Microsoft is now paying you to talk your friends into using its Edge browser. A new referral program inside Edge for phones offers real, spendable rewards for every friend who signs up. It’s just the latest move in a campaign that’s been quietly escalating for months.
If you already use Edge on your phone, this is worth a look. You could be sitting on free gift card money just for sending a link to people. These are probably people you were going to recommend an app to anyway.
How The New Referral Program Works
According to a recent report, Edge on Android and iOS is rolling out a referral offer. It’s worth 500 Microsoft Rewards points for every friend you bring in. There’s a cap of 7,500 points a month. That works out to as much as 90,000 points over a year if the offer sticks around.
The friend you invite has to be new to Edge on mobile. Once they join through your link, they need to sign in and search for two days. That has to happen within their first two weeks, and it earns credit for both of you. The offer isn’t limited to any single country, but it doesn’t seem to show up for everyone yet. Microsoft appears to be rolling it out gradually through in-app notifications.
So, what can you do with those points? According to Microsoft’s own redemption chart, it shows 5,000 points gets you a $5 Microsoft gift card. A $100 gift card runs 91,000 points. Points can also go toward Xbox gift cards and other rewards.
Part Of A Bigger Pattern
This isn’t Microsoft’s first attempt to pay its way into your browser habits. Late last year, Microsoft was offering 1,300 Rewards points worth roughly $10 to $15. That offer went to anyone who searched for “Chrome” in Bing and tried Edge instead. Earlier this year, Microsoft ran a separate promotion offering entries into a $2 million prize drawing. That one was for setting Edge as your default browser, though it was limited to the US.
That being said, this doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Even during the days of Windows Phone, Microsoft was already paying developers to create apps for the platform. So for Microsoft to use the same tactics to get users to use Edge over Chrome, it’s not entirely unexpected.
