Today I buy 5 Gengars, at 53.00 making it 53 points per friend gives me 265 points, or roughly 20 usd to spend later. However I can see why they redeem when they do, lets take todays release GENGAR for example. so we do not need to pull up our email time and time again.
The point system would be better too if we could interact or have an intractable interface to see how we earned points, previous transactions, saved coupons etc.
500 points and wont see them anytime soon- but regardless I do agree that there is room for improvement.