Who cares what its worth to you? A printer has market value and he could sell it online or elsewhere. If he chooses to give it to charity than it makes sense that he should get market value off his ma'asar( along with a tax break). After all a charity that receives a $250 printer is able to get $250 of use out of it either by selling it or using it.
One of the questions he actually asked me was if there was a black market (which is different than mileage dealers advertising and buying from individuals, don't ask me why). Not sure if/how it affected the psak.
Basically the reasons he gave were as follows. I will try my best to repeat it as close as possible to what he said. He specifically said in each case it does
not have a din of matana.
1. A signup bonus is
not the equivalent of buying something on sale (the annual fee being the payment). It's simply not a purchase, it's an investment. You can, of course, deduct the sign-up bonus as an expense, but you must pay on the "profit". The fact that it's not cash doesn't exclude it, it doesn't even fall into the category of the presents machlokes, as it is considered a 'benefit of a business transaction' (loosely his words)
2. Referral bonus. That seems pretty straight forward. It's the equivalent to a commission. Using the 'cash' rule from 1, it's pretty open-shut IMO
3. Spending. So I tried long and hard to push the rebate/ sale rule for this, but at the end he disagreed. He said those are intrinsically included in the price, while a credit card mile is more of an incentive to use the card (as I understood him) and external of the price.
I told him there are people who include the miles into the price of items they are purchasing. He asked me if it was commonplace, to which I responded no, he said that based on my answer of no, he would say it wouldn't make a difference even to those who factor it into the price (if someone disagrees with my answer, the psak may be different, but to the best of my knowledge it a very small minority, and from his answer in 4, it doesn't even seem like it would make a difference)
4. Flying. He said that flying would have the same rule as spending on a credit card. He said that the halacha is, if someone is going to NY and his ticket is $1000, but he knows that if he goes to NY he will make a $600 [profit] business deal, so his actual cost for the ticket will be $400, he still must give maser on the full $600.
Which brought us to mileage run. So if someone is paying $1000 for a flight to make $1000+, let's use $1200. He only has to pay ma'aser on $200. Al kein - if a mileage run is netting money, then the profit would be what is left after expenses. (I'm not sure how one would evaluate the points in that situation. Lechura you would take the value as originally posted, and subtract the fares).
So in summary if you are earning more than your expenses that you only pay on the profit, less or equal (as I understand his psak on equal) on the whole thing.
Sometimes I wear sneakers with my suit... and one a year I wave a chicken over my head... cause I'm a jew...
No one says it's simple or easy. It's who we are, it's what we do. And part of what we do is ask shailos if something isn't 100% clear, not pasken ourselves.
One request. If someone is going to ask questions on what I just wrote, please one question at a time, not 12 at a shot. I will try my best to answer each one based on what he told me, or go back to him and ask.