One Million Points!
Over the past year my wife and I have made a conscious effort to use our PC Mastercard a great deal to attempt to build up a large balance for Christmas, and so far our effort seems to be paying off very nicely. We have had a few very large expenses that have managed to go onto the card which has made accumulating 1,000,000 points simpler than I thought it might be:
- Acadia University allows us to pay one of my daughter’s tuition (and such) using a Credit Card, which means a very LARGE number of points (tuition and living expenses in residence). I have the money available to pay this off in the month purchased, thus these are Free Points!
- Dental Bills this year have been quite expensive, thanks to my teeth slowly disintegrating. Nice thing here is that this money is mostly reimbursed by my benefits plan, thus these are free, as well.
- Lots of physiotherapy sessions for myself and my daughters, which are mostly covered by benefits, more free points.
- We bought most of our groceries using points at Loblaws and Independent, which means bonus points, and we were going to buy the groceries anyhow, and we attempted to pay off the purchase right away (using on line banking).
Thanks to these purchases and an existing balance which was not insignificant, we were in fact over a Million PC Points this Christmas season.
What Can You Buy At A Grocery Store?
Darn good question, here are a few things we can and have purchased.
- Gift Cards, this grocery store has an entire section of various Cards from The Keg, iTunes, The Gap, etc., which my kids and the folks I am buying for would love to get!
- Electronics like TVs and DVD players.
- Movies, lots of movies, which are great gifts for friends (especially those Blu-Ray multipacks)
- Toys, and my son will enjoy them a great deal
- Cameras and Video Cameras.
- FOOD! Lots of chocolates and such for Teachers, and other folks
- FOOD! Like Christmas dinner
Not Lagrange Points, PC Points!
All of this, effectively free, but it did mean I had to use my Credit Card, which can be very dangerous if you don’t keep track of all your purchases. I espouse this methodology for getting free stuff, but I also warn you that you must be very fastidious in your records keeping to make sure you do not carry a monthly balance on your Card (i.e. no interest accumulations).
There are other points systems out there and I am interested to hear if other folks have been as successful this year (e.g. AirMiles, Aeroplan, etc.,), so please leave any comments with your updates too.
Note on Comments: I have been getting Tsunamied with SPAM comments, so I have introduced a Captcha system to slow these nasty folks down a little. My apology if it makes things more complicated, but I really did need to do this.
I guess I simply prefer the CC co. to send me money. Real money, not points. We never have a balance owing to where we pay interest and the CC sends me hundreds of $$$ per year which I can spend on anything I care to. Plus, I get more points from MBNA than I would get from PC. The math has been crunched and MBNA is superior. Check out the CC analysis at ‘ how to save money dot ca ‘ – the proof is in the pudding. Speaking of pudding, back to Christmas!