points collection

I wrote this post and saved a draft of it and then it got lost!

So this draft will be much more to the point.

I have been collecting fly buys points and credit card points and farm town points.

The first two theoretically pay you back some cash but I am wondering if it is really worth bothering now that I am trying to limit our spending and save more to put towards our mortgage.

Fly buys give you approx 2 points per $5.00 spent so to redeem a $20 gift card you need 2500 points which equates to a cumulative spend amount of approx $6250. This works out to about 0.32 of one percent back for every dollar you spend ... or one third of one cent per dollar or 1c back for every three dollars you spend. Not that much really!

My credit card awards is slightly better in that you get 1 point for every dollar you spend and to get $20 cash back you need 4000 points which equates to a cumulative spend of $4000. This works out to 0.5 of one percent for every dollar you spend ... or half of one cent per dollar or 1c back for every two dollars you spend.

Then of course the bank charges all its clients whose customers pay with credit cards a surcharge anyway so the reward money they give you .... eventually .... comes straight from their customers and so isn't really hurting the bank at all.

Then in order to get 4c a litre off petrol you have to spend at least $30 at a grocery store ... it turns out this is the best deal of all surprisingly!!! And admittedly while you are paying this money you may also be accumulating credit card and/or fly buys points .... $30 ... 10c back from fly buys or 15c back from credit card.

Hmmmm glad I did these figures ... certainly puts things into perspective