Frustrating, huh? I had to transfer 100,000 points over the past few days and after speaking with 2-3 different people at Esso who gave me 2-3 different answers, I finally asked them to escalate it to a supervisor who did the transfer. It's obvious to me that their phone staff are not very well trained with the programs rules, etc.
Also, based on what other people here are saying, you CAN buy NON-Esso gift cards and they do cound toward your 250 "purchase points"