Feature: Microsoft Rewards Paid For Us To See The Red Hot Chili Peppers

So, here's something you didn't know about me - I'm a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan. It's been that way since about 2003-ish, and since then I've collected all the albums, all the DVDs, a lot of merch, and I've seen them multiple times. That latest time was at the Olympic Stadium in London a few weeks ago, and Xbox and Microsoft are the reason why I didn't have to pay anything for my ticket.

We've talked many times here at Pure Xbox about how Microsoft Rewards is a great way to earn points for things like Xbox Gift Cards and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate memberships, but something that often gets overlooked is that you don't have to limit yourself to just those. Microsoft Rewards offers lots of other types of gift cards for a variety of retailers, and that includes Ticketmaster, which is ultimately what I ended up spending my points on.

Leading up to the event, I'd been building my points using the likes of Bing searches, Xbox Game Pass Quests and all sorts of other Microsoft Rewards tools for probably over a year, and I hadn't really decided what I wanted to use them on. When I realised that I had over £100 worth of points that I'd been building up, I ultimately decided to redeem a couple of £50 Ticketmaster gift cards and book my premium seat at London Stadium.

It might not look like it in the photos, but the seats were nearly as close to the stage as you could get!

Now, if you're wondering if there are any downsides to redeeming your points this way, there are a couple of things to be aware of. Firstly, gift cards for anything other than Xbox and Microsoft tend to require more MS Rewards points in order to redeem them, which is a bit of a bummer. Additionally, when you redeem a gift card for certain retailers, you sometimes have to wait up to 24 hours in order to get the code. Currys PC World in the UK sometimes does this, for example, and it means if you need to buy something quickly, it might not be practical to use Microsoft Rewards — you could potentially be forced to wait an extra day for your gift card.

Otherwise, go for it! This isn't the first time I've bought something other than Xbox credit with my Microsoft Rewards points — last year, I bought New Pokémon Snap for my Nintendo Switch using a gift card for another retailer, as well as accessories for my Oculus (or "Meta") Quest 2! Microsoft Rewards really offers a fantastic array of options.

So, there you go! I'm already back up to 20k Microsoft Rewards points at the time of writing, and I'm so glad and grateful to the program that I was able to see the Chili Peppers for free in London a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend checking out MS Rewards if you haven't already, even if you don't have an Xbox console yet!

Have you redeemed anything particularly unique with Microsoft Rewards yet? Tell us down below.

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