Reasons Why to Collect Miles and Points

For some reason, even though I read a lot of articles explaining the value of miles and points, I probably come across more negativity than positive. So hopefully I can fight for the positive side today!

Why Not to Earn Loyalty Points

We often hear very similar reasons as to why people do not want to earn miles and points. Some of the reasons include:

• I do not spend enough money to earn enough points to redeem for anything.
• Points have expiry policies that I cannot keep up with nor bother to keep track of. I had points and they expired so I don’t want to waste my time again.
• They collect too much personal information that it feels like an invasion of privacy. It’s like a scam.
• I see the value but it’s too much work and too complicated for me to invest my time in.
• I don’t want to hurt my credit score.

Why Earn Loyalty Points

Even those of us who are pretty into points probably had one of those thoughts at some point in our lives. But once we find compelling reasons to earn miles and points, we almost forget how we used to feel. So here it is. My top reasons for earning miles and points!

1) Sense of Fulfilment

I get that there actually is no free meal in life. We actually do have to work for it. What we mean by free is that the work we put in to earn the points currency, can be redeemed for a reward without having to use our own cash. For some reason, using my points to redeem for a reward that I would have otherwise paid for with cash just feels so much more fulfilling. It’s probably the same amount of work in a job to earn X amount of dollars to pay for that item anyway.

Maybe I just like having different currencies that I can use to pay for different things. When I look at it this way, I may not be getting something for free, but I did work to earn it!

2) Spending Money Anyway

For this explanation, I will actually use the Scotiabank Scene Visa card to illustrate. This credit card has no annual fee, but it does have a current promotion for 4,000 sign up bonus points that ends on October 31, 2015. Even if we only spend $1,000 in an entire year, that’s less than $100 per month. We would have earn 5,000 Scene points in the first year. That’s 5 free movie passes. That’s pretty sweet for very minimal work.

Here’s the problem though. Yes we only get the sign up bonus once. But how much work did we actually put in the sign up for a credit card, which we plan to have one anyway, and to use the credit card on a regular basis?

Someone like me who enjoys the minimal work for some decent rewards doesn’t mind investing a little time to learn how the credit score works, so that I don’t hurt my score and I don’t mind being on the lookout for promotions and deals to take advantage of. It’s like waiting for an item to go on sale at your favourite store.

3) It is a Hobby/Activity for Entertainment

To me, the points game is like sports, TV, theatre, video games, etc. They are all forms of entertainment. It’s fun!

Not for Everyone

At the end of the day, this probably isn’t for everyone, which is why not everyone very into it. If it doesn’t feel fun and fulfilling, then it’s probably going to be tough and frustrating to get into the points game.

In closing, I’ll say this. So long as I am still having fun, I’ll keep blogging. If I stop writing, it’s also probably because I also lost interest in earning points. For now, I can’t imagine myself losing interest!