New Yorker uses Citi Bike rides to pay for a Nintendo Switch 2

2 hours ago 1

Published Feb 13, 2026, 3:30 PM EST

One New Yorker's own personal odyssey

A Switch 2 in tabletop mode playing Mario Kart World

While most people likely paid for their new Nintendo Switch 2 with a credit card, or perhaps straight cash, one New Yorker took a different approach — converting Citi Bike points into gift cards, and using those to purchase Nintendo's latest console.

Chris Person of Aftermath recently completed a seven-month journey to accumulate enough Citi Bike points to cover the price of the Switch 2, $449.99. As Person explains, Citi Bike has a voluntary incentive program called Bike Angels for users to earn points and convert those points to cash.

Essentially, the bike share program awards users who ride bikes from docks that are overloaded with bikes to docks that don't have enough bikes. (It stands to reason: a bike share program is only viable if there are bikes available for users.) Bike Angels doles out points for each trip. Bringing a bike to a station that needs more bikes unlocks a 2X point multiplier, and doing three of those rides unlocks a 3X point multiplier, which those invested in the program make heavy use of. 1,000 points can be converted to a $150 giftcard.

After seven months, including a period during which he could not ride due to a broken foot, Person eventually reached the 3,000-point threshold required to cash out enough gift cards for a Switch 2. He gamified the system, farming points and min-maxing it in ways you'd expect a gamer to. ("I cannot resist the gamer’s grotesque urge to ruin a nice bike ride by minmaxing," he wrote.)

This program, however, blurs the line between work and volunteering, and Person's journey spotlights "how slippery the idea of work has become by design, how soft the boundaries between the personal and professional." Read the full story on Aftermath for Person's conclusions and things he learned along the way, like how a group of riders gamed the system for an abundance of cash, drawing the attention of the New York Times.

Person did not immediately respond to Polygon's request for comment, but said on Bluesky that he has played the Switch 2 "like twice since I've gotten it."

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