A place to express your frustration

I truly hate Microsoft Rewards. I have over 30k points in my account that I cannot use for basically anything. For the past few years that the Rewards app was available on Xbox, I was able to redeem all of my rewards and gift cards without the need of any extra information. Every time I was able to redeem gift cards, I did, and boom - they were instantly redeemed and available on my account funds. Nowadays, I can't redeem jack squat on their Rewards program. Nothing at all. They went ahead and discontinued that very useful Rewards on Xbox app that I had been using for many years with all of my Rewards points, and they replaced it with a far inferior app that is just a tab on your Xbox Profile. And yes, it does have a way to redeem your points for stuff like gift cards, but good luck trying to use the very points you earned, you literally can't. It forces you to scan a QR code which, in return, leads you to phone number verification via SMS. I already ranted about phone verification in this community before, so I won't get into it. Anyways, your Rewards points become completely useless. It's like Microsoft is trying to make it so you can't use your points! So, redeeming points on Xbox? USELESS now. You can't do it. You need security info. And if you are trying to redeem points on the website directly... well... heh, good luck. I have been trying to redeem the classic Tim Burton film Beetlejuice for the entire dang month. Every time, I couldn't. Because you need to add a phone number to be able to. No phone number, no movie. And then, when I tried to add a phone number? "LOL, ~~we~~ you need your security info first". And since I don't have access to it, guess what? I have to wait 30 days to get new security info. THIRTY. WHOLE. DAYS. I can bet you ten to one that the offer will be gone by then and I would have missed out due to Microsoft's stupid systrm they have put in place. You know what could really solve this problem? AUTHENTICATOR APP. I know I said I hated authentication apps before, but by God I finally got a phone. Honestly, it would be so much more convenient if I could just use Bing Authenticator to verify with Rewards. But no, I can't, because Rewards still requires a phone number with an active line. I am gonna miss out on an incredible offer due to this, and I am absolutely angry about this. I seriously hate Microsoft Rewards now. They don't even want me using my own points to redeem crap. And this stupid phone number verification crap is the reason why. Can we just get rid of phone number verification entirely? It's outdated. Pointless, even, because throughout my experience on Reddit, I was still attacked by a person with a million alt accounts.

I seriously could be done with Rewards after this nonsnese.