New Points Program for DC Area FTers (yawn)
 

I just received a flyer in the mail today. The Washington Post is promoting its new PostPoints program for its subscribers under http://www.washingtonpost.com/postpoints. Rewards include miles in AA, UA, DL, NW and hotel $ certificates to Marriott, Hyatt, Ritz Carlton, etc. Points are earned by flashing member card at 50+ merchants in the Washington, DC area. Point conversions are pretty poor, though, as you need over 4000 to get 500 airline miles, and are earned in increments of 5 or 15 PER VISIT (not per $ spent) per day at places such as Giant Foods, CVS, and Shoppers Food Warehouse. I guess if you shop there anyway, you might as well collect the points, but it seems like it would take forever to accrue enough for a decent reward...

Interesting program. It will let you redeem points for flights (e.g. if you can accumulate 273,529 miles, you will get a free flight from the U.S. to Europe) and the flights are eligible to earn frequent flyer miles. As stated above though, it will be hard to accumulate anywhere near that. Supposedly they will surprise you from time to time with free points. Unless it's a lot of points, it won't help much. Other ways to get points include taking a daily quiz (5 points) and volunteering at certain charity events (25 points).

You can also link this account to your Amtrak Guest Rewards and CVS Easy Care account, to make points earning pretty painless.

As predicted, points are slow to accumulate
 

In addition to my weekly visits to Giant/Shoppers/CVS, I've been doing the Daily Quiz for 5 pts, and the Express Daily Code (www.readexpress.com) for 1 pt (PM me if you want a record of Express Codes back to May 1). My subscription's automatic billing recently showed on my CC, and the next day 300 pts appeared in my total.

The best value for redemption I've seen so far is 1,700 points for the Shoppers $10 gift card.

Heads Up for followers of PostPoints program
 

I noticed this week that by logging into my account at Washingtonpost.com, they awarded me 25 postpoints daily (1/3 and 1/4). This is in addition to daily quiz points and Express points. Enjoy it while it lasts!

This is for visiting washingtonpost.com 5 or more times in a week. I am not sure if you got it because of it but they do give you 25 points for visiting washingtonpost.com.

Thanks for the tip. And as mentioned the Shoppers $10 Gift card for 1700 points seems to be the best deal.

waste of time
 

post points is a complete waste of time

FYI - Jim Coleman Toyota in Bethesda offers points for car service...not a member as I cancelled my subscription a few years back (due to constant work travel)