The Offer
This deal starts this Sunday.
- Receive a $20 Visa gift card when you purchase $300 or more in Visa gift cards and complete the easy rebate at Staples
The Fine Print
- Valid from May 24th till May 30th
- Limit of one rebate per household
Our Verdict
The fees for the $200 Visa gift card are $6.95, for the $100 Visa gift card it’s $5.95, and for the $50 gift card it’s $4.95. Your best bet would be to use a credit card that earns at a high rate on office supply stores. Let’s assume you use a card that earns 5% cash back and you purchase two $200 gift cards, here is your profit:
- Purchase two $200 gift cards and pay $6.95 in fees for each card (-$413.9)
- Earn 5% cash back (+$20.695)
- Receive $20 Visa gift card (+$20)
- You’ll also have the $400 in Visa gift cards (+$400)
You’ll pay $413.9 and receive a total of $440.695 for a profit of $26.795, obviously this will be higher if you value certain loyalty points at more than 1 penny a piece. Biggest problem with this deal is that you can only do it once, although here are some tactics you might be able to employ to do multiples.
Hat tip to Frequent Miler (sorry, Matt! I couldn’t last a few hours let alone a whole day)
I bought $800 of cards and did the easy rebate using my parents address for the 2nd rebate. Took the cards to Target and was able to load my redcard using the cards as debit and the last 4 digits as pin. No problems all around.
I bought the cards, but can’t figure out how to get the extra $20. I didn’t get an easy rebate receipt. Did I do something wrong?
Use this and follow the instructions: https://rebate.staples.com/staples/
you are doing a great service to our community. i don’t know where you get all the time!! But last time I did the Staples visa GC offer with the no fee Amex open business card, it coded as “staples purchase 413.90 Visa gift cards”. Got the 5 points anyway, but this bothers me. Chase Ink which I used also, coded as “office supplies”. Will Amex start doing away with the bonus on VGC? Didn’t even know Staples could report this to Amex as a gift card purchase.
Hi Barry,
That’s because Staples gives American Express access to level three data. You can read more about this here: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/does-a-credit-card-issuer-know-what-items-youre-purchasing/
I really appreciate you posting these deals, re-posting material found elsewhere or not. You provide consistent content, in a consistent format, that is short and concise. Very few blogs have the same kind of structure that you follow when posting.
Keep it up Will, don’t let harsh criticisms let you down. You’re one of the best bloggers I follow and admire for your cool demeanor. I know you’ve been accused of “stealing” deals from another site when such deal isn’t even original on their site. I’ve read you made a stand that if someone doesn’t want to willingly share it with you in the open, you just say no thanks lest you are accused of leaking it to others. You’ve made some mistakes in the past (in reference to Evolve) but instead of giving lame alibi, you owned up to it. Others have made mistakes or more appropriately they’d want some information kept to their forum to protect it but in reality, they’re the only ones who want to abuse it. That is how they’re ‘protecting’ deals without realizing deals come and go.
I don’t mind Matt’s criticism’s at all, I think he makes some valid points and it’s something I’ve been aware of anyway. As long as people make complaints in a friendly manner I’m always happy to hear them out and change my behavior appropriately. Matt has always been very kind and generous to me and my hat tip was very much tongue in cheek!
any suggestions for buying money o with visa gift cards?
Please do not allow Saverocity to influence your site. What they do is fine, but we do not need another version of it. There is a reason that your blog is the first place I go to for my info.
Keep it up, and let the others do things their way.
It says in the graphic that it’s in store only. Darn I’ll be in Toronto.
besides normal spending, is there any other way to liquidate 20 dollar visa card? I tried to load serve but failed and also read about the failure to load redbird.
Yeah, the Rebate card is just for normal spend. Doesn’t appear to work as a PIN-based debit.
Is this for in store only?