i won't do it again and i don't want to pretend. if it can't be like before i've got to let it end. i don't want what i was, i had a change of heart.

anyone else insanely perplexed by the engima that is membership rewards?

i mean i understand..you spend money, they give you a reward..i get that much.

but...

i have a shitload of "points," and yet when i go to see what i can redeem them for, it's shit so cheap that it looks like it came out of a coin machine at the local grocery store. if the correlation between points and dollars spent is one to one, as they so advertise, then how the fuck does my spending a total of fifty thousdand dollars translate into a portable toshiba dvd player with a seven inch screen?

or a four inch lladro statutette?

or a one hundred dollar gift certificate for a rental car for rentals of a week or more?

i mean toshiba is synonmous with "fucking shit" in the electronics world. lladro statutes are gorgeous and collectors items (see: e's mother and her insane statutette collection), but a four inch statutette? yea, that's not even worth the money. and a gift certificate for car rentals is pretty fuckin sweet, but how much does a hundred bucks really mean when you are required to rent the car for a week or more?

rephrase: why would i take my fifty thousand points, which equates to the fifty thousand dollars i've spent during the life of my credit card, and redeem them for something that is the monetary equivalent of one hundred twenty bucks, as is the case of the toshiba, or that isn't even a speck on the lladro collection radar? why would i take the equivalent of fifty thousand dollars and use it to save myself one hundred bucks on my next car rental...which isn't going to be for a long long time seeing as i'm not old enough to rent a car but for from one company, which isn't even listed as one of their partners.

i understand that these "points" are a perk and just an added bonus to the whole "you're spending assloads of money with us, why not get something more out of it" campaign of credit cards, but it seems a bit....stupid....to me, at least.

i'm not saying that when i click on what i can redeem for fifty thousand points, i should see a bmw sitting right there awaiting my redemption, but i think it's a wee bit fucked up that whatever "reward" i get is grossly disproportionate to whatever money i've spent using that card.

i looked around at everything. in order to get frequent flyer miles you need to have an account with that airline to begin with, and there's a minimum number of points that can be redeemed in order to get any amount of frequent flyer miles. for continental it required that i redeem at least two thousand points, and those two thousand points equated to one thousdand frequent flyer miles.

one thousand frequent flyer miles costs a grand total of thirty-two dollars, were i to buy them on my own. it takes over twenty thousand frequent flyer miles to fly anywhere outside of puddle hopper destinations (ex: detroit or chicago in my case)...so basically i'm taking one thousand dollars to buy something that in reality takes thirty-two dollars to buy, and in order to get any kind of benefit from buying this shit i'd have to use forty thousand points.

i know i'm putting way to much thought into this "rewards" thing and totally ignoring the fact that the system is set-up to be a freebie, not adequate compensation for spending money. but?

fuck that noise.

nope, i'm saving up all my points until i get two hundred thousand, and then i can get myself a nice little vacation to some resort....well, i can get myself airfare and two nights at a resort in some tropical location...but hey, at least that's more than a seveven inch piece of shit portable dvd player, no?

or i'll manage to get seventy thousand points by august and get my mom an awesome twenty inch lladro statutette so she can fluff up her collection.

either, or....

anyway....

my accounting exam is tomorrow...and it's not going to be pretty y'all. nope. not pretty at all.

so if any of y'all know the awesomeness that is financial accounting, feel free to explain adjustment entries and income statements to me....it seems my mind is just legal mush, and i can't seem to think outside of my legalese box.

but if he asks anything concerning materiality or adequate disclosure....ohh...rockin' that shit like a fuckin hurricane!