Credit card point redemption?

Ladies, I need your advice: Almost five years ago I got a new credit card - a card that earns me points from my purchases. The points expire five years after earning them. I've never redeemed any points, thus the oldest points must be about to expire. I've never had such a card before and the point redemption process doesn't make sense to me. I'm about to pull the trigger and simply request that a check be sent to me.

I've read what I can about redeeming the points: They can be redeemed for airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, merchandise, cash, and maybe a few other things. Because cash is an option, that sets a well defined dollar value for the points. Try as I may, I can't figure out why anyone would choose anything other than cash!

It used to be possible to spend $250 in points to book a restrictive airline award ticket up to $400 in value. However, that option is being removed from the program in favor of buying a flexible regular ticket at a 1:1 conversion. Hotels are paid for via vouchers available in $50 increments. A $102 hotel room would cost $150 in points (or $100 in points and $2 in fresh "cash"). I've looked through the merchandise and there are no bargains there. Most of the merchandise is overpriced yuppy stuff I don't want. (Yes, they do have some cycling stuff, but nothing useful to me.)

Is there something I'm not understanding here? Why would the credit card companies create elaborate web sites and even printed catalogs? Are there people that actually redeem points for other than cash?

With our card it takes more points to get cash than to get the same value gift card. I redeem my points as soon as I can get a $50 Staples card. I'm a teacher and I spend a lot of money at Staples. :D

Veronica

We have bought several major things with our credit card points. We do the same thing as Veronica, get a gift card for the store where we want to purchase something. When we moved 3 years ago, we furnished our family room with points, used at Crate and Barrel.
If we have nothing major to buy, we will buy a Home Depot gift card, since we always need to go there...

I use points for rental cars and airline tickets. With my card, both of those are a better value than using them for cash.

Pam

We did not have experience with using our CC for airline tickets and had no idea of how to proceed so we called the company. They were able to answer all kinds of questions. We ended up purchasing plane tickets to Kauai on Expedia - pretty reasonably - with points they ended up being free........
You might call you CC company and ask them things like:
How does my purchasing merchandise instead of cashing points benefit you?
What is the most beneficial thing to do with my points from a cardholder perspective?
Good luck! Have fun with the $$ in whatever form you take it.

We also redeem our points for gift cards at places we regularly shop (usually Gap since we both like their underwear :o). We actually used a bunch of points to buy christmas gifts a couple of years ago when cash was tight. And in our case, getting the cash costs us more points than the gift cards, so it's the logical choice.

Just this weekend, we decided to drop that points program and go with one that pays $$ to the principle on our mortgage instead. :D

I just go out on the rewards website and go shopping. If I don't find any merchandise I like or can get with my points, I let them ride. I emptied the account at Christmas time. The stuff you can buy (Ipods, etc.) are similar to what you could buy at Sam's Club or Costco. Sets of knives, an espresso machine. In the meantime, I just forget they're there and it's like my birthday when I remember them! :)

Karen

Thanks for the answers.

Gift cards don't seem to be an option with my card's program. I again looked through the merchandise options and didn't find anything I wanted.* I don't expect to be able to make use of any of the travel related benies anytime soon. So I opted for cash in the form of a check. The check will go into my little mad money (former eBay buying) checking account.

I'm a bit sad because I doubt I'll ever again be able to accumulate enough points (before they start expiring) to get an airline ticket award.

* There was a DVD set for the equivalent of $82, but Amazon has it for $30.

We redeemed out points a couple of months ago for a wonderful new camera. Our old one has issues, but I didn't want to spend the cash if I didn't absolutely have to. I got a better camera than what I would've gotten had the old camera finally died and I had to spend cash.