Originally Posted by
markandrew
Math is wrong, it is 2,180 as you would get 1*MR anyway at Starbucks.
Now I'll admit that I have been to Rexall next to Best Buy to buy a few hundred $$$ of gift cards at 2MR/$. I also have stocked up on Bay gift cards at Esso for the Star Challenge (which definitely does give AP on non-Esso GC but some locations refuse CC for the transaction). But for me, this seems crazy, I mean if you had over $2,000 bucks to spend a year in Starbucks, you should probably value your time more greatly, unless you are a wife/husband/bf/gf of a rich person, but in which case you probably would not care for a few points.
Maybe it all just seems small scale to those who can get their hands on credit card bonuses around 20k every day of the week.
I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to buy at Esso at 1AP/$3. AP encourages this behaviour an makes it seem as though its an insider cheat which is pure nonsense and simply serves their interest in manipulating people for very small recompense (again for 25k Star Challenge, even skeptic I was willing to be manipulated and time abused).
I definitely don't spend that much on coffee, I'll be the first to admit that the example got blown out of hand. Personally I don't mind spending 5 minutes on my way home to make a few points but I can see that being a big deal for some people. The Shoppers is directly across from where I normally buy gas on my way home from school.
The reason I mentioned Esso is because that's where I normally fill up with gas so I would be there anyways. The 1AP/$3 isn't great but the 3x bonus for Supreme gas (my car needs it) makes it a little less bad.