But it still amazes me that you have to watch these things like the stock market. It just seems fraudulent to me that you can buy points, and then ten minutes later not have enough!

“The points purchase option offers an exceptionally awesome dollar to points ratio. With most of the Citi Thank You credit cards, you get at most – 3 points for each $1 spent. With the purchase option you get 40 points per $1 spent.”

That’s true – if you don’t count the dollar of purchasing power lost. In the former case, I get a dollar’s worth of product/service, PLUS 3 points; in the latter, I get 40 points, and nothing else.

Another way at looking at it: when directly purchasing points, you’re paying 2.5 cents each for them. When redeeming, the best return is 1 cent/point (for $100 gift cards for 10,000 points) – and most redemption options return even less. So they’re charging you at least 2.5 times as much as they can be redeemed for. Now, it may still be worth it to purchase points if you don’t quite have enough for a specific reward that you need right now. But describing this as offering “an exceptionally awesome dollar to points ratio” is to overlook how expensive this option really is.