This deal has now been verified by readers, I’ve updated this post to include more information and make it more accurate. Enjoy this deal, it’s a great one!
The Offer
- Receive a $20 discount when you purchase $300 or more in Mastercard/Visa giftcards from Office Max
At Office Max you will need to ask the cashier to scan the coupon in their book.
The Fine Print
- Limit of two discounts per household/business is stated in the promotional poster, in the Office Max promotional booklet (which they use to scan a barcode to “activate”) it states a limit of one per household business. To get around this show them the promotional poster and you should not have a problem with them honoring two per household/business.
- Valid in store only
- Valid until November 29th, 2014
- Some cashiers will claim they can’t split tender, others will happily do so. This is a your milage may vary situation.
- Activation fees are $6.95 on the $200 cards
Our Verdict
Usually the most profitable method would be to use a credit card that earns 5% on office supply stores. Let’s look at that first:
- Purchase three $200 gift cards, total cost: $580.95 ($560 after two $20 discounts and $20.95 in activation fees)
- Earn $29.0475 in cash back
You’d end up making $48.0975 using this method, more if you value certain loyalty points are more than a penny a piece.
If you recently got the American Express sync offer for $10 back on purchases of $50 or more at Office depot the deal is much more profitable (this deal is now over unfortunately). Ask your cashier to split tender and use multiple American Express cards enrolled in this offer to get the biggest bonus. Theoretically you could use 11 separate cards to score you $110 in statement credits. You’d get the following for your $580.95 in outlay:
- $110 in statement credits
- $600 in Mastercard giftcards
- Loyalty points from $580.95 in spend
You’d be profiting $130+ from this deal, although chances are you don’t have 11 cards that are enrolled in this offer.
I went to my OM this after noon. There were plenty of both versions. My intent was to split the $400 transactions between amex (sync offer) and ink bond. The cashier thought she cold and another cashier said they couldn’t split up gift card purchases. Have you had experience in doing this and it work? Any advice on how to get around this?
Rich
No luck at OD either — cashier even overrode the cash only policy, but there was no promotion attached.
OM was limit 1, and no $200 VGCs, only $100. So there’s like some regional differences going on here.
Is OD auto 20 off?
I was able to find this deal in office max. You can buy either visa or master card > 300 to qualify for this offer. Valid until tomorrow. Limit one per customer.
I went to my local Office Depot. There was no mention of the Mastercard gift card promotion, just the iTunes and dining gift cards promotion. That was irrelevant though, because apparently it is Office Depot policy to not accept credit cards for prepaid gift card purchases. It says so by the gift card selection, and I think it is hard coded at the register because after the cashier rang up the gift card there was a thing that I didn’t see quite clearly that popped up, and she told me about the credit card restriction.
Picture shows that Visa or Master gift cards are qualified. Unfortunately, they don’t available in my areas
Any idea how many cards they can do on a split transaction? I have 10 AMEX cards synced to the $10 off $50 deal, so I could potentially split 10 ways and profit $119…although that’d be incredibly annoying for the cashier…
I was able to do this deal @ office max.