Deal has ended, view more Staples deals by clicking here.
The Offer
No direct link, but being advertised in store
- Staples stores are selling $200 Visa gift cards with no activation fees from 2/28 – 3/6
The Fine Print
- Limit 5 per customer per day
- Valid 2/28 – 3/6
- In-store only
Our Verdict
Not sure if the limit of 5 per customer per day is new (usually it’s just per customer I think). In any case it’s always nice when this deal comes around. Use a card that earns at a high rate on office supply store purchases.
Hat tip to @PackBagPoints
In Delaware just had a very difficult experience with Staples.
Staples #1 , I purchased 5x $100 gift card where the cashier called over the manager.
I asked to check out separately, however the manager cite that I can not, he will only allow me to check them out in 1 or 2 transactions. I indicated that the sign says as long as it’s under 5 cards it is ok. He said he’s the manager and has the discretion to make the rules.
Staples #2, asked for ID and credit card citing that there is significant amount of fraud. However, some of my Amex AUTH users are under different name, so I could not max out the $25 off $100 Staples offer.
Please beware!!
You can ask them to split the payment. Never had an issue splitting the payment
Did anyone get VGC in Staples today that printed out wait for 24 hours for activating the card message?
Yeah its new. Got it too today.
Iwent back to store and they have no clue. Called customer service and they connect to blackhawk and they told to have the store call them. What a run around. My store dont have have manager on sunday and have to wait till tomorrow to find how this drama unfolds.
Yeah, I went back on Sunday after waiting 24 hours but they said try again Tuesday, maybe it meant 24 business hours on the weekday. Yeah well I call it BS but did not mind waiting a bit. I would not worry about it too much as I am sure we can elevate the issue and have the manager talk to blackhawk/tech support directly. I searched and somebody said in a post of 2018 that the manager had to call troubleshooting desk to resolve the issue. I guess I got the issue because their activation server was doing maintenance work over the weekend? Whatever the reason is, I am going to get this resolved this week.
you from PA?. I got the same answer about the business hours. Went back today and same crap. Just the managers unwilling to help or give a call.
Got it resolved today. They took the old cards back and replaced them with new cards, paid by cash, with the activation fee of course since the no-fee deal is over. Fortunately, the store has enough cards for replacement. The weirdest thing is on the replacement receipt, one of the cards still has “Item will be activated within 24 hours”. I don’t have another 24 hours to wait, so I tried checking the balance…….. $200. My life is happy again 🙂
Oh and this is how I got it resolved. Since this is my regular/favorite store, I tried to be calm and polite about asking the managers and not freaking out. But in reality, I was worried sick and thought I lost the money on it already lol. I bought these gift cards on Saturday, and noticed the “Item will be activated within 24 hours” line immediately. I did notify the general manager, and he advised to wait it out since there is nothing that he could do. This is different than other times when I got cards not activated because duplicate scanning by the cashier (I don’t know why Staples machines cannot catch it. It’s just an easy fix imo). Well, the manager said he knows me and what I do so there is nothing to worry about it. Just wait it out and we will get it resolved for you if the problem persists. I took his words for it.
After waiting for 24 hours, the cards were still not activated. So I went back on Sunday and it was a nogo. I was advised to wait more maybe they meant 24 “business” hours, and not weekend. Okay fine. I have a lot of patience.
Second try today on Wednesday and it was successful. I wanted to convince them that 24-48 hours will not make any difference, so that’s why I did not come back on Tuesday. So, I came and talked to the general manager I met on Saturday. He made copy of the receipt, took my name, phone number and said he will email corporate and call me back after he is informed of the solution. Then, he called me back to the store again in the afternoon and asked me to bring all the gift cards. He checked all the gift cards to make sure the serial numbers match, then did a new transaction, paid off by cash (I did not have to pay anything). He kept a duplicate receipt to submit to corporate and off I went. The weirdest thing is one the new cards still has “Item will be activated after 24 hours” but I called the number on the back to check the balance and indeed it was activated successfully. I have no clue why I got the errors but the manager said they have been having network issues lately so that might be the reason. Anyway, I am glad I got it all resolved and I think patience and being nice / polite goes a long way in this issue.
Thanks for the detailed info. In my case, i wasn’t lucky with the store GM. So i had to call Staples president office and escalate. They intervened and activated 4 cards and one of them was bad. So they told the store to give cash for the bad one. They store called me and gave me cash as instructed. Was quite a saga that ended all well.
Bought 5 today. Shows “Item will be activated within 24 hours” on receipt. Anybody else got this?
any luck in resolving?
Does anyone know if you can buy prepaid cards (netspend and gdot) with a gc at Kroger or Albertsons/Tom Thumb self-checkout? What about at other stores—can you buy them with gc?
Cashier at Staples was surprised I only got three cards. Quite frankly, I don’t have an interest in unloading too many of these $200 cards and if I need to hit the $25 off $500 deal then I need to go every day to get $600 (and try to split payment $500 Amex and $100 ink).
i always paid more by a $1 or 2
I got $25 credit for exact $500 purchase (gift card)
Picked up 5 today, but looks like they were down to only about 20-30 left at that time. We’ll see if they’re gone tomorrow.
2 hsr after store opened yday (50 miles drive r/t), p2 got 5 & i got only the last 4
50 miles? wow… is that worth it?
P2 & mine each will see $50 stmt cr from amex ($25 for spend @ staples, another 25 for a $500 spend along with 2x MR pt on blue biz, and 5x UR pts with about $500 split on CIC
Bought $200×5 and split the payment to 2 Amex simplyCash. Triggered $25 off $100 and $25 every $500 offers. Including simplecash 5% cashback at staples, it’s 15% off. Good deal.
Nice!
Did I miss something or Office Depot has not had a GC promotion for more than 2 months?
Nope, they haven’t had any promo since just before Christmas. I always prefer Office Depot’s promo since Dosh cash back is reliably added as a double stack.
The only reason I keep my dsh acct open.
Easy buy at my Staples this morning.
Will I get 2% back from DOSH?
I used my registered Visa CC to buy one $200 GC.
No, dosh staple is online only.
3x $200 VGCs = $600 charged to Amex SimplyCash
– 25/100 Staples Amex Offer
– 25/500 spend offer
– 5% cash back
Purchased a $200 Visa GC at Staples with my AMEX that had the $25 off $100 but no email confirmation.
Did you get an email confirmation from AMEX?
I dread chasing them for the $25 promo, they give me the runaround and different answers all the time.
Thanks!
Did get email for both offers but their email system doesn’t always work — the email doesn’t matter since the credit is triggered by a fully posted charge as long as you used the correct card
Thanks, I hope. The times I did not get an email confirmation are the times I had to call AMEX customer service. Hopefully this time will be different.
Thanks again Jatan, you were correct the email did not matter as the $25 credit posted today.