I found out this week that Airpoints can now be used for any purchase at Mitre 10 that's $75 or over (https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/press-release-2018-mitre-10-and-air-new-zealand-airpoints-introduce-a-new-way-to-pay).
While we've moved away from an Airpoints credit card, we've still got a decent number of Airpoints that we have little opportunity to use for flights, and nearly everything on the Airpoints store is a total rip-off (eg Karcher waterblasters - only some models available, and the prices of those that are are far higher than directly from the retailer). Now we can simply purchase the actual waterblaster we're after from M10 using Airpoints instead of our own savings - a brilliant situation (and even better if I can get Mitre 10 to beat Bunning's prices by 15%, given M10 are a little more costly!).
I'm sure there may be others in this boat who can get better value from spending Airpoints on products they'd otherwise be buying, and not having to pay a premium for the privilege.
[Mods - not sure if this should be posted here or in the general thread; happy if you want to move it]