How much are verizon "smart rewards" points worth?

1 article.md

How much are verizon "smart rewards" points worth?

TLDR: Each point is worth about 0.012¢ - 0.109¢ ($0.00012 - $0.00109) depending on what you want and how many you have. The more you have, the more they're worth, but what you get also makes a big difference.

I just noticed that verizon has a rewards program, and so I spent a few minutes trying to work out approximately how much my accrued 74,710 points were worth. There are a few different ways to spend the points, but the gift card auctions seemed like one of the most straightforward ways of getting a real-world value. Helpfully, verizon will show you all past auctions on a single (huge) page, and they even include a copy of jQuery for easy data scraping!

Here's a quick one-liner that you can paste into the console to reduce the page to a single chunk of JSON (after it loads) that you can easily copy-paste to somewhere else:

$(function() { var data = $('li.auctionItem').map(function(){ var el = $(this); return {name: el.find('h1').text().trim(), points: parseInt(el.find('.bidAmt').text().trim().replace(',', '')), ended: new Date(el.find('.endTime').text().trim().replace('ET','')), link: el.find('a.details')[0].href}; }).toArray(); $('body').html('<textarea>' + JSON.stringify(data, null, 2) + '</textarea>'); });

Warning: the page automatically redirects you to your "my account" page after a few minutes, so be sure to grab the JSON as soon as it's ready.

Data in hand, I broke out node.js and lodash for some quick analysis. The full script and results are below, but the short version is that it mostly depends on how many points you have. Lower-ticket items like $5 and $10 gift cards cost upwards of 5k points per dollar, however the larger $50 and $100 gift cards can be had for ~2k points per dollar or less. And if you really save up your points, the "big ticket" combo packs can go down as low as 1/10th of that.

But, with my measily few points, the best I can afford is a $10 gift card. Which probably explains why they're so expensive...

Analysis

3657 of 4025 auctions were gift cards (91%)

Average points per dollar by gift card amount: (Note: larger amounts may be combo packs that include a gift card + other items)

vendor	overall	$5	$10	$25	$50	$100
all (combined)	2056	5791	5482	3233	2182	1446

Average points per dollar for gift cards from most common vendors:

vendor	overall	$5	$10	$25	$50	$100
Verizon Wireless	2669			3666	2815	1954
Restaurant.com	1151			1702	1337	921
Target	4071	7116	8164	4425	3580	2240
Walmart	3555	6328	6522	4889	3524	2159
Dunkin Donuts	3824	6689	6707	3382	2537
CVS	2582	5467	4884	3436	2340	1376
Macy's	2643		4390	4002	3007	1867
Best Buy	3992	5661	5105	5348	3199	2359
TGI Fridays	3826	4685	4609	3727	3084
Nike	2386		4417	3144		1358

Best deals (for vendors with at least 15 past auctions):

vendor	overall	$5	$10	$25	$50	$100
Restaurant.com	1151			1702	1337	921
Tony Roma's	1342		1638	2216	1003	973
Boston Market	2144		4345	3357		1291
Nike	2386		4417	3144		1358
Safeway	2390		3247	2958	1565
BP	2517	4763		4391	2668	1454
CVS	2582	5467	4884	3436	2340	1376
Chevron Gas	2600		5977		2703	1750
Macy's	2643		4390	4002	3007	1867
Verizon Wireless	2669			3666	2815	1954

2 analysis.js

// requires node.js
// run the jquery one-liner in article.md, save the results in a file, load that file below.
// also, `npm install lodash tty-table`

var data = require('./vzw-auction-results.json');
var _ = require('lodash');
var table = require('tty-table');

// parse names for gift card details
data.forEach(function (d) {
    var gc = d.name.match(/(.*) Gift .* \$([0-9,]+)/) || d.name.match(/(.*) \$([0-9,]+) Gift .*/);
    if (gc) {
        d.isGiftCard = true;
        d.vendor = gc[1];
        d.value = parseInt(gc[2].replace(',', ''));
    }
});

function pluck() {
    var keys = _.toArray(arguments);
    return function(obj) {
        return _.pick(obj, keys);
    };
}

function formatDollars(v, k) {
    return '$' + k;
}


function printTable(vendors) {
    var headers = ['vendor', {value:'averagePointsPerDollar', alias: 'overall'}, '$5', '$10', '$25', '$50', '$100']
        .map((d) => typeof d == 'string' ? {value: d} : d);
    console.log(table(headers, vendors).render().replace(/#ERR/g, '    '));
}


var giftCards = _.filter(data, 'isGiftCard');

console.log('%s of %s auctions were gift cards (%s%)', giftCards.length, data.length, Math.round(giftCards.length/data.length*100) );


console.log('\nAverage points per dollar by gift card amount: \n(Note: larger amounts may be combo packs that include a gift card + other items)');
printTable([_.extend({
        vendor: 'all (combined)',
        averagePointsPerDollar: Math.round(_.sum(giftCards, 'points') / _.sum(giftCards, 'value')),
    }, _(giftCards)
    .groupBy('value')
    .mapValues(function(dollarAmountAuctions) {
        return Math.round(_.sum(dollarAmountAuctions, 'points') / _.sum(dollarAmountAuctions, 'value'));
    })
    .mapKeys(formatDollars)
    .value()
)]);


var byVendor = _(giftCards).groupBy('vendor').map(function(auctions, vendor) {
    return _.extend({
        vendor: vendor,
        numAuctions: auctions.length,
        averagePointsPerDollar: Math.round(_.sum(auctions, 'points') / _.sum(auctions, 'value')),
    }, _(auctions).groupBy('value').mapValues(function(dollarAmountAuctions) {
        return Math.round(_.sum(dollarAmountAuctions, 'points') / _.sum(dollarAmountAuctions, 'value'));
    }).mapKeys(formatDollars).value());
});


console.log('\nAverage points/dollar for gift cards from most common vendors:');
printTable(byVendor
    .sortBy('numAuctions').reverse()
    .take(10)
    //.map(pluck('vendor', 'averagePointsPerDollarByValue'))
    .value()
);

console.log('\nBest deals (for vendors with at least 15 past auctions):');
printTable(byVendor
    .filter(function(d) { return d.numAuctions > 15; })
    // sort by the overall average, but display the individual gift card amount averages since that's what users can bit on
    .sortBy('averagePointsPerDollar')
    .take(10)
    //.map(pluck('vendor', 'averagePointsPerDollarByValue'))
    .value()
);

Hi, I’d thought you might find this youtube video interesting regarding the Verizon rewards program. I agree the program is quite ridiculous but this lady has a worthwhile suggestion to donate a decade’s worth of points to a children’s hospital like St. Judes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AVFuyhPbSE

The points now expire after a year or two.