Question
Just got this card and it looks really good. Its part of the ThankYou rewards network and gives 5 pts per dollar for restaurants, bookstores, music stores, movie theaters and movie rentals. 1 pt per dollar on other purchases. No annual fee. It a great complement to my other cards which give bonus points for gas stations and supermarkets. They also give you 25 pts per month just for paying on time. For anyone who spends a lot of money eating out or taking clients out, this is a much better way to reap rewards.
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Do you have to be a student? It says that you can earn 250-2000 points for having a good GPA. I haven't had a GPA in 5 years!
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Hmm...looking at the rewards, it seems that each point is a little diluted... 1500 points for a $10 gift card. That means each point is only worth 2/3 of 1 cent. You get a better deal with the Citi Dividends card or the Amex TruEarnings Costco card.
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I don't know if the points earned on here are standard TY points, but if they are, it's true that at the lower award levels, you get less than 1c/pt. But when redeeming 5k or more, you get 1c/pt. Note that with the Citi Dividend Plat card, you can only redeem in $50 or larger chunks anyway. So these two are roughly equivalent. There's also an option at 2500 pts for a $25 check to pay towards a student loan. But the best value with the points is to redeem for flights. 25k gets a domestic flight. Lots of flights >= $250. Plus you earn miles, unlike with airline award tickets.
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You do need to be a student to qualify. I signed up for a continuing ed class at a JuCo and it passed muster.
These are standard TY points. As acf573 says, the best use of TY points is for travel. No date restrictions and you'll earn miles on the carrier. So $5K of restaurant spending will net you a domestic US ticket.
$10K of restaurant spending will get you a trip to europe. During peak seasons, and in light of rising airfares, you can easily get back 10 cents per dollar spent. LAX-LON has been selling for $1K this summer. Handily beats getting 10K airline miles.
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You could register the card on idine. If you spent the $5k restaurant on idines you could get up to 50k of FF miles to boot! Or $10k on idines = 100k miles additional. That's a lot of eating though... Also not sure about award availability with TY points.