Passage Summary: You can use your credit card points to buy things for less than the official sticker price, so you must be saving money compared to shopping at a normal store.

Conclusion: Credit card customers using bonus points spend less on merchandise than they would if they bought the same items at retail stores.

Reasoning: The bonus points allow customers to buy brand-name items at prices lower than the manufacturers' suggested retail prices (MSRP).

Analysis: The argument relies on a critical missing link: the relationship between the MSRP and actual retail store prices. The author assumes that retail stores actually charge the full MSRP. However, if retail stores frequently have sales or discounts that bring their prices even lower than the 'bonus point' price, the conclusion falls apart. To make this argument work, we must assume that retail stores do not generally sell these items for less than the price offered through the bonus point program.