Should you “buy with points” on Amazon?

As the coronavirus pandemic continues into the fall, you may be taking a closer look at your Travel Rewards credit cardsnot to mention all of your credit card rewards point balances. If you don’t plan on traveling anywhere for a while – and you have a large point balance – you might be thinking of other ways to spend them.

Maybe you are using an Amazon Prime account to secure basic necessities and buy less in person. (If you don’t have a subscription, but want one, here are the ways to get free account.) If so, when you reach the checkout page during the Amazon checkout process, you may notice a Shop with points option for linked credit cards. While it may be tempting to get a quick discount on your order, you should first consider your other options. Here’s why: Depending on your rewards credit card, using your points this way may not provide the best redemption value.

As NerdWallet reports, Amazon, Discover, and Capital One cards offer the highest redemption value, at 1 cent per reward point. For Amazon co-branded credit cards, using your points to make purchases probably makes sense, but while Discover and Capital One cash back rewards also offer a 1: 1 redemption, you can simply take the points back for cash or apply them to another offer that might be richer than Amazon’s.

Rewards credit cards like Capital One Miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards®, Citi ThankYou Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Hilton Honors, on the other hand, all offer less than 1 cent per point. This makes them less attractive to buy with points – and you’d better withdraw those points for cash back.

Of course, you can do better than a 1: 1 redemption with your Travel Rewards credit cards: many rewards programs offer travel redemptions for 1 to 2 cents or more per point. (There is a handy chart for some of the more popular programs here.)

So if you’re planning a big post-pandemic trip, you might want to skip Shop With Points. But if you’re struggling to cover the basics, it may be worth using Shop with Points or taking your reward points as cash back, depending on your credit card.