Through the purchasing of many a coin and other things with my cap one CCs, I have brought the balances back up again. Way up.

Anyway, here's a redemption tale that I think worked out just dandy based on exactly how it fell together:

Wife says:
I would like a new digital camera like this or that one (in store catalog she had handy)

me: hey look Cap One sent a catalog. take a look

wife:
oh I like this camera. It says it's 37,000 points. takes 2-3 weeks to come but that's ok because I have borrowed my mom's and she doesnt need it back til July.

me: hmmm let me look... (enter the camera style number into many websites like BestBuy, Amazon, etc etc) oh wow it's a $230 camera.

In Cap one, if you bought something for $230 and it were travel related, you would add two zeros and pay it with miles. So that would be 23,000 points. But if it's not travel related, you need to double that, so it's 46,000 points.

And Cap One is selling this for 37,000 points.

I did some more research, I found this seemed like a good deal, and the time it took you to read this is pretty much how long it took for us to accomplish it, which in my opinion is a good part of what this whole reward thing is all about.

So she found it, I had points for it, she liked it, I ordered it, it's on its way. Done.

I'd say we did rather well.

Our cost? Bringing boxes of coins to some banks.

:)MM

Next!?!

Next? Be a little smarter by buying the camera at $230.00 and then use your previous travel items that have not passed the 90 days period to redeem the 23000 pts instead of paying 37000 pts, a saving of 14000 pts. You even earn 460 pts on the camera. Duh!

You do know the travel items can be redeemed multiple times online, dont you?

Well if I didnt know you better I would say you are flaming me what, with the way you wrote that nice post there, Happy!...

I do know about the multi online thing but I do not trust that glitch feature to be honest.

I feel good about what we got with the points and I can and will just earn more of them. So be it.

besides, we wanted the camera NOW and without cash being used.

Why not test it with one of the items from your recent trip?

There is no need to use cash. Buy it with your card and reclaim it from your card - What cash?

I bet you get the camera quicker by trotting down to BBY or ordering it from AMZN, than waiting for C1 reward dept to send it to you. The handling of product related reward most likely is handling by 3rd party - a fulfilling company may be. You do not expect C1 operates a warehouse stocked up of items ready for people to redeem, do you?

Then why not redeem for 5 $50 Amazon cards for 25000 points with $20 to spare? Not flaming, just trying to understand why spend 37000 for the same exact thing.

Yes or 5 $50 Best Buy GC's. :)

no you are not and thanks, but at this point it looks as though my redemption is final. And while I may have ff'd up according to the grand poobah of all things redemption (Happy:D) and statements such as "What you don't understand is..." and "You seem to like to complicate things..." and "NO, you cannot do that! DUH" I will live with my choice and move on. Next time I will do GCs. Didn't honestly realize I could. Ah well. whatever. This will be the first time I have 'lost' points (or rather, failed to save some) but I am going to stick with my 'well I don't care, I will be happy with what I did anyway based on the way it went down' attitude on this one and not go backwards with what I shoulda or coulda done.

yes, next time. thanks.

:)MM

I would go with AMZN because of 0 tax. :D

Seriously there are so many options to choose from, who would redeem for the hugely inflated price of merchandises - it is universal across all reward programs that the merchandises are all poorly valued for redemption purpose.

I have to agree on this. Instant gratification forces you to make poor choices, and poor choices often reflect poor self-control, and usually lead to dumb decisions.

I want a camera, too! But I suspect many of you will do the same as I did - get amazon GC, then redeem it.

Just sayin'

Gee, that's a hell of a conclusion to make out of the fact the guy overpaid for one thing he wanted quickly. Come on!

My wife likes that little pricey restaurant which I personally consider a waste of time and money. It is not the part of any FF or restaurant.com program, and the food is not even that good, but she likes it for the ambience. Going there is a very poor choice on my part, but it preserves peace in the family. So wotdayougottado!:D

MM, I have "tested" the glitch feature many times and it works fine. Redeemed the remaining 73000 or $730 I had in my account on already redeemed travel, thereby reducing what I owe by $730 this month.

I understand your hesitancy but really, what's the worst that could happen? They add the points back onto your account and the credit gets redacted.

I just showed my mom how to do it... she got the card but had NO travel related purchases til just this week. I showed her how to get her $46 many times over. :)

While I have no personal experience with this, I have read success stories about people calling C1 to get "travel related" items reimbursed at the travel rate. Perhaps they could be convinced that such a camera was travel related and redeem it for only 230000 miles. In addition (unlike using gift card rewards) you would have earned 460 miles on the purchase. If this strategy fails, use the multiple travel redemption trick.

Is it safe to say that now that Hyatt certs no longer exist, there really are no 'best' uses for Cap1 points?

Hotwire and BigCrumbs combination
 

I used my 100K Cap1 to get seven nights of hotels in Hawaii for about $1,000 via Hotwire. The retail value of those rooms was $1,700+. I booked through BigCrumbs, so I will get a 1.6% ($16) rebate.

The $900 Hyatt Gift Cards (North America only) are still available.