Points for Wall Street Journal Subscription

I checked my American Express Membership Rewards Account today and noticed that I now have 8,970 points piled up. 1 point for every $1 spent. I don’t remember spending $8,970… but thats probably why I had a huge debt before.

I don’t really use my Amex Blue cards anymore because I’ve decided I prefer cash back rewards. So I figure I should spend my 8,970 points before I totally forget about it (they dont expire though). While browsing the rewards list, I remembered that they offer the Wall Street Journal as a rewards option.

A subscription for the WSJ cost 1,200 points. The subscription is for 3 months, or 64 issues. That’s not a bad deal in my opinion because subscription to the WSJ cost a butt load. The price ranges from 52 weeks (1 Year) for $215; 26 weeks (1/2 Year) for $107.50; to $17.98 per month. You get a different amount of free weeks, as you can see below. I believe there are better offers out there than on WSJ.com, at least in terms of the amount of free weeks you get.

So base on subscrption cost at WSJ’s website, this reward option is worth at about $35.96 (2 months price, including 1 month free). If I redeem it again, it’ll be worth about $53.94 ($17.98 x 3 months).

American Express Rewards Point’s points-per-dollar-spent ratio is generally around at this range: for every 1,000 points (or $1,000 spent) you get $10 worth of rewards, or $50 reward for 5,000 points. So for 1,200 points, getting a rewards option that’s worth about $35.96 to $53.94 isn’t too shabby at all.  Hmm, to redeem or not to redeem.
Update: I went ahead and claimed the reward, let’s see how long it’ll take for the subscription to arrive.