Points.com Review
Ever have this problem: You're carrying points in a rewards program that you've decided isn't a "keeper," but you don't have enough points to cash out?
Or how about this one: You really want to cash out of a rewards program but you're just a few points short...and you sure wish you could just transfer your points from another program so you'd have enough? Maybe you'd even be willing to BUY the few points you're short to cash out?
What about, you have airline miles that you don't use or need and you'd like to give them to someone else? Or maybe you'd just like to get those airline miles into a program that you DO use a lot?
What if you just don't LIKE the redemption options at your point level?
Or maybe you're just having difficulty tracking how many points you have in each program?
Points.com can help. It helped me.
I had $14 sitting in my account at BabyMint. It's a nice program, don't get me wrong, but it isn't for me. Cashout was $25 and I didn't want to have to spend that much more at the program when there were others I preferred. So, I popped on over to Points.com to see what my options were. Turns out I could cash out my $14 worth of BabyMint earnings for $12 of Amazon credit. Obviously Points.com gets to keep $2 of my money, which is their angle, but for me it was a great deal. The exchange went through pretty quickly, too (not sure because it was over a weekend, but definitely within a few days).
I could have chosen instead to transfer in some points from my PhoneHog account, my Greenpoints account, or my e-Rewards account in order to reach the $25 cashout.
You should know that you will lose a little in point/dollar value when using Points.com. That's where their profit comes from. I don't think it's an unreasonable amount. Also, not all rewards programs participate in Points.com, and of those that do, some don't participate in the points swap facet of it, and only airline mileage programs will allow you to gift or buy extra points.
It is a really cool resource for those who use airline mileage programs, or those other rewards programs that participate. Some non-airline rewards programs that participate include BabyMint, e-Rewards, Goldpoints, Greenpoints, KidsFutures, NestEggz, and PhoneHog. (Sorry, none of the big players like MyPoints, Ebates, or uPromise.)
It's a free program -- no cost to join it or use it (though you can pay for upgraded customer service if you use it a lot and have a lot of questions). They even give you some points to get you started! Here's the link to join: http://www.Points.com
Date: December 21, 2006 2:38 PM
I think the exchange rates on Points.com are appalling. I was looking to convert my US Airways miles to Delta Skymiles and the exchange would give me 632 Skymiles for my 16000 USAir miles(yes a few hundred for 16K) . I really hope the public isn't fooled by this horrible website.
Date: July 20, 2007 4:25 PM
I agree with Ed. I was appalled to find that 12,000 AAdvantage miles would translate into about a $25 gift certificate.
Date: July 28, 2007 7:11 PM
Yet another sad miles story, I tried to "SWAP" 40 thousand miles from one airlines to another and was offered just over 1 thousand miles... yes, folks a ~40 to 1 exchange rate... too steep for me.
Date: September 28, 2007 8:31 PM
Just to reconfirm the above comments...points.come sucks big time. I even spent $250 on extra points that I could not use literally 5 mins after purchasing and couldn't get a refund. As far as I'm concerned, points.com is unethical and shame on the airlines for using them (I'm referring to you USAIR!).
Date: December 9, 2007 2:35 PM
AA does not let you swap accounts with less than 25000 miles. what a sham!
Date: December 18, 2007 9:47 PM
Points.com newly announce "GPX" this offering and the pricing on it is brutally expensive to the consumer-
I ran the GPX calculator on a trade where the consumer is trading out of AA into Frontier
sell 5000 AA to buy 3000 Frontier.
this is about the right ratio as
25000 for a restricted ticket on AA
15000 for a restricted ticket on Frontier
divide both by 5 and you get
5000 to 3000
this is a flat trade in value and they want an addition $80 to merely facilitate the trade. They use to do this for $10 on the old exchange.
The troubling part is that you could buy 3000 miles at somewhere close to $0.03 (three cents) a mile or $90. Why would someone give up their American Miles when for $10 more they can have the 3000 Frontier miles and still keep their 5000 American miles.
What a scam.
Date: July 15, 2008 8:24 AM
i was just in the middle of signing up for points.com, but felt a little off about the whole thing. did a google search for reviews and found this. glad i did. i will not continue with my sign up.
Date: July 25, 2008 5:38 PM
Was about to sign up and saw this. Only have 3000 delta miles that are about to expire so not a huge loss.
Date: July 27, 2008 1:26 PM
I too was in progress to sign-up for points.com. However, after reading the user agreement, I became a little skeptical of the value in doing so. I did a search on Google (sorry Yahoo, but you should have sold to M'soft) and found this site. The examples above were even more one sided than I expected. There is no real value in moving miles between awards programs, I'll look into buying the difference versus swapping. As for signing up at point.com, that web page expired and I won't pursue signing up at this point in time.
Date: August 19, 2008 7:26 PM
Yeah, me four. About to sign up also but I thought it odd that I can not find the exchange rates on thier site, so I searched them on google and found these reviews.
There's got to be something better to use my miles on than a scam like this.
Date: October 10, 2008 12:45 PM
So, is there a better competitor to points.com? I really like the idea of points.com but I'm glad I read these postings on swap rate.
Date: November 3, 2008 4:38 PM
Beaware of points.com. This is another internet fraud business. Its been two months since I initiated a swap and still it is in Pending Swap In status. Several attempts to contact them resulted in nothing but usual excuses - server is down, attempting to resolve, thanks for your patience etc etc...
DO NOT JOIN THIS
Date: November 6, 2008 7:46 AM
No don't use points.com. They had a user favourable deal on their page and when I(as well as friends) tried to make a transaction, they didn't follow their user agreement which says all transactions are final. Instead they left it in limbo and told us it was a technical error and refused to do anything. They also act as 3rd party for various points programs and they even froze my accounts there to prevent me from taking advantage of some favourable rates until they fixed their system. Then they told me that I should talk to the actual store/company which those points were based out of. When I did, they said they had to contact the party that does their points, which is points.com.
And oh by the way, we can't even talk to their people because you have to be part of their paying gold membership to get a phone contact number. Yeah, tell your friends, points.com is not a fraud but they are pretty borderline
Date: December 30, 2008 6:56 PM
Thanks so much to everyone who provided comments here about points.com. I was having a hard time finding the swap prices (one old article says $5 per transaction) and had only seen minimal info about the conversion loss. It is great to hear first-hand from users about their experiences. I will definitely skip this so-called service.