Microsoft Really Wants You to Use New Outlook, and It's Offering Rewards Points

Microsoft is introducing Microsoft Rewards in New Outlook for Windows 11, giving users points for exploring the app’s features. The move appears to be another attempt to encourage users to switch from Outlook Classic.

According to Windows Latest, a new Rewards icon has appeared in New Outlook’s title bar. Clicking it opens a section called “Explore on Outlook,” where users can complete daily activities to earn points.

New Outlook users can earn 30 Rewards points daily

The new Rewards section offers three daily activities, each worth 10 Microsoft Rewards points in the version tested by Windows Latest.

The first activity, “Out of office, covered,” takes users to Outlook’s automatic reply settings. Users don’t need to enable automatic replies to earn the points.

The second, “An inbox without the noise,” opens Microsoft’s pricing page for Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

The third, “Make every day a little smoother,” opens Bing search results with suggestions for improving Outlook productivity.

Users testing this feature managed to earn all 30 points simply by opening the suggested pages and settings, without making any changes or completing additional tasks.

The available activities may change daily, giving users new opportunities to collect points. However, users who don’t regularly open New Outlook could miss some of these rewards.

Microsoft continues pushing users toward New Outlook

The Rewards integration adds another incentive for users to try New Outlook instead of sticking with the classic desktop application.

Microsoft has been gradually introducing new features to close the gap between the two versions, although some users still prefer Outlook Classic.

The company is also working on several other Outlook improvements. It recently introduced a unified inbox in New Outlook and plans to add automatic template replies in December.

Meanwhile, some Outlook users have reported a separate issue where legitimate emails are rejected due to SPF validation errors.

For now, the Rewards integration gives users a small incentive to explore New Outlook, although it remains unclear how widely Microsoft has rolled out the feature.