Today I got an offer from my points app which is a pretty common one as you could get twenty times the reward points if you spend over $50. This is usually great when you purchase video games or electronics that don’t usually go down in price too much due to its low margin nature. This offer usually results in about a 30% savings or more if you look at it from a cash value point of view.
I was actually going to go to the store to buy some eggs that were on sale and in looking at the flyer they had this Waterpik Water flosser for sale. Normally it is about $99 but that sale price is $84.99. Not the craziest price I have seen as about $60 is the lowest I have seen it for less featured models. But looking at the points offer you would get 1260 points for the purchase. Since it’s over $50 I would get 20 times the points. All in all, with the eggs too I would get about 26,600 points which is about a $26 saving.
It got me thinking. In this case you obviously would still need to pay the regular sale price upfront since points is a credit of sort. But with that in mind would you consider that the same if not better when the discount comes in the form of store reward points instead of a straight discount? Because I know many people wouldn’t consider it unless the price they pay at the cashier would be as if they were able to spend the credit discount right away.
It really depends on the store. But int his case it is worth it as I always treat these reward points as an investment that pays you more later. For example, this store usually has a Black Friday special where if you redeem 250,000 points you will get $400 off your purchase. That is a really good deal. So it shows sometimes it is better to save up those points.