The best and worst ways to spend fast-food points in Canada
Verified August 6, 2026Updated September 2, 2026CAD, before taxGuide
Most people redeem points on impulse: the balance crosses a threshold, the app offers a list, and whatever looks good in the drive-thru lane gets tapped.
That habit costs real money, and not for the reason usually given. The advice circulating online is that redeeming for coffee is the great mistake. On verified prices it is not. The great mistake is redeeming the cheapest item in a tier when a much more expensive one costs exactly the same points.
At Tim Hortons, a $2.99 Simply Sausage Sandwich and a $5.49 Farmer's Breakfast Sandwich sit in the same 1,100-point tier. Take the wrong one and your points return 2.7% of what you spent instead of 5.0%.
The metric
Every reward is a purchase with points instead of dollars, so the value of a redemption is the retail price of the item divided by the money it took to earn the points.
- Tims Rewards earns 10 points per $1, so a 400-point reward cost $40 of spending.
- MyMcDonald's Rewards earns 100 points per $1, so a 2,000-point reward cost $20 of spending.
The head-to-head between the two programmes is in the Tims Rewards vs MyMcDonald's Rewards comparison. This page is about what to pick once you are already standing in one of them.
Tims Rewards: best and worst in each tier
Prices are from the verified Tim Hortons and breakfast menu files.
| Tier | Take this | Value | Return | Not this | Value | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 300 pts | Hashbrown or Chocolate Chip Cookie | $1.99 | 6.6% | Classic donut | $1.59 | 5.3% |
| 400 pts | Extra large Original Blend coffee | $2.35 | 5.9% | Small Original Blend coffee | $1.59 | 4.0% |
| 600 pts | Extra large French Vanilla | $3.29 | 5.5% | Medium French Vanilla | $2.79 | 4.7% |
| 800 pts | Large Iced Capp | $4.79 | 6.0% | Box of 10 Timbits | $3.29 | 4.1% |
| 1,100 pts | Farmer's Breakfast Sandwich | $5.49 | 5.0% | Simply Sausage Sandwich | $2.99 | 2.7% |
| 1,300 pts | Maple Brown Butter Scrambled Egg Loaded Box | $7.99 | 6.1% | Scrambled Egg Loaded Box | $5.59 | 4.3% |
The 300-point tier is the best value on the whole ladder, which is worth sitting with for a second: the cheapest reward Tim Hortons offers is also its most efficient one. A hashbrown or a cookie at $1.99 for 300 points returns 6.6%, beating every larger redemption on the menu including the 1,800-point tier.
The worst is the 1,100-point tier badly used. Redeeming a Simply Sausage Sandwich there returns 2.7%, less than half what the same points return on the Farmer's, and less than half what a 300-point hashbrown returns for a third of the points.
MyMcDonald's Rewards: best and worst in each tier
Prices are from the verified McDonald's and breakfast files, which cover one Toronto restaurant.
| Tier | Take this | Value | Return | Not this | Value | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 pts | Hash Brown | $3.29 | 16.5% | Premium Roast Coffee | $1.99 | 10.0% |
| 4,000 pts | Sausage McMuffin | $3.39 | 8.5% | World Famous Fries | $2.99 | 7.5% |
| 6,000 pts | Egg McMuffin | $5.99 | 10.0% | — | — | — |
| 14,000 pts | Double Quarter Pounder BLT Extra Value Meal | $19.59 | 14.0% | McChicken Extra Value Meal | $14.59 | 10.4% |
The 2,000-point hash brown is the single best redemption found on either programme, at 16.5%. The 4,000-point tier is the weakest at McDonald's, which produces an odd but real piece of advice: two separate 2,000-point redemptions beat one 4,000-point redemption. Two hash browns are worth $6.58 for 4,000 points; a Sausage McMuffin from the 4,000 tier is worth $3.39.
At the top, the 14,000-point tier is worth $5.00 more if you take the Double Quarter Pounder BLT meal instead of the McChicken meal, for identical points.
The two habits that cost you money
1. Size up, because size is free. Within a tier, the reward is the item, not the size. A brewed coffee at Tim Hortons costs 400 points whether it is a 10 oz small or a 24 oz extra large. Redeeming the extra large takes the return from 4.0% to 5.9% — a 48% improvement for one extra word at the till. The same applies to the French Vanilla at 600 points and the Iced Capp at 800.
2. Redeem the dearest thing in the tier you will actually eat. The qualifier matters. A reward you throw away is worth 0%, so the $19.59 meal is only the right answer if you will finish it. But between two things you would happily eat, the price difference is pure profit.
A third habit worth naming, because it runs the other way: do not redeem against a promotion. If an item is already discounted to $2.00, paying for it in cash and saving the points for a full-price day is straightforwardly better. Points buy the menu price, so redeem them when the menu price is high.
What about Starbucks and the other apps?
This site has no verified price file for Starbucks or for the other Canadian loyalty programmes, so there are no cents-per-Star figures here. The method transfers cleanly, though: find the tier you have reached, list everything in it, and divide each item's menu price by the spending it took to get there. The most expensive item you will genuinely enjoy is the answer, in every programme.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best thing to redeem Tims Rewards points on?
A hashbrown or a chocolate chip cookie at 300 points, both $1.99, returning 6.6% of the $30 that earned them. That is the best rate on the ladder, and it comes from the cheapest tier rather than the most expensive.
Is redeeming Tim Hortons points for coffee a mistake?
Less than commonly claimed, and it depends entirely on size. A 400-point extra large returns 5.9%, which is mid-table and perfectly reasonable. A 400-point small returns 4.0%. The size, not the coffee, is what makes it a bad redemption.
What is the worst redemption on Tims Rewards?
The Simply Sausage Sandwich at 1,100 points, returning 2.7%. It shares a tier with the $5.49 Farmer's Breakfast Sandwich, so redeeming it gives up nearly half the tier's value.
What is the best redemption on the McDonald's app?
The Hash Brown at 2,000 points. At $3.29 for $20 of spending, it returns 16.5%, the highest figure found on either programme here.
Should I save points for a higher tier?
Not automatically. At McDonald's, two 2,000-point hash browns are worth $6.58 while one 4,000-point Sausage McMuffin is worth $3.39, so saving up actively loses money at that step. Check what the next tier actually contains before hoarding toward it.
Do points cover the sales tax on a redeemed item?
That depends on the programme's terms and on the province, and it is not something I have verified for either app. Check the terms in the app rather than assuming the bill will be zero.
When should I not redeem?
When the item is on promotion. Points buy the menu price, so redeeming against an already-discounted item wastes the difference. Pay cash on a deal and keep the points for a full-price day.
Methodology and disclaimer
Redemption tiers reflect the published Canadian terms of Tims Rewards and MyMcDonald's Rewards as of September 2026; both revise their tiers, so confirm in the app before redeeming. Menu prices come from the verified files behind this site's Tim Hortons, Tim Hortons breakfast, McDonald's and McDonald's breakfast pages, recorded August 2026. The McDonald's file covers a single Toronto restaurant. Return is the item's retail price divided by the pre-tax spending required to earn the points, and excludes targeted bonus-point promotions and credit card multipliers. No figures are published for programmes without a verified price file on this site.
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