Executive Summary -
Not only can you redeem points for a new or used Chrysler, but also for other rewards like airline tickets, cash back and gift cards. But should you? I will examine it here.
If you use this card religiously and have racked up many points, it's actually good to know that you have alternatives to redeeming them besides a Chrysler vehicle. But I would assume that most holders of this card would be getting it precisely for this, to use it to get a lower "price" on either a new or used Chrysler vehicle. The key question is how much are the points worth. Well, to find out, I went to the rewards page and entered 1,000 points and found out that is was worth $10. So the return on your points is 1%, which is pretty standard for most reward programs. And there also appears to be no limits on how many points you can use for a new vehicle or any vehicle restrictions. Below is the screen shot that I have taken from their rewards site. I typed into 100,000 points and got $1,000 in value in the box (although their system does not show the number of points that I have typed in)
Aside from using points for Chrysler vehicles or services and accessories, you can use points for Chrysler gift cards. This includes getting a Dodge, Jeep and Fiat gift cards which you can use yourself or give it to some one. You can use points and redeem them for as little as $25. But it pays to redeem them in $50 denominations instead. That is because to get a $25 Chrysler Group gift card, you need 3,000 points (slightly less than 1% return). But 5,000 points gets you a $50 value (exactly 1% in value).
Another interesting feature of their reward program is that you can actually redeem points for travel (specifically airline ticket). Using points would be the farthest thing on my mind if I were thinking of getting this card. But let's look at it anyway.
According the Chrysler's website, you are free to choose the airlines and routes you want to take. But you have to call their travel agent to book the trip for you. The way the airline tickets works is as follows. Depending on the price of the ticket, you would require certain number of points. And when I looked at the ticket price compared to the number of points needed, it was actually quite attractive. The return on points was slightly more than 1%. I've taken screen shots below. I would say that if you choose to redeem points for airline tickets, it only makes sense for domestic airline tickets that cost about up to $600. You can redeem for airline tickets costing say $5,000. But it does not makes sense to redeem points for such high cost tickets because most likely these are business class international tickets. If a ticket cost $5,000, you need about 480,000 points. For most frequent flyer programs, you need only over 100,000 points for a business class international ticket.
Another interesting aspect of the reward program is their "experiential rewards". I thought this was only a perk available in better reward programs like Membership Rewards or Citi Thank You. But it looks like Chrysler rewards also have this. When I looked at what was available, it was was eye opening. Unlike other programs, you cannot ask for anything that you want. But at the lower end, you can get SpaFinder gift cards! But 2 tickets for a David Letterman show are available as rewards. So are two tickets to the Emmy awards at 120,000 points (at 1%, that is worth $1,200!). Below is a screen shot again of these experiential rewards.
Another feature of the reward program is that you make "donations". When I clicked on the link, it took me to a page which says that you can redeem points for an online certificate from justgive.org. However, there were product displays below that I could not really understand (I suspect that there is a technical issue with the website). Just look at the screen shots below and see what I mean.
Aside from travel, donations etc, you can also redeem points for cash back. However, you need to redeem 10,000 points to get a 1% return. If you return for less, the payout is slightly less than 1% and not as good. For example, you need 3,500 points to get $25 in cash back, 6,000 points for $50 and 8,500 for $75.
![//www.askmrcreditcard.com/image-files/chryslerrewardscash.jpg]()
Chrysler also allows you to exchange points for gift cards from a variety of partners (unlike the ones mentioned previously, these are non-Chrysler Group gift card parters).
I'll stop here because they are 8 more pages of retailer gift card partners!
References
1. Chrysler Rewards Home Page
Table Of Contents
