FlyerTalk Forums - Points.com [Consolidated]

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Points.com [Consolidated]

Hi all. I was wondering if anyone has some experience with points.com. I have points with all their affiliates and want to cash them in as I am not traveling any more. Does Point.con have a good or bad reputation in the community and is it a good deal? If their reputation is bad can anyone recommend another site where I can merge points? Thanks

We're moving this to MilesBuzz! where it's perhaps more apropos.

Please follow at its new home.

Thanks.

_______________________

Cholula
CommunityBuzz! Co-Moderator

In my experience, points.com is a horrible deal. It's a shame there aren't better options, but when I need to trade points/miles I go to the Coupon Connection forum of Flyertalk. Or I make deals with friends/family/coworkers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pitbrian (Post 12274583)

In my experience, points.com is a horrible deal.

+1.

FWIW, if it had been a good deal, FTers would have been all over it. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sh9168 (Post 12273398)

I was wondering if anyone has some experience with points.com. I have points with all their affiliates and want to cash them in as I am not traveling any more. Does Point.con have a good or bad reputation in the community and is it a good deal? If their reputation is bad can anyone recommend another site where I can merge points? Thanks

Why don't you look into the useful Webflyer Mileage Converter first?

As far as Points.com goes, there are a handful of threads about them. Some examples:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...oints-com.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-exchange.html

It's also costly to use Points.com to consolidate miles. See jsammerman's demo calculation for details. If you are looking for GCs from Points.com, I don't know that's a good use for one's miles since I hardly redeem miles for GCs.

The only time I use points.com is when I need a partner activity during some airline promo. Trading a handful of miles on one airline for one mile on the airline running the promo can sometimes get you to a different promo award level and mean 1000 miles or more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pitbrian (Post 12274583)

In my experience, points.com is a horrible deal.

Indeed, it's a miracle how they've managed to stay in business all these years. Who actually uses them for mileage xfers?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaxLovesRio (Post 12301457)

^

They provide a very effective service to that extent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkjflyer1 (Post 12301715)

Indeed, it's a miracle how they've managed to stay in business all these years. Who actually uses them for mileage xfers?

People who don't know any better. You know, non-FTers.

Mike

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkjflyer1 (Post 12301715)

Indeed, it's a miracle how they've managed to stay in business all these years. Who actually uses them for mileage xfers?

Points International, Ltd. receives a large portion of their revenue comes from services they provide to mileage programs for sales and member-to-member internal transfers of miles/points and other "e-commerce services". The margin is probably higher on points.com than on those services they provide to programs, but it's not the only reason they exist.

From their annual report, they provide a number of services to programs:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix....&p=irol-irhome

Quote:

• Buy and Gift – facilitates the online sale and gift
of miles, points and other loyalty program
currencies;
• Transfer – facilitates the transfer of loyalty
program currencies among multiple accounts;
• Corporate – facilitates the sale of loyalty
program currencies to corporate customers;
• Elite – facilitates the online sale of elite-tier
status to members of loyalty programs;
• AirIncentives – facilitates the online sale of
several airline loyalty program currencies to third
parties that then are able to offer airline miles as
incentives to their customers and suppliers;
• Systems Design – custom applications
developed for select large loyalty program
partners;
• Integrate – functions as a common platform to
process transactions among third-party loyalty
programs in order to simplify and automate a
complex and resource-intensive process with a
single integration;
• Auction – via a partnership with Truition, an
industry leader in on-demand ecommerce
solutions, this service facilitates the ability for
programs to offer mileage or point based
auctions to their members; and
• Earn Malls – an online shopping mall platform
where affiliate commissions are partly used to
fund an extra incentive of miles or points for a
loyalty programs’ members.

Points com really is a bad deal for anyone wanting to trade. It's robbery on paper

Nonsense. It serves a purpose if you get miles in a scheme you will never use again. I had some AA miles, for instance, from flying a Mexican partner airline. I was able to move them to Priority Club which, quite frankly, was better than leaving them to expire in AA. (This option is no longer available as AA now restricts transfers to those with a 25k balance.)

You can also get some freebies out of it. Sign up for the Alaska programme with a Canadian address, for example, and you get a 3,000 mile sign-up bonus. You can then instantly transfer this to 1,020 Priority Club, 63 Sirius points, airline miles etc. What's not to like?

points.com activity also counts towards the current Priority Club '10,000 points for 4 partner activities' promo.

Agreed with all above. Points.com is a terrific thing to keep tucked away for those last minute emergencies when an account is about to expire, or a bonus is associated with a (small) transfer. But as for transferring large #s from account to account, it is a complete waste of hard earned miles/points.

New Points.com SOX big time

Just received the email about new Points.com. Logged in and played around for a while. I absoultely hate the new site!

The letter size is so small I almost needed a magnifier to read through.

Previously one could see all the GPX trades without even having an account, now you have to log in.

The communication emails said United Airlines Mileage Plus, and a few others were going to be new partners. Well the only thing you can do with United, Accor and the new "partners" is to register your account so you can see the latest balance. No mileage swapping/purchasing/GPX. This totally dents my enthusiasm - I thought I could abandon my orphan DL miles to top up my other accounts, not!

What does everyone think of the new Points.com?

I can't even log in. Enter my email and password, click the login button and nothing happens.

I agree. Last week the site was offline for about an entire day well they did the "upgrade." Its extremely clunky now.

At first it could not add new GPX trades, and after that started working it had a problem with my Amex Credit card's security code, finally yesterday I was able to post a new GPX trade... But the GPX trade that posted/completed right before the conversion is not visible - I saw it in my Alaska Airlines and Continental accounts long before they notified me.

The only new items I can see are some promotions link and a big facebook tie-in link.

The layout is horrible. I still can not find things. Trades are way down. It looks like they never beta tested with actual users. I hope it does not totally kill the site.