I think the world divides into two groups: people who take advantage of membership rewards programs, and people like me.
A long time ago, I applied for an American Express card, but I was rejected. I had charged my way to becoming a writer, and my credit history ranged from Slow Pay to You Must Be Joking. The measure of creditworthiness is the FICO score, with 800 or so the best, like the old SAT scores. I couldn’t get into any college on my FICO score. My FICO score was my weight.
Eventually I paid back every penny of my debts, but my FICO score haunted me. I couldn’t get a credit card from Target and my books were bestsellers in Target. I don’t think this happened to James Patterson.
Then, one day, American Express relented-with a qualification. They told me they would give me a “starter” American Express card. The baby Amex had a thousand-dollar credit limit and training wheels. It even looked younger; it wasn’t cashgreen, it was transparent, as if it couldn’t be trusted with a color. It was a credit card, pre-puberty.
Still I took the card and became Financial Barbie. I never missed a payment and I sent in the whole balance every time, then I reapplied for the Big Girl American Express card. And was rejected again. But on the phone, they happened to mention that they could give me the American Express card for small business, if I were a small business. They asked, “Are you a small business?”
I answered, “Why, yes, the smallest.”
On the phone, I deemed myself Lisa Scottoline, Inc., which is a new way to incorporate yourself that I invented, and they gave me a small-business credit card, which came with a higher credit limit and its own color-a respectable, corporate, gray. Since then, however, I still keep getting rejected for the real-deal American Express card.
Whatever. I’ve struck out three times now and I have to pretend it doesn’t matter. And that’s not the point, anyway.
The point is that unbeknownst to me, my small-business American Express card has, all these years, been racking up Membership Rewards.
Wow! Membership Rewards! I had no idea what that was, but it sounds great. It sounds like an exclusive club that I’m a member of, automatically. And rewards are always good. I get a reward and I didn’t even find anything? Hell, I didn’t even know anything was lost!
I learned about the Membership Rewards the other day, when I actually read my endless pile of junk mail. I saw a slick catalog full of mixers, Bose radios, rolling luggage, golf clubs, and “timepieces,” which is what we members call watches. Instead of prices, the catalog had points. I flipped to the front and saw that I had a “point balance,” which was 52,140.
Yay!
So everything in the catalog was free, or at least the stuff under 52,140 points. I was so excited that I called up my friend, but she had already spent her points on his-and-her mountain bikes, a portable DVD player, and a toaster from England. She’d even gone to Europe on her frequent flier miles, but I will never figure out how to cash in those babies and I have approximately three billion, which is twelve zillion times my SAT score and fifteen zillion times my FICO.
But I digress. I made a cup of coffee and sat down with the Membership Rewards catalog.
Two hours later, I had dog-eared ten pages, circled fifteen items, and downed another cup of coffee. My stomach had twisted into a knot, my heart was pounding, and I was in a tizzy of indecision. I couldn’t pick between the Sony digital camera, the new iPod, or the Dyson “animal vacuum,” which I loved for the name.
And if I didn’t want those items, the catalog offered trips, meals, and gift cards. Worse, I was even “pre-approved” for double my point balance, which admitted me to the truly pimp point class. If I wanted the awesome 37-inch plasma TV, Amex would send it to me and charge the difference-on my credit card.
Hmmm.
Bottom line, all this free stuff paralyzed me. If I had been spending dollars, I could have made the decision, but the fact that it was points had me flummoxed. I didn’t want to blow my chance to get something free by getting the wrong free thing. I set the catalog aside for another day.
A point saved is a point earned.