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.
Date: March 26, 2009 3:04 PM
I saw all the comments and was hesitant to sign up. I used an old trash email account and logged in as a basic user. Thank you all for telling me not to give account information!
I have Delta SkyMiles that I want to swap for AAdvantage miles. In looking at the their Exchange page. I found that I could not as a basic member exchange SkyMiles (either to or from). However, if I joined their Points.com Gold Membership I could arrange a swap.
To swap 30,000 SkyMiles points, I would have to pay $300 to receive 15,000 AAdvantage points. This of course is after I pay $4.95 for a month or $49.95 for a year membership.
I don't know what exactly qualifies as usury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury) in today's market and in the US, but 50% exchange rate AND a 1% fee is pretty damn close to criminal.
Date: April 2, 2009 12:53 PM
Closed my points.com account today, I DITTO all said here.
After being unable to manage my own personal accounts and continually having the website corrupt my profile with old information (they say they cannot delete anything for "security" and audit purposes - NOTE they are incorporated and run out of socialist Ontario, Canada), I grew frustrated beyond recourse with rep who called me after doing chat and said that I was going to quit and go to a competitor. She said why would I do that? I said the following:
1) Once I added info, I had to call THEM to update it - old accounts I no longer had (Starbucks card worn out, I destroyed & xferred balances to new cards)....and the OLD stuff kept coming bacf from the dead like a George Romero film! That, I could not MY OWN information on a clumsy and cumbersome account profile.
2) Exchange rates have become HORRIBLE for non-Gold members....
3) NOT going pay for GPX or Gold membership to get better rates......
4) Going to find a competitor, or deal with each two programs separately for any future exchange I need to make.
Sayonara, ExPloits.com.....
Date: July 8, 2009 6:59 PM
Amazing string of warnings here. I was suspicious to begin with -- from many past experiences regarding airline mileage programs over the last three decades. I got an e-mail from Continental OnePass with a link to sign up to points.com. Since there was "no financial obligation" or credit card requirement to sign up, I saw little danger in continuing. After I completed the required fields, I had another step to get 100 miles as a sign up bonus "in (my) favorite program" -- but it just so happens that OnePass is far from my "favorite program" and I tried to find a way to change it to one that I prefer. No way to do it. Then I checked the table on the right side of the screen that let's the member see what he can get for his points, and it said that you can't exchange points from OnePass AT ALL. Then I tried to get a phone number to call and see if we could change this to a different account, and learned that I can't even CALL them without signing up as a "GOLD MEMBER" (ala Austin Powers?). Then I saw what it would cost for this phone privilege, and smelled a rat. So I Googled, and here I am. Now, I better cancel this dog before it defecates on my carpet. Thanks to all the posters.
Date: July 9, 2009 7:32 AM
Continental sent me an email advertising this site and it sure sounded great until I did a search and found these comments. My ‘bulls***’ alert went off as I was reading the email and how great the service sounded. I’m glad I didn’t tell any of my friends to check out this site.
Date: August 6, 2009 12:06 AM
Thank you guys for making me change my mind about signing up with points.com; I received the advertising from Aeroplan and almost went for it, until I did a little research online. Internet is a great way to stop these shaisters for making a killing.
Date: August 14, 2009 11:28 AM
It depends on what companies you are using as to whether this is a good deal. I signed up awhile back because of a bonus that Aeroplan was offering, I also signed up my Esso Extra card. I was short 1000 Aeroplan points for a flight and had many Esso points. I don't need 60 car washes so I swapped Esso points for Aeroplan and had no problems, Esso and Aeroplan work together elsewhere so the swap cost one extra point of Esso for each Aeroplan, at the gas station it is 3 dollars for 1 Aeroplan and 1 for 1 for Esso extra and the swap cost me 4 Esso points for 1 Aeroplan. For me the system worked I have a booked ticket and I didn't have to pay any swap fees. I also got rid of pints that I wasn't using for anything. Research the cards you want to transfer and it might be worthwhile, it seem like most US airlines might not be a great deal but the two groups I used were fine.
Date: October 24, 2009 5:18 PM
I have an awful experience with this company. I wanted to see how I can manage my miles and saw on asia miles that you can earn miles through this website. So, i clicked around to see what it's about. I personally thought that since an airline company endorse it, it must be legit. I found a '12500 miles for $100 starbucks card' and i clicked on it. Probably because of my mindset, I read it as 'get 12500 miles by getting a $50 Starbucks card' when it is 'get a $50 starbucks card for 12500 miles'. So it was never really clear that I was getting the latter, until it was too late and the transaction was final. I spoke to their customer service, who had transfered the miles back into asia miles after hours of complaining that they were not clear. Though it shows up as a cancelle swap, it has been a month and the miles were never credited and i never got anything out of losing 12500 miles. i called asia miles and they said its a points.com problem. i tried to contact points.com but they are closed on the weekend. i hope to get this resolved because this is a huge nuisance. i hope this website closes.