The Offer
Direct Link (page 14)
- Spend $250 in Visa gift cards and get a $20 Visa rebate card via Staples Easy Rebate.
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.
These are MetaBank gift cards and can be liquidated by loading Bluebird/Serve. The last 4-digits of the card is the default PIN.
The Fine Print
- Deal valid from Sunday 3/15/15 until Saturday 3/21/15
- In-Store only
- Must complete a Staples Easy Rebate to get $20 Visa Rebate card
- Limit of one rebate per household
[Read: How to get more than one staples easy rebate]
Our Verdict
Nice to see another one of these. The past deal we had in January was the same $20 rebate card for $300 in gift card spend. Nice to see that they lowered it to $250 this time.
Here’s a few sample deal scenarios:
- If you have an INK card or a different card which earns 5x at office supply stores, then your best bet is to buy two $200 gift cards for a fee of $13.90. You’ll get back $20 from the rebate and another 2070 Ultimate Reward points from the credit card.
- If you don’t have INK, and you’re planning on unloading the cards on regular spend or to load REDbird, then your best bet is to buy one $200 card and one $50 card to minimize the fees. You won’t gain any credit card points (since you’ll be using the cards in place of ordinary credit card spend) and you’ll just gain $8.10 after accounting for the activation fees.
- If you don’t have INK, and you’re planning on unloading by loading Bluebird/Serve, then you’re best bet is to buy two $200 gift cards. You’ll profit $6.10 after accounting for the fees, plus you’ll get 414 credit card points, or a $8.28 value on a 2% cashback credit card. Total profit of $14.38.
Ultimately the deal is mainly good for someone with an INK card, but it may be worthwhile for someone who can unload via Bluebird/Serve or maybe for someone who will unload with regular spend.
I went to try to get this deal at Staples in Muncie, Indiana, but they told me that it only applied to $25 cards, $50 cards, $100 cards, and the $200 multi-pack (4 $50 cards with total purchase fee of $14.95). They said those were the only valid SKUs. I left without doing the deal. Has this happened to anyone else?
I haven’t done the deal yet, so I can’t say from personal experience. I’d guess the cashier is wrong since I haven’t seen anyone mention that.
If anyone can chime in with personal experience of buying a $200 gift card and getting the rebate printed, please let us know.
I tried a different Staples in Marion, Indiana. They didn’t have $200 visa gift cards, so I bought three $100 gift cards, with total fees of $17.85. The rebate receipt printed showing many more SKUs as valid than I was shown at the list from Muncie Staples, so I think $200 cards would have qualified if they had been available. I think Muncie either had an unusual local policy or the emploeyes were just wrong.
I bought $200 and $50. Rebate receipt printed.
When I try to add one of the $200 Visa Gift Cards that I bought from Staples to my Amex Serve account as a debit card I get “CARD ISSUER DECLINE TRANSACTION CODE”. Anyone know what this means?
Where did you try to load it?
I tried to load it from the website under Settings, Bank & Cards, Debit Card.
Kenneth, you can’t use prepaid/gift cards to load Serve. Only a permanent debit card.
Could you explain why Redbird is included in the second option and not the third option? It seems the only difference between 2 and 3 is whether or not you are using a credit card with 2% cash back instead of what looks like you’re buying the gift cards with cash in the second option.
In the second option, you could have loaded Redbird with a 2% credit card directly, so there’s no use in buying higher denominations and you’re not gaining extra credit card points.
I took advantage of this deal today(2 $200 cards). They only charged me for 1 activation fee. I pointed it out but the cashier acted like it was okay. Both of my cards were activated.
Nice little bonus there.