Tick, Tick, Tick. Payback points expire Dec. 31, careful not to waste them

Payback, pre covid, was a real boon.

A real endless well of points and possibilities, then slowly, with the "death" of Alitalia's Millemiglia program. and the general impoverishment of theItaly's only multi-brand point collection enthusiasm gradually waned and today, I totally stopped accumulating points.

You only have to go to the early days of TFC to see the enthusiasm and confidence I had for the Payback program, but then things didn't work out, and it's a shame because in Germany this card is a power and in the UK is Nectar, which, however, lasted less than a cat in tangeziale on the Italian market.

Payback points expire at the end of December

Dec. 31 will be the deadline for the Payback point collection, which as always will be renewed, but that Still forces its users to burn points in "now or never" mode in the sense that points accumulated up to 12/31 can be used by January 31, 2026, but not passed on the new collection or merged with those that may be accumulated in the first month of the new year.

In the heyday my use of payback points was just to move them to Millemiglia and only when the 1:1 conversion rate came out, they were great joys since with 80k payback points you could then redeem an a/r ticket in business class with Alitalia to fly to the U.S., and with little more on the rest of the long-haul

What to do with expiring Payback points

You can still transfer Payback points, with a 2:1 rate to Mymiglia, note that on the Payback site they didn't even bother to remove the Alitalia logo or replace the Millemiglia brand with MyMiglia.

Beware, however, that MyMiglia will also die on 12/31 and so if you are going to do triangulation it is better to act early.

In principle, you can convert PAYBACK points into vouchers to be used to discount the prices of products available on the Store. You will only have to choose the amount of points to convert, the product will be automatically discounted by the corresponding amount 250 points =1€.  

The point, however, is that it makes no logical, but more importantly economic, sense to target products in the Payback catalog, but the only sensible activity to do is to target conversion to gift cards, that is, in currency to be spent in physical stores, online or activities. Where 50€ can be leveraged at will and maximizing its value. I say this because the catalog consists only of old goods, stockpiles or products that have been out of production for years. Just go and look at Apple products.

iPhone 11 and 12, Intel imacs, and tablets are sold for which you would struggle to even find covers and accessories today.

Which GIft Card offers the best conversion of Payback points to cash

All gift cards in the catalog have the same conversion rate: for every 1,000 points you get 4 euros of value, so 1 point corresponds to 0.004 €.

This means that, regardless of the brand chosen, there is no difference of convenience in terms of point/euro ratio: a €5 gift card requires 1,250 points, a €10 gift card requires 2,500 points, a €25 gift card requires 6,250 points, and so on.

In the absence of temporary promotions, the conversion value remains uniform for all partners, so the most advantageous choice depends only on personal utility, favoring easier-to-spend cards such as those from Carrefour, IKEA, Decathlon or MediaWorld.

The richest way remains Carrefour

Carrefour remains, on balance, the best way to use points since the conversion rate is 1000 points = 5€, so a better rate than all other uses. Of course you have to have a store nearby and you have to have necessity in this chain, but it is definitely the biggest return you can get for the same amount of points used.

Payback points will expire on Dec. 31, the collection will be renewed, but it will not be possible to transfer points accumulated before Dec. 31 into the piggy bank of those accumulated after that date. It is important to decide how to use them before January 31, otherwise they will be lost and every point lost is money thrown away.

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