveys for which you qualify and typically enables you to complete more targeted surveys which have significantly higher Swag Bucks payouts. Snag 1 Swag Buck per day just for heading over to the Survey page!

* Voting in Daily Polls
Snag 1 Swag Buck per day for voting in the daily poll.

* Watching videos
Swag Bucks are awarded randomly via Swag Bucks TV. Not every video you watch will earn you Swag Bucks, but just like Swag Bucks search, every video you watch is a chance to earn.

* Completing Special Offers
To ensure that an offer has been completed, follow the instructions provided for each individual offer. The offer needs be completed in the same session and all information required to complete the offer MUST be accurate. The majority of offers will credit your Swag Bucks account within 20 minutes. However, the estimated wait time varies from offer to offer. Some may take a few hours or a couple of days before final confirmation is received.

*Playing Games
Swagbucks recently released FREE Swagbucks Games… find a game you like, play for free AND you’ll be eligible to earn bonus Swag Bucks just for playing!! There are two ways to be rewarded for playing games (1) Play games for free and you will randomly earn from 1-5 Swag Bucks (2) Buy into tournaments where you risk a small amount of Swag Bucks for the chance to earn a large amount. Just login or register and click on the “Earn” tab, then in the drop down menu choose “Games”.

* Finding Swag Codes
Swag Codes are strings of alphanumeric text that you can apply for instant Swag Bucks. Swag Codes can appear anywhere, and at any time, throughout the Swag Bucks network including the Swagbucks newsletter, any Swag Bucks powered Search&Win Site; the Official Swag Bucks blog, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter page, Flickr page; and affiliated partner sites. Swag Codes can be redeemed by entering the codes into the Swag Codes box on your My Account page.

* Sharing Your Birthday
Be sure that you enter your birthday in the account details and you’ll snag 50 Swag Bucks on the big day!

You may be wondering, how can I use my Swagbucks or what can I purchase?

Swag Bucks can be used to purchase apparel, kitchen items, electronics, gift cards and lots more in the Swag Store!  My personal favorite item is a $5 Amazon e-Card for only 450 Swag Bucks!  Plus, Swagbucks recently added NEW rewards, including O’Charley’s eGift Cards, Brinker International eGift Cards (valid at Chili’s, Macaroni Grill, and more), Home Depot gift cards, as well as eGift cards to Fandango, Home Depot, Rixty, CVS, Overstock, Lands End, Cabelas, and more!

Happy Searching! 🙂

Join The Discussion

Comments 47

  1. mom2five

    I would tell my hubby, but he is hardly ever on the computer!

  2. Julie

    Possibly a dumb question, and maybe I put it in there when I registered, but on my account details it doesn’t list my bday and it doesn’t give me the option to put it in. Am I missing something that’s obvious??

    • Wendy

      If you are, then I am too. I can’t find anywhere to enter my birthday either.

      • Marie

        I had to send them a message to the customer support & they added it & I got the 50 SB. Good luck!

      • Anitra

        I was wondering the same thing…my birthday is at the end of the month so I want to get that entered!

        • marcus

          go to settings and put your password in. you can always email swagbucks about the issue.

    • Angela R

      I know when they first started doing the birthday swagbucks about a year ago, they had a special place on the homepage that let you input your birthday. Now, you’re right, there seems to be no place for it. Doing some research, it seems a lot of people have recently posted that they can’t find it, either. What I would do is contact their customer service and ask them about it and also let them know when your birthday is, so they can simply attach it to your account. They’re typically pretty good at dealing with issues like that. 🙂

      • kyskeeter

        I did some research on this as well. They were finding that when they had it posted on the sight where you can change it. People were doing just that. Changing there bday date and was getting the 50 swagbuck every month or two. I understand the process you have to go to to change it. Keeps people honest. What happened to Good Faith. It was around when I was a kid, but know, people like HUH????

    • Anitra

      I just emailed CS and they got back to me saying they had my birthday on file (they wrote the correct birthday in the email) and that I entered it upon set up. It might be worth it to email them…it only took them about 30 minutes to respond.

  3. Marie

    Here is a question? If my hubby does all of his searches under my SB name anyway is there really any value in him having his own?

    50 bucks for the birthday each year, 1 buck a day for logging in & 1 for doing the daily poll. Is that it?

    • Lindsey

      2 points a day for doing the NOSO 🙂

    • Olga

      You are also supposed to get some SB for referring him. But it seems like that’s it. 🙁 Pretty much all it adds up to is about one more $5 Amazon card per year. Or maybe not even that…

    • Keely

      if you refer him under yours then anytime he wins swagbucks you get the same amount on yours as a referral. It means yours would add up twice as fast.

  4. Collin (Mrs. Hip)

    Awesome! I don’t do any of the polls or surveys, just use the search engine and I still end up getting enough points for $5 Amazon cards every now and then. .

  5. Olga

    Hm. My experience with Swagbucks TV has been different from what Collin stated. And I’ve been using it a lot lately to earn some SBs. You get 3 SB for each 10 videos watched. So I just play them constantly in a different browser window while I’m busy with something else on the computer or even just around the house.
    There are also another kind of videos that earn you more than Swagbucks TV. You can find those in the special offers section. But many of those come with a special task (like to find some codes randomly popping throughout the video) to make sure that you really watch the video through. They are not long videos though – just a minute or two

    • jiya

      I only used the swagbucks tv once & they send me stupid message I am using bot, so they deactivated my account. I even don’t kow what that is?)-: & more worse all my earned gift card were there I haven’t used them)-: So, A little bit careful.

    • Crystal

      Swagbucks TV used to be like Collin described, you’d just have to watch and you’d randomly win SBs. Then they changed it to 5 SB per 20 videos, then finally 3 per 10. I don’t know how people manage to max out on them everyday. I guess if I didn’t work, The most I’ve ever gotten was 24 a day from videos.

  6. Angela R

    I feel like I’m going crazy. My husband has had his own account for over two years now and we’ve never had a problem, even when other swagger family members were visiting and using our wifi. Our parents and siblings all have multiple accounts in their households, too, so I never even knew this was supposedly a rule. I’m glad we never had an issue considering we weren’t trying to cheat anyone and were using the site legitimately – we just like to have our own gift cards! I suppose either way I don’t have to worry about it now 😉

    • Keely

      I had missed where it was one per family and had one per person and we ended up having all of our accounts deactivated. It was a major bummer and cost us about 50 bucks in gc.

    • jamie

      I did not know this when I had my husband sign up a while back and one day he earned 50 swagbucks which then got me 50 swagbucks! I was so excited I shared it on facebook and found out real quick that it was a one per household rule! Everyone let me know that I was breaking the rules! haha! Luckily one of my friends who also has swagbucks suggested that I contact customer service and let them know that I did not know and that way they did not delete both of our accounts! We then just deleted his so I did not loose all my swagbucks!

  7. jan

    Word to the wise. Cash in your Bucks as you get them and move them off their site. The deactivated my mom’s account without warning just as she tried to cash in her bucks for a rewards. The sent auto replies to emails when we asked for a reason (there was no reason – she did not even come close to violating one of their TOS). When we finally told them we would contact the BBB, they reactivated her account. She cashed in her rewards. We both switched our (separate) accounts to Bing instead. The whole thing left a very bad taste in my mouth. I noticed today they sent me a “we miss” you email. Haha.

    • jiya

      …….same thing happened with me!!!!!!

    • jamie

      I have not had this happen to me, but I also cash in my swagbucks for the amazon gift cards and as soon as I receive them move them to my amazon account just in case anything like that would happen!

    • tom

      Same thing happen with me today. I earned enough points through survey and redeemed for two 5$ amazon gift card. I haven’t received any code yet and now when i tried to login, i got the message that my account was deactivated.

  8. Delene

    I’m the only person in my household so this won’t make much difference for me..but glad to see family members can now participate in their own way.. This being new and seeing crazy no reason activations I would still wait a week or two to add the extra household accounts..there is always bugs in anything SB does new..good Luck and have fun I still love SB just am very cautious

  9. autum

    well if you use sb to search a lot for work like i do (I work for demand studios), you’ll hit a limit and your search will freeze for 24 hours. since searching earns me the most bucks, I stopped because I don’t want to deal with the freeze. no longer with sb.

  10. april r.

    Well, I wasn’t aware they didn’t allow that before…

    My mom and I (live together) have separate accounts and haven’t had issues with that. Guess I got lucky, or they didn’t care. Ooopsy!

    Thanks for the notice, Collin. Good to know! U are the Woman! 😉

    • Delilah

      Yeahh, same with me. Me, my brother, and my two sisters all have one and it has never been a problem.

  11. kristy

    hi i was wondering what if you only have one computer can i still refer my husband.

    • kelly

      I am wondering the same thing???

      • amy

        I was also wondering?

  12. Amy

    Collin, just wanted you to know your description oh sbtv is wrong. You get 3 sb for every 10 videos watched with a max of 75 sb a day. 🙂

  13. Leigh Anne

    I am having problems finding the codes! I just started not long ago and if I finally find one it’s no good? Any suggestions?

    • Delene

      Leigh Ann..codes are only for a set amount of time. A great site created by swaggers to help new swaggers is swagbucksfordummies.com it explains everything about SB and will really help you earn more SB . Good Luck!

  14. Denise

    How did you know that they changed this rule? My kids just came home from college for the summer and are using my computer. Their accounts got deactivated just last week and they say that they won’t reactive them.

  15. Melanie

    I was just deactivated! This sucks! I had my sons sign up (they live with me) when I read the blog. Now I’ve been deactivated. I contacted them & I’m very angry!!

  16. Robbi

    I am wondering if anyone has success with this yet. I am quite leary of making any addition accounts for my household and getting my account deactivated. Though I may not make tons on swagbucks it sure does help around my house for diapers.

    • Robbi

      darnnit.. only commenting again because I forgot to click the notify button… : P << goofy

  17. jan

    Word to the wise. Cash in your points as soon as possible and move them off of Swagbucks. They deactivated my mom’s account w/o explanation and it was a nightmare to get any answers – we actually never did. One day they just mysteriously reactivated the account. They whole situation was icky.

  18. yee

    soo just to make sure…if a family member wants to join within the same household, do i have to refer them??????

  19. Nhung

    Can me and my sister use swag bucks at the same time in a household?

  20. Lin

    I had 5 gift cards that I have been waiting for approval. First they were verified, then I received a message “email for approval.” When I did they told me that I was searching too fast, which is utter non-sense. I have been a member for at least 3 years, and I haven’t changed my searching style, which is not frequent. But they did say that my gift cards would be approved. Now, 4 days later I get another email saying that my account is still under investigation. I actually find this comical because there was no problem until I saved up my points and tried to redeem them. I’m guessing that I’ll never see my gift cards because I feel they are looking for something wrong. I don’t cheat, this is basically a penny site which is slowly developing a bad rep. Wow, 9 whole Swagbucks (9cents) per search if you’re lucky! I posted this on my FB and received hundreds of comments stating that similar things have happened to others. I have completely stopped using Swagbucks. If I don’t receive my gift cards the only sign in I will have is to deactivate my account which I may do anyways. I really don’t like be accused of “cheating” when I’m not, especially for cents. Too funny, too pathetic!

    • Charlene

      Lin,
      My name is Charlene. I was saving all my bucks for over a year. I had planned on using them for this Christmas. The day after I reached 10000 bucks my account was deactivated. They said I was using an automated search program which was not true. I pleaded with them to reactivate my account but to no avail. I am very disappointed in them. I can’t believe they essentially accused me of cheating.

  21. maan

    question if i cancel my current account and make a new account is it possible or they wont accept it? thank you for answering

  22. Morte Desiderio

    if you looking to sign up i wouldnt. they love to break there own terms. and not honor there own terms. they state each member can have there own account but yet banned each one of my household’s account there is 14 members in my house. atleast 5 or 7 of us have/had a account but they decided to remove all of ours cause they want to be liars. well half the time you don’t even get the points.

  23. spencer

    14 members in your house ? lol. roflmao. 7 of you had an account . ROFLMAO. You have a lot more to worry about than swagbucks closing your accounts. Half the time you don’t even get the points — I get my points probably 95-97% of the time.

  24. romeodabbs75767

    I have recently started a web site, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thanks for all of your time & work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

It's not your Grandma's coupon site!

Sign up for a Hip2Save account (it's free) to access all of the awesome features!

Forgot Password?

Don't have an account? Register

Forgot Password

Don't have an account? Register

Become a Hip2Save Insider

Don't Miss Out! Join our large community of insiders - it's totally free! Once you join, you'll be able to save & share your favorite deals, rate posts and recipes and add items to your HipList and Cookbook! What are ya waiting for?!



Already have an account? Login

Thank you for rating!

Would you also like to leave us a comment?