I’ve Gone Insane
I know that the real value in miles and points is to put them to use for travel (at roughly 2-2.5 cents per mile) but I couldn’t help myself from an “alternate” redemption. Please allow me to explain.
Aside from a branch campus of Washington State University and a community college, my hometown isn’t really much of a “college” town persay. Thus while being in a mid-size town, I don’t have really opportunities to watch college sports without driving for at least two hours. So when I heard that Washington State will be playing in my town on Saturday, the novelty of this excited me. And I don’t even care that much about Cougar athletics. Add to that, I have only been to one Division I basketball game, and that was a good 15 years ago.
So I hopped on to TicketMaster.com, and after a few tries was able to find a floor seat at the lowest-price tier! Yeah for me! I went to the purchase screen, and after entering in my American Express card information, the following screen popped up:
And when I clicked “Check Points” I got the following result:
I put some thought and deliberation into this, though I quickly realized I would only be get 0.5 cent per point to purchase the ticket. But, as you may have noticed I don’t have a ton of Membership Rewards points at the moment, so parting with 5,300 didn’t seem like a huge deal. After all, the points, whether limited in number or not, should work for me, not the reverse, right?
Ultimately, the novelty of attending a Division I college basketball game (even if it is versus mighty juggernaut Idaho State) for absolutely NOTHING won out, and I decided to redeem the points.
So does making a decision based on the pure novelty of it in this case mean I have gone bonkers? I would love to know what you think.
Point Me to the Miles 