50% bonus petro-points until january 6, 2014

i received an offer in my e-mail early this morning. from now until january 6, all purchases made at petro-canada will earn an additional 50% more petro-points. normally, you earn:

• 10 points per litre on superclean (94 octane) gas
• 5-7 points per litre on other grades of gas
• 20 points per dollar spent in store (except tobacco, petro canada gift cards/gift certificates). note: you still earn points on gift cards for other vendors, however.

for in-store purchases, petro-points are perhaps a nice perk. for redemptions at petro canada (which offer the best deal), $100 gift cards can be purchased with 160,000 points. in other words, for ever 16 points earned, it can be redeemed for $0.01. alternatively, 10,000 points is worth $10 off of your  vacation at itravel2000.com. this means that only 10 points are required for $0.01 return. therefore, you can get either a 1.25% return per dollar spent in store with petro-canada gift cards, or a 2% return per dollar spent in store with itravel2000.com. with the bonus 50% points, your returns increase to 1.875% to 3%.

remember cathay pacific?

10,000 petro-points points = 1,000 cathay pacific asia miles. this means that for every dollar spent in store, you earn 2 asia miles normally. with this promotion, it increases to 3 asia miles. one can safely argue that one asia mile is worth at least a penny a piece. some may argue that it's worth more, but virtually no one can argue that it's worth less.

so it's a great place to buy your lottery tickets (which you can buy using your scotia bank american express for a 4% return) or gift cards to places like subway and shopper's drug mart.

what about visa/mastercard gift cards?

one of the more interesting values would be the visa and mastercard gift cards. these are not to be confused with the pivot visa reload cards. you don't earn any petro-points on those. however, you do earn points on the visa/mastercard gift cards. 

i typically see $200 gift cards on sale with a $6.95 activation fee. there is tax on the $6.95 portion, making the total purchase cost $207.74 (assuming 12% combined tax). therefore, using the scotia bank gold american express, you earn:

• $8.30 from the use of your credit card
• 4,154 base points, and 2,077 bonus points for a total of 6,231 petro-points.

if you convert the petro-points to asia miles, you will get 623 asia miles, which have a minimum value of $6.23. if you just convert them into petro-canada gift cards, then you get $3.89 back (1.875% return). therefore, for your 207.74 purchase, you will earn $14.53 (assuming amex reward + asia miles) or $12.19 (assuming amex reward + petro-canada gift card with a 1.875% return). one must subtract the additional cost of the visa/mastercard ($7.74). this means that with the amex + asia miles option, your net reward is $6.79 minimum. again, some people argue that the value of the asia mile can be worth more than a penny a piece. alternatively, your net reward is $4.45 with the amex + petro-canada gift card option.

compare this to the MBNA no-fee world points mastercard which gives 2% cash back, you would only get a $4 return on spending $200. compare this to the next best available card, which appears to be capital one no fee cash aspire card (1.25% back), and you would only get $2.50 back.

when would it make sense to use these gift cards?
it is an extra step in order to get a higher return. i would consider this if:

• you are willing to travel on cathay pacific or their oneworld (e.g., american airlines, british airways, etc) and partner (e.g., westjet) airlines
• you know you can earn enough to claim a reward before the asia miles expire in two years
• you are willing to buy gas at petro-canada stations
• you are able to purchase these cards using your scotia bank gold american express card to take advantage of the 4% rebate earned on gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment spending

i would be more likely to take advantage of this if i can buy the cards in alberta, where you save the provincial sales tax.

when using the visa/mastercard gift cards themselves, it would only make sense if you use them:

• at places that do not accept american express
• at places that aren't gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment businesses

i don't know yet if i'll take full advantage of this. but i'm finding myself more and more impressed with petro-canada and the versatility of its reward program.