Using Points for Christmas Shopping? Now's the Time to Order.

I remember one Christmas my mom used green stamps (remember those?) to get all our Christmas presents. Genius!

If you've been racking up rewards points, there are a few ways to use them to get extra mileage when Christmas shopping.
1) You could order an actual gift from the rewards catalog, like the bumble bee shaped flashlight I just ordered for my little one.
2) You could order a gift card to give as a gift.
3) You could order a magazine subscription as a gift.
4) You could order a gift card that you use to do your Christmas shopping.

However you slice it, getting those rewards can take as much as 6-8 weeks! So, now's the time to order because the 8 week mark puts the calendar near Thanksgiving (yikes!). Putting off an order will leave you with no time to try to resolve any issues if things don't arrive in 6-8 weeks. And if you're planning to shop with your gift card, you want to get it in enough time to hunt up the best deals, and Black Friday.

The one exception to all this being a gift magazine subscription. Order those in mid-October so issues don't start arriving before the holidays. Your gift might start arriving with the December issue, but more likely, with the January one.