Another Great Staples Gift Card Deal
Staples is running another great gift card deal this coming weekend. In their ad for the week of 12/7-12/13 they are advertising a $15 rebate with the purchase of $100 or more in Visa, Mastercard or American Express gift cards. Lets take a look at the details.
Deal Breakdown
Previous deals have normally offered a $20 rebate with the purchase of $300 or more in gift cards. Since this deal requires a lower purchase amount, you make a little more money, however the credit card rewards are lower overall. Lets take a look at the math.
- Cost of gift card: $105.95 (Including fee.)
- Minus rebate: $15
- Total cost: $90.95
- Profit: $9.05 plus credit card rewards.
If you have a Chase Ink, a better way to do this would be to purchase a $200 card which only costs an additional $1. Doing this will earn an additional 500 points plus the extra $100 in spending will offset the additional $1 fee since you receive a 1% rebate with Visa Savings edge. The math for a $200 card purchased with a Chase Ink card is as follows:
- Cost of gift card: $206.95
- Minus rebate: $15
- Minus Visa Savings Edge: $2.07
- Total Cost: $189.88
- Profit: $10.12
- Total points earned with Ink: 1035
Also, if you received the $20 off $100 Amex Offer on any of your cards last week, then you can stack with this offer to save even more!
Which Cards to Buy
With this deal, I would steer clear of American Express gift cards since they are harder to liquidate. Also, if you plan to use the gift cards to load Bluebird/Serve at a Walmart register, remember that these Mastercards tend to show up as credit in their POS system which can cause the transaction to fail.
In my opinion it is best to purchase the Visa gift cards which are issued by Meta Bank. These cards can easily be loaded to Bluebird or Serve and have the least amount of issues. Additionally, the pin is the last four of the card number, meaning it does not need to be manually set.
Terms & Drawbacks
As you can see, there is a small profit to be made along with some free points if you have a Chase Ink card. With that said there are a couple of drawbacks.
- Limit 1 per household.
- The rebate is in the form of a Staples gift card.
Conclusion
In the end, this is a great deal, but not one lucrative enough to go far out of your way for. Some people have had success using both home and office addresses for rebates along with addresses of trusted friends or family members. Good luck!
Couple questions. I have two other addresses that I can use to take advantage of the MIR.
If I use my Chase Ink to pay for all three, how do I go about it? Do I need to avoid entering my rewards # so the transaction isn’t tracked to me, or does this not even matter?
Can these be done online? Do I need to create an account in a family members name to purchase online if so to avoid any issues? I only have the Chase Ink in my name and no authorized user cards.
Thanks in advance.
It doesn’t matter how you pay or if you use the rewards number in my experience. I generally don’t use my rewards number since gift cards don’t count.
Just make sure all of the purchases are on separate receipts and then go to the website and use a different email for each submission.
Thanks for such a quick response!
Does this mean that I should avoid purchasing them online? I’ve never tried any gc rebate going this route so this is why I’m asking my noob question.
I only ask because it would be easier to do this than have my 6 month old tag along with me b/c it ends today so I don’t have other options.
Realized its in store only
[…] This is just a reminder that Staples is offering a $15 rebate on the purchase of $100 or more in Visa, Mastercard or Amex gift cards through tomorrow. You can find the full terms and details here. […]
I bought the $200 visa GC that you recommended…made sure it was issued by MetaBank. I happened to have another $200 visa GC from Staples in my wallet and my $20 Staples VGC from a previous promotion….all issued by MetaBank. Tried to load all 3 to Bluebird today and none of them would work. Used last 4 digits as PIN. Anyone know why this is happening? I’m no where near my monthly load limit.
The Staples rebate card won’t work for Bluebird, even though it is issued by Metabank. It is not pin enable or at least the ones I have received in the past are not pin enabled.
As for the other cards, they should work. Try registering them online and changing the pin. I had an issue once where a card didn’t work and changing the pin did the trick. You can also change the pin via the phone number on the back of the card.
I personally used the same cards three days ago and haven’t heard of any other widespread issues.
[…] BACK! I first read about this on the excellent Miles to Memories blog – it’s More free money at Staples this week, starting today. As always, I prefer to […]
Can I use the staples gift card toward purchase of other gift cards or at least toward offsetting activation fees on other gift cards?
The official policy is no, but the register doesn’t prevent it. As long as the cashier will allow you to, then there shouldn’t be an issue. You cannot use the gift card online to purchase other gift cards though.
Is this only in-store, or online too?
This is in-store only.
If I have two friends that will let me use their address do I need to do 3 separate transactions or can I do it all in one??
They would need to be purchased in separate transactions.
[…] Hat tip to Miles to Memories […]
Thanks, Shawn. I’m running errands on Saturday anyway so I’ll pop into Staples. 🙂
No problem Craig! Don’t stop there on Saturday though. The deal starts Sunday morning!
[…] opportunity for the purchase of Visa, MC & Amex gift cards this weekend. Details can be found here. Happy […]
Great minds think alike! Looks like you beat me by a few minutes. I’ll get you next time Shawn. Checking in for my AA flight this morning cost me the race :/
BTW, I think there is one wrong point in your math. You will not $1.06 cashback with Visa Savings Edge if you buy 100$ card only. the Visa Savings Edge says ” you will get 1% cash back at staples for any order above 200$”. I tested it one month ago with purchase of 89$ GPS, I never got cash back. But I successfully got cash back from Savings Edge for all my other purchase above 200$.
So, you will get 2.06 $ for 200 $ card and no cash back for 100.
Thank you. I actually realized that and updated the post a couple of minutes ago along with adding the math for the $200 gift card purchase! I appreciate your help.
Thanks for sharing.
Do you think it is better to buy 200$ visa or master card as long as we use ink or amex simple cash card. Through we pay 1$ more activation fee, we will get 500 more points and 1.06 more cash back from visa saving , which makes it becomes a better deal.
Yes if you have an Ink card, I recommend buying $200 gift cards. You will actually be spending an additional $101 which will net you $1 more from Visa Savings Edge so you will get the 500 extra points for the same cost.
the issue is with the rebate per address. most of us dont have multiple addresses to use
Yeah I agree that is a problem and it severely limits the scalability of this deal unfortunately.
Don’t you have any friends and family?
[…] Miles to Memories has all of the details here. […]