<p>So…I’m shopping on Amazon today which I do quite often. I have about $19 in Amazon reward points that I can apply to my total. It asks if I want to apply it. Why would I not want to?</p>
<p>I know my drug store reward points accumulate in such a way that the longer I hold on to them, the more they are worth. Is that the case with Amazon. I tried looking it up on their site and they give all kinds of information on the reward system except why I would not want to apply them every time.</p>
<p>Because maybe you’re saving them for another purchase. </p>
<p>OK, I’ll be the stupid one: What are Amazon reward points? I’m a member of Amazon Prime; do I get reward points? How do I know?</p>
<p>You get reward points by charging things on the Amazon credit card. If you have points, they show up in the “my account” section and also are usually mentioned when you get ready to check out- they ask if you want to apply the points. I have used them for years and see no advantage to spending them or not- they don’t get bigger if you don’t, don’t expire as far as I know. </p>
<p>As soon as my statement becomes available online I go to the reward points and take them as a statement credit. I don’t see any benefit to doing anything else with them, but maybe I’m missing something. (If I buy something from Amazon with my credit card I get 3% back on the purchase. If I use the points instead am I losing that 3%?)</p>
<p>Ah. Since I don’t have an Amazon CC I guess I’m not getting Amazon reward points!</p>
<p>We have that credit card, and when we used it a lot we really enjoyed saving up the points to buy something a little more expensive. We like to point to, say, the toaster oven and say, “We got that for free!” There was no financial advantage to doing this, but it was fun. (Now we’re amassing Marriott points.)</p>
<p>We don’t use ours anymore either. We are now using the Citi thank you card because we can use the points to get Barnes & Noble Gift cards to pay for DS’s college text books. Last term his books were free. 
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<p>I have a Chase Bank card that gives reward points and I find that there’s really nothing I want to buy. I’d rather get a rebate on my bill. On the other hand, I do use the AMEX membership rewards points. I’ll transfer these points into a partner airline frequent flyer account (although I’ve noticed that there are fewer partners now because the airlines are starting their own cards).</p>