The Offer
Direct Link (next weeks ad page 13)
- Purchase $300 in Amex gift cards and receive a $20 Staples gift card via Staples Easy Rebates.
You need to submit a Staples Easy Rebate in order to get the $20 gift card. The rebate form will print out at the time of purchase.
The Fine Print
- Valid 8/30/15 – 9/5/15
- Limit 1 offer per household
- The terms do not exclude online purchases, but staples.com doesn’t seem to sell the Amex cards, so you’ll have to get it in-store
Our Verdict
Not an amazing deal since it’s an Amex gift card which is harder to deal with and the rebate is in the form of a Staples gift card. Still it could be useful for some.
If you buy two $200 Amex gift cards and pay with INK, you’ll end up with 2070 UR points. You can then cash out the Amex gift card via Plastiq; you’ll lose  ~$8 on the bill payment fees and another ~$14 on the card activation fees. If we’d value the $20 Staples gift card at $17, you’re paying $5 for 2070 UR points. That’s a good deal of course, but the question is if it’s worth the effort involved.
HT: mistercheap on Fatwallet
==== WARNING WILL ROBINSON – WARNING! 🙂 ==== AMEX GCs often do not activate at Staples +++ major heachache not worth the points! +++
Today, I called AMEX for the third time in 30 days, to inquire WHEN would the 8 each $200 AMEX GCs (bought at Staples in June during the last rebate offer) be refunded or replaced, since the POS at Staples did not activate them, BUT I was charged to my Ink card.
AMEX gave me NO estimated time to replace / fix and just said they needed more time …again … 30 plus days to float $1600 is bull … AMEX is getting slack. I told them I was going to contact the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and I did, and asked them for help.
I will NEVER buy AMEX GCs from Staples … not worth the headache, 2 years in a row!
The last two times I bought AMEX GCs at Staples, about 80% of them did NOT activate in-store, and had to be swapped with working ones from AMEX, requiring to wait 1 -2 mos while I floated more than $1000 … not worth the effort!
Staples has some really OLD AMEX cards with POS activation issues! Maybe this is why they are trying to “unload” them!
This appears to be a fantastic deal if you have the Amex Staples offer loaded on your amex card ?
if you find a cashier smart enough to split payments then yes. free $$… 😉