Office Depot Visa Gift Card Deal
Office Depot is once again offering a negative cost gift card deal for Visa gift cards, which are a popular option to increase credit card spending. Let’s take a look at the details.
The Offer
- Save $15 instantly when you buy $300 or more in Visa Gift Cards.
Key Terms
Here are the deal terms as seen on the in-store sign explaining the promotion:
- Limit one (1) offer per customer
- Discount applied at register
- Offer valid 09/03– 09/09/23
- While supplies last
While the limit of 1 is probably hard-coded into the register, some stores will allow you to do multiple transactions. This varies from store to store and even sometimes from cashier to cashier!
The Math
You can purchase a $200 Visa Visa gift card with a $6.95 fee.
Here is how the math works out on the purchase of 2 X $200 Visa gift cards from Office Depot with this new promotion:
- Cost of card: $413.90
- Minus instant rebate: -$15
- Final cost: $398.90
- Profit: $1.10
How to Earn 5X/Maximize
It is best to pay with a card that earns 5X at office supply stores such as a Chase Ink Cash. For example, a Chase Ink Cash card would earn 2060 Ultimate Rewards points on the purchase. Deals like these can also be useful if you are working towards minimum spend on new card offers too.
Conclusion
These deals are a great way rack up lots of points and keep a little bit of money in your pocket. Take a look at your local stores to see if they have this promotion.
It is usually a good idea to go early in the week before stock runs out, especially if you just picked up a new Chase Ink Business credit card. Happy 5Xing.
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
I miss the good old days of MS when I could buy $9500 in VGCs 3 times a week at Simon Malls and then buy MOs at Walmart. Was getting 2 new CCs a month and meeting min spend bonus in week one. Worked out to well over a million miles a year for over 5 years with little to no effort. The last 5 years have been pitiful. The best deal around is 5x pts at Staples with Ink on $200 VGC
This time the sign in my store said limit 10, so I was able to purchase 3 sets of 3 and get $30 off each transaction.
Just bought some the other day. The activation fee is now $7.95.
Are there ever any waived activation fee deals on the variable balance Gift Cards (e.g. $50-500)?
Thanks
Thanks! Dosh App stacked for $7.98 cash back on top of CC spending value. Unclear if OD rewards will post. Pretty sure clerk would have let me buy more in multiple transactions.
Wow! Drive around town and “make” $1.10! Then when you spend that Visa card, you get zero additional bonus points/miles/cash back. Unless everyone has a zero carrying cost for locking up cash in benefitless Visa cards, that looks like a negative benefit, rather than a negative cost.
I think you “forgot” that, if you play your cards properly, you also earn 5X points (5 x $399 = 1995 UR points or $19.95 cash, depending on which kind of credit card you use to purchase the VGCs). And if you buy several VGCs at OD/OM, you might walk away with almost 10,000 UR points or $100. So there’s that.
You can use the VGC purchases to meet new CC SUBs, leverage CC spending bonuses by meeting spending thresholds, meet annual spending thresholds (every bit helps over the course of a year) and much more; a 5% return $20 for $400 that you get right back is the floor, it’s only up from there. Still, $21 isn’t why you do this, it’s the thousands of miles or hotel points that accrue and then convert to $500 hotel nights when your investment is pennies on the dollar. Have to think big picture.
No, because now you have a bunch of Visa gift cards sitting around, earning no interest, and then you get lose potential points/miles when you finally use them. These deals always ignore the cost of carry.
You do know that you can use the VGCs to purchase MOs (to deposit) or loading Serve cards (to pay existing CC bills), right? No cost of carry.
@Tino, $400 in a liquid bank account, sitting for a year earns you $1.00. The highest LT CDs out there would earn you, and I mean LT, would earn you $12 after many years with the funds out of reach. With this deal, you immediately earn $4 to $20 cash-back or 400 to 2000 miles/points, earn $8 from DOSH, earn $1 from OD at the register – that’s as much as an immediate, day one $29. Then you liquidate into BB, move the money to your bank, and rinse and repeat. Or you pay a biller through BB that doesn’t normally accept credit cards, effectively making the GC purchase a CC payment to those billers.
Then it’s not a deal you should partake in.
FYI, OD/OM sells $200 Grocery Everywhere VGCs for $4.95 activation fee, so a little better deal if you can find them and know how to use them.
Admitting that I’ve never noticed a grocery type VGC, how would a grocery VGC be better than a generic VGC that can be liquidated “easily,” realizing that some folks have trouble some don’t. Or are you suggesting that a grocery VGC crosses any hurdles at grocery store service counters for liquidation?
It’s $2 cheaper activation fee and I can use them at grocery stores for various purchases. Of course, standard VGCs have the advantage of being useable at all stores.
@abc, that works, good to know, I can see how that helps with a CC that leverages high return on office supplies. Unfortunately for me it’s the reverse, my current Chase cards leverage 5X miles on grocery purchases. But good to know, we all have to keep up with the fine tuning of our decisions.
@abc, I try to only get VGCs for liquidation, not big into MS, but I load them to BB or WM-Bill Pay to return cash value or to pay billers that don’t take CCs. You might want to consider the same, it’s a way to double down of sorts.
Is it correct to assume you did not offer $100 + $200 ($300 in VGC) example b/c the fee and profit would remain the same while loss of $100 of 5X or other points leverage? Or some other reason? Isn’t the purchase of a $500 VGC even better with the points earned value, still the same fee / profit or better if the fee is $6.95/card?
Office Depot does not sell $500 vgc, only variable cards up to $200.
@jack, thanks for the clarification.