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Every Grand View student is required to have some sort of meal plan, and with every plan comes a declining balance of points that you can use at three locations: Einstein’s Coffee, The Grand View Express, or in the cafeteria to purchase meals.

The points are applied to a student’s account at the beginning of each semester leftover points at the end of the semester do not roll over.

Throughout the semester students often forget about these points and their declining balance ends up not declining by much at all.

The dining service team wanted to make sure students were getting the most out of their points so they introduced the GV Express bulk order form. Dillon Suhr, the mastermind behind the order form shared his thoughts on the points system.

“I told my boss that I knew a lot of students had left over points and we could encourage them to use the points by giving them discounted prices,” Suhr said.

William Grunow, head of dining services, has seen students lose points before and he does not want that to be the case this year.

“I’ve seen some students with as much as $300 on their declining balances still,” said Grunow.

Suhr also discussed some changes that he’d like to see be made to the points system.

“Right now, we can only use points at the GV Express or at Einstein’s. I believe we should be able to use them at the bookstore,” Suhr said. “It would still be revenue for the university and some of the best marketing is what people are wearing.”

Another way one could use their points requires a little holiday spirit.  The student ministries outreach coordinators Karina Johnson and Brittany Carlson organized a plan to use extra points to help others.  A donation box was located near the main desk in the student center for the past week.  The intention was that students would use their extra points to buy food from the GV Express and donate it to the food pantry through student ministries.

“All donations will be used to fill the mini food pantry outside of Luther Memorial Church that serves Grand View students and the local community,” Carlson said.

So if you’re running out of points, now is the time to spend them. Here are some ideas of things you can do with your leftover points.

• Use your points to pay for the next person’s coffee, snacks, etc.
• Buy large quantities of snacks from GV Express and donate them to the food pantry
• Stock up on energy drinks for finals week
• Buy a dozen bagels from Einstein’s and surprise your roommates
• Bribe your teachers to bump your 68% to a 90% with 50 bags of nacho cheese Doritos
• Invite friends that don’t go here to eat in the cafeteria and buy their meal with points