"My understanding pharmacists received one point for every...

"My understanding pharmacists received one point for every dollar they spent on Sigma products.Is this incorrect?"

Exactly, its incorrect. As I said about the interchange fees, each month the pharmacy will get an invoice for 'Sigma Rewards' (0.4% of monthly account). This is actually a bill that the pharmacy pays. Sigma pays the other (IIRC 0.3%) of the interchange fee. I won't go into the full story of why this came about, but in simple terms, Sigma gets its money faster and the pharmacy is buying their holidays using pre-tax dollars (like a salary sacrifice). Don't know anyone who has gone skiing in Dubai, most would be more like a trip to the gold coast and since they are paying for it anyway can't see how its relevant.
http://www.sigmarewards.com/Tour/how.html

In that highly researched article, the author would have you believe that giving out all these freeby 'reward points' for exotic holidays has sent Sigma to the brink ie.
"the rewards scheme owed 1500 pharmacists about $518 million worth of points."
Do the arithmetic and it works out to $350k per pharmacist, DING DING DING Any alarm bells here? The average entire pharmacy doesn't get close to that in net profit each year, yet each pharmacist (remembering often more than 1 owns a pharmacy) has more than that in rewards points, COMPLETELY INSANE!
That $500m is the value of stock, which sounds about right on a per pharmacy basis. The value of the points outstanding would be a tiny fraction of this.
No one has even questioned that figure!

"According to the Sigma Rewards website, points can be redeemed by pharmacists for exotica such as hovercraft and skiing holidays to Dubai.
Companies involved in the scheme include Qantas, Audi, BMW and ANZ Bank"
Its great to know that reporters can google and look at pictures.

Thinking that Sigma can not honour something that doesn't suit them, would be like thinking that Telstra would be better off just clearing everyones prepaid credits and starting fresh, It aint that simple