Those rewards programs... make them count.

We've saved up our aeroplan points and air miles for a little while now, but we make sure that those points go to good use.

Of course, you need to make sure that you are getting the best deal so be sure to check on the number of points that are required for certain items. That being said, a lot of the items are not exactly items that you would by using real cash anyway...!

A lot of the times they place lots of restrictions on trips via points, so using points may not be beneficial anyway. They make you pay taxes so a lot of the times the difference is not all that significant when you factor in seat sales and the flexibility of purchasing airfares using cash. Finally, most of those trips that are claimed on points must be planned well in advance and often, you have to make a significant number of stopovers to get to your destination if it is far away.

To make a long story short, what we ended up doing was redeeming our points for gasoline cards as well as for gift certificates at the grocery store. We figure we can use this to benefit our family rather than spending the points on a trip or on something electronic.