The perfect holiday gift? Great gifts at no cost.
Posted on November 24th, 2008 – 6:28 PMBy Kara McGuire
Have you heard that I love credit card rewards programs? Well this time of year, I love them more than ever.
So far, I’ve turned my credit card rewards into the following items to give away as gifts:
$20 cashback from Discover into $25 in AMC movie bucks
$20 cashback from Discover for $25 in Blockbuster movie rentals
$20 cashback from Discover for $25 Borders gift card
A LEGO® Road Construction Set for 3100 Citibank Thank You points
$25 Amazon.com Gift Certificate for 3500 Thank You points
Rhino Rampage Game for 2,800 Pts
Normally, I try to redeem rewards so that for every point you get 0.01 worth of monetary value. For example, 2500 points gets you a $25 gift card. And I am guessing that if I’d waited, I could have found Rhino Rampage on sale after Thanksgiving. But I decided to be more flexible this time of year. It’s just a relief to cross some gifts off the list without reducing my bank balance.
I’m not worried that any of the retailers I mentioned above will go out of business in the next few months. Plus, the people on my list asked for them.
Call me strange, but I’m pretty much done with my holiday shopping. I didn’t even wait for Black Friday this year. With coupons and sales from practically every retailer trying to entice customers into the stores, will the deals be that much better? Even if they were, I doubt you’d find me standing in line at 4am, unless I lived in a warmer climate.
If I find that I missed out on major discounts because I was too early on the draw, I can always return and rebuy.
9 Responses to "The perfect holiday gift? Great gifts at no cost."
Not to be a scrooge…but doesn’t the act of giving imply some sort of effort or sacrifice? It seems odd to give away free stuff….
I have to disagree with David in two ways. The act of giving means you offer something and expect nothing in return. It does not require effort or sacrifice. But in this case, Kara did both: she made an effort to find gifts that are desired by the recipients, and she sacrificed the value of those gifts, which would have otherwise been available for her own personal benefit.
David, isn’t it the thought that counts? Things don’t have to cost money to be valuable. Good for Kara for using her good financial sense to get further ahead and not blowing her budget on gifts!
As my husband would argue these aren’t “free” - she could have gotten the cash back from discover and likely gotten something for herself from the points…still a sacrifice of something (hence a cost) just not a cash/credit transaction directly
I can see you and I could have a lively debate about re-gifting, David 
Good work on making the most of your reward points. I still prefer to use mine for airline travel as $25k in spending would only get me $250 in cash or cash equivolent but it buys me an airline ticket worth up to $500 for US travel with no blackouts.
As long as people pay off the balance in full each month a CC with rewards is the way to go.
A lively debate indeed. My biggest issue, besides re-gifting, is that I could not possibly keep track of multiple rewards cards. Sage - You can turn 10K in spending into a $600 hotel room - much better ROI than airline miles.
Not sure I’d use a $600 hotel room but can it be had w/o blackout dates?
Yes. Airline points only seem to have the same ROI as hotel points if you are traveling overseas in business class. Else, hotel points trump.
We have 600,000 + NWA points…so the last thing I need is more of them.
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/support/program_tour.html
