The Offer
- Office Max/Depot is offering a $15 instant discount on $300 in Visa gift card purchases.
This deal is not showing in the weekly ad, but it’s reported on Frequentmiler.
(Thanks to those who sent over photos.)
The Fine Print
- Limit one $15 discount per transaction
- Limit one transaction
- Valid 4/9 – 4/15
Our Verdict
The OM/OD deals are way better than the Staples deals since the discount comes instantly. This also opens up the potential of doing the deal more than once, like if you visit separate stores or on separate days or get a nice cashier.
The main angle here is to rack up rewards on the INK card or the SimplyCash at 5x. It could also be useful for meeting a spend threshold.
You can’t get $30 off $600 this time, so you just want to do $300 or $400 in a single transaction. The best two options:
- Buy two $200 cards for $413.90 and pay just $398.90 at the register
- Buy a $200 card and a $100 card and pay just $297.90 at the register
Either way is a win if you have the means to unload it. Depending on your situation, one of these two method is best.
Hat tip again to Frequentmiler
Not sure if the sign was still up today; I know it was last night. Nevertheless, just noticed that today’s purchase did not include the $15 discount. I will stop by Monday to see if they’ll honor the discount.
I went this morning and the promotion didn’t work. However, the signs were still out and the staff was unaware. Without asking, the manager (who was near cashier) added the $15 discount manually to both mine and my friends purchase of 2x $200. So we got lucky. His purchase was for me so that was even better.
All in all, from 4/11 to 4/15 I was able to buy 24 $200 VGCs from two different Office Depots (no repeat cashiers). I was able to liquidate them all at Walmart mostly using Bluebird and Go Bank card loads (then bill pay on Bluebird, and cash from Go Bank). I got 2 MOs at Walmart and 1 at Publix grocery store. Not one person asked to look at IDs, looked at my cards or questioned anything.
My main goal was to get the 5k spend out of Amex SPG, which I was able to do.
They ended this a day early. Drove 2 hrs for nothing.
Can confirm, sign was gone yesterday already at one store; today at another store, some guy did confirm they’ve ended early, again, on Fri this time (but I didn’t try today).
Not sure the point of ending just one day early. Even less clear why they continue running these if they have to be ended early each time now.
BTW, reddit reports that PO is already teaching its members on how to spot and block GC.
We did it again, folks! Congrats!
And yes the grocery stores work for MOs at grocery stores and do not work at places like Amazon. It was rejected at Amazon
Sorry Grocery Everywhere cards I mean
I can verify the promo worked last night and not this morning
The sign was yanked out and was told the promotion ended last night
the sign was yanked out and was told the promotion ended last night.
Today (Friday) is the last day 🙁
The flier says that the last day is April 15 (Saturday). Anyway I tried a couple of days ago, and the local OD runs out of gift cards. I will try it tomorrow again (last day). Hopefully they re-stocked the selection.
Apparently they will have the offer next week as well, wait and see.
It appears that Corporate pulled the promo one day early and it is not working today.
William, do you have info that there is another promo next week as well?
i’m also quite curious about this.
got denied today because corporate pulled the discount early for “fraud”
i suspect this is going to be the new normal going forward. they might be trying to cut down on people like us by time limiting stuff. frustrating not to be able to buy advertised items though
The managers I spoke with did not know the reason Corporate pulled the promo one day early.
If fraud was involved, Corporate would permanently remove the gift cards in question.
It is more likely Corporate terminates promos early because the marketing goals and/or budgets were met.
Do you know if the Grocery Everywhere Cards are restricted to purchases only at grocery stores?
I saw some Fashion Everywhere Cards and decided not to purchase because they appeared to be restricted only to stores that code as fashion stores.
Any opinions?
So I did try to run it at a non-grocery store, and it rejected, so it might indeed be grocery only. Still works to buy MO at grocery store I suppose.
Thanks for confirming.
They both work at the Walmart Supercenters.
Took advantage of this today.
One very interesting thing to point out…the OfficeMax I went to had these weird VGC’s called Grocery Everywhere ( https://imgur.com/a/1EHeC ) cards. The purchase fee is only $4.95, a full $2 lower than their standard $200 VGCs.
I picked up 2 and successfully unloaded them at a Fred Meyer for a MO, so they don’t appear to be anything limited…just $2 cheaper.
I intend to milk this until its dry.
Do you know if the Grocery Everywhere Cards are restricted to purchases only at grocery stores?
I saw some Fashion Everywhere Cards and decided not to purchase because they appeared to be restricted only to stores that code as fashion stores.
Any opinions?
i’m not sure. i suspect it’s just a plain debit card with special marketing packaging. i’ll try and use the 2 more i picked up today somewhere else and report back
They definitely don’t work everywhere outside of the stated categories; but some of them do work just fine for MO at most places.
Which special category visa gift cards have you used to purchase MOs at WM?
Went to Office Depot & Office Max in Northville, MI. Neither store had the $200 VGC in stock (didn’t even have an empty spot on the racks for it) only variable loads that cashier said required cash to purchase. I called other stores in the area and so far none have carried the $200 VGC; max is the $100 VGC. I have seen the $200 VGC at Staples; has anyone had luck with the $200 VGC in Michigan?
Did you try the variable loads? I bought them with cc without a problem even though one person on the floor thought they were cash only.
It takes an average of like two minutes per transaction. I got stopped prematurely today, because the line has formed, and the managers have appeared to combat it; still got a 4×2. 🙂