Some of us couln't be bothered by such offers because of their small values. But for those who do, they will make sure all their purchases are given points, for exchange of goods later.
For Esso and Mobil (now Petron?) customers, the Smile card is good for accumulating points in exchange for petrol. Eg. 3000 points can be used to exchange for Rm 45 worth of petrol, which works out to 1.5% discount.
There were companies like Real Reward which seems to have disappeared, or maybe taken on a new name which I might be unaware of. I will be checking with TM on their Rewards scheme because I tried to register without success, because the name has been registered already! This was without our knowledge... could somebody be using our reward points to exchange for things without us knowing?
I have just discovered that I could use UOB credit card's points to pay for the annual Rm50 government tax. But it requires 10,000 points, which works out at 0.5% discount of amount charged using the card. For the previous year, Clearwater Sanctuary Resort as joint issuer of the card, offered Rm50 worth of goods or service.
Being an infrequent user (mainly used for the monthly club subscription fees) and occasionally for bigger sums of expenditure, I found out that I could use the points to pay for govt tax, when I had just over 8,800 points. According to the rules, this cannot be used for partial payment and has to be 10,000 for paying the Rm50. I have 500+ points which were due to expire and become invalid by the end of September. It so happened I had to service the car and it costed over Rm1300! To ensure I did not miss out on this opportunity, I called UOB call centre soon after the car service. According to their record on Sept 27, soon after the car service, Sheena said they have yet to receive merchant's claim for it. To make sure, I was asked to contact Tan Chong so as to ensure they do it by Sept 30. I was told by Ms Lee that she does 'settlement' on a daily basis as routine. I must say, Sheena was most helpful, and even offered in case of delay, that she would request for special permission to allow it since I have informed them earlier. But I personally feel that UOB should not have set validity time limit, at least not for this particular purpose, and card-holders like myself would feel happier. To take it further, they could even offer to set off without having to apply for it! Looking at my previous statements, I had points accumulated many times over the 10,000 without realizing that I could use them for paying the govt tax.
Years ago, when I first used the points to claim a cheap tumbler, it was not worth the trouble. I had to go to Ipoh UOB office to claim, then wait for delivery. I had to be around, half-expecting delivery. The courier service man couldn't find our house. When it was undelivered, I had to go to the courier company premises in Silibin to collect it, and on that day, the person in charge was not in! Since then, I refused to claim anything from the points accumulated.
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