Why am I not getting rewards points for searches anymore?

You see that's the thing. I do work and the points are a breeze to obtain. With the discounted rate at 8,000 points equaling $10 when it comes to rewards being automatically deducted per month, I see that as a win. Anything one can obtain from Microsoft at a discount is a win. Sorry, my friend, I do have a job, and a great one at that. I like to get a discount on purchases when I can. I work in IT for a leading hospital, so I have a computer to access at every corner. Am I chasing the computers down at work to fulfill the quests of earning reward points - no. But if I can be at my desk, on any floor of the hospital, or out in the clinics waiting on a customer, why not knock out the searches? When I am imaging devices, I typically do the searches. This is nothing more than clipping Sunday paper coupons. I like to save money. I am an avid gamer and have been since the days of dial-up and 56K connections. For example, I paid $20 in cash dollars for MS Flight Simulator - the rest of the amount the points took care of. That game isn't cheap by any means.

I merely shared how one can currently obtain reward points, that is all, thus shedding light to answer the question of this particular thread. Consecutively answering the polls, quizzes, and did ya know articles grant even larger points. I am already back up to 41,000 points.

If folks don't like to save a little money, even if it takes a month to get enough points, then they shouldn't be in this particular Q&A forum looking for the answer to the topic of this chat. The topic of this forum is "Why am I not getting reward points for searches anymore?". I have shared one perspective on how to earn them again considering the newly implemented cooldown period with 'Bing searches only." All other activities grant the reward of points back-to-back.

BTW, there is a cooldown period on the Bing mobile app when it comes to using the app to do the searches. Using the app to do the daily quizzes, the daily puzzle, the daily poll, and all the other items, those events do earn points back-to-back. Performing 100 searches back-to-back and earning rewards each time is broken, because one can't earn but only 20 "Bing Search Points" per 15 minutes whether they are executed on the Bing mobile app or via a PC. Hey, if it's working for you, that's wonderful news!

If you have enough time on your hands with which to write such superlative prose whilst working in IT for a hospital, may I suggest that it is no wonder the ransomware keeps getting through?

Seems to be correct. I tried doing each search 5 seconds apart and it works. But it’s still a little weird.

OMG -- has anyone else noticed that "Try clearing your browser's cookies and cache" is always the only suggestion that any support people ever have for every possible problem no matter what the problem and no matter what the circumstances?

In this case, Gary might be using a single browser, but I guarantee that he would get exactly the same advice even if he explained that he had experienced the same issue using four different browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Opera) on three different computers -- none of which share cache or cookies. In fact he would get the same advice even if he mentioned having already cleared the cache and deleting the cookies as part of his initial question. This "cookies and cache" advice is the twenty-first century equivalent of the old (and long discredited) medical response of "take two aspirins and call us tomorrow" -- it's sole purpose it to have the person go away to preform some meaningless task in the hope that they won't come back or that the problem might be corrected (in some completely unrelated way) in the meanwhile.

It is just barely possible that clearing cookies and the cache might have solved some problem for some person some place at some time, but it is not some magic panacea*!*

We will never forget how they treated us. This dumb support from Microsoft will come back to hurt them and then they will wonder why they are so hated....

Well, the issue here is that this is not a "problem" per se. It's Microsoft's new way of keeping us from accruing points. I have found the following. It works, but it is very annoying. You must do your searches 3, or 4, at a time, 15 minutes apart. (Sometimes they let you do 4; other times only 3. I don't know why.) I accrue my points on my computer 1st, then throughout the day, I continue to accrue my mobile points. They cannot be done concurrently. I also wait between searches, until the points are added, before doing the next search. Very time-consuming. Very annoying.