Frequent flyer miles can get you that latte.

This is my new favorite discovery! 

For years my husband and I have had a credit card that was attached to an airline.  The airline often had blackout dates when we were flying.  Or we wanted to travel together and we could get tickets that were less expensive on another airline.  Or we just didn't think of using them.  Often frequent flyer program miles expire but because these points were attached to a credit card we accumulated around 30,000. 

So, I found this website called Points.com.  Using this site, you can use your points from a variety of travel and financial rewards programs and exchange them for gift cards for restaurants, department stores, clothing retailers, internet stores, music, etc.  as well as swap them with people and keep balances among other things.  Some partners do not allow you to do all of the exchanges offered but... yeah for me!...our 30K pointer airline that would only allow travel related redemption on their own site scored us 2 $25 Chilis cards (that are also good at a couple of related restaurants), one $25 Sonic gift card and I even found free lattes.  Yes, we got a $47 Starbucks card.  I am tearing up.

The other cool thing about this site is that we also have a credit card company that has decent redemption rewards in their membership points program.  But you can use this site to exchange points for additional redemption partners that the company may not offer you. Signing up has not cost us anything so far that I know of and we did get our cards. 

So if you are tucking those frequent flyer miles away for the next time you have to take a trip.  Or if you have points in a hotel program or  have points that are going to expire, maybe you should consider registering them on this site and turning them into something you can use now.

And if you are truly desperate, you can sell the card on Ebay, buy a single latte and pay your electric bill. 

www.points.com