I *really* like Chick-Fil-A. They just seem to know how to do things right.
When their app came out I jumped on it and was very pleased that, not only was it intuitive, but also the restaurants knew what to do with the mobile order when you arrived. Something that most of the other fast-food restaurants would stumble on in the early days of using their apps (I’m looking at you McDonalds).
When the app was first introduced they offered scads of free entrees, milkshakes, etc. Plus they had plenty of “Just Because” rewards. As the app matured they must have realized how haphazard the rewards system was because they switched over to a system where you accrue points based off the number of dollars spent. They still have some “Just Because” rewards but nothing like in the first year or so.
When I looked at what I could get for my accumulated reward points I was struck with how many points my favorite salad (“Spicy Southwest Salad”, it’s awesome) required vs many of their other offerings. I figured there must be some rewards that are better than others so I whipped up a quick spreadsheet and give you the values here.
Keep in mind that the below reflects the point/price values of my local Chick-Fil-A as of February, 2019. But I imagine it would be similar in most places. Also, I only worked this out for my favorite items. You’ll need to get the price/points for anything else you want to check.
| Item | Points | Cost | Val/Point |
| Medium Waffle Fries | 200 | $ 1.85 | $ 0.00925 |
| Cookie | 150 | $ 1.19 | $ 0.00793 |
| Coke (lg?) | 250 | $ 1.89 | $ 0.00756 |
| 8 nuggets | 500 | $ 3.49 | $ 0.00698 |
| Sandwich | 500 | $ 3.39 | $ 0.00678 |
| Lemonade (lg?) | 350 | $ 2.25 | $ 0.00643 |
| Chicken Club Sandwich | 950 | $ 5.89 | $ 0.00620 |
| Deluxe Sandwich | 650 | $ 3.99 | $ 0.00614 |
| Spicy Southwest Salad | 1500 | $ 7.39 | $ 0.00493 |
Summary: So hands down getting yourself a MEDIUM Waffle Fries is your best value with each point being worth *nearly* one cent.
Worst value is redeeming points to get the Spicy Southwest Salad (sigh) with each point being worth just about half that for the fries.