$200 Visa Gift Cards on Staples.com and $20 Staples Easy Rebate for a $300+ MasterCard Gift Card Purchase
Staples has been busy lately, and it is the good kind of busy, busy making good deals for us miles and points “collectors.”
(Hat Tip to Chasing The Points)
You can now order $200 Visa Gift Cards on Staples.com. Previously, the highest denomination you could purchase online was $100. The price online is the same as in-store ($206.95 with free shipping). Purchase here.
The best part of shopping online is shopping through online shopping portals. Cash Back Monitor has these Staples.com shopping portal payouts (other cash back offers are available, click the link to see them all):
Some people are skeptical of earning cash back going through the Discover shopping portal (must have a Discover Card to get a Discover account), but here is proof of a gift card purchase from a few weeks ago (paid with my Chase Ink Bold Visa):
Reverse math: $21.39 / 5% = $427.80 / 4 = $106.95 = $100 Visa Gift Card + $6.95 Activation Fee
Will from Doctor of Credit (link) has an alternative idea for earning cash back with Swagbucks. I haven’t tested it out myself, but I prefer easy Discover cash back over other cash back portals.
As for the other gift card promo Staples is running (Hat Tip to Big Habitat), you can get a $20 Staples Gift Card for purchase $300 or more in MasterCard Gift Cards in one transaction (in-store only).
Rebate is pretty straightforward, just go here. Need help with Staples Easy Rebates, read this guide Staples Easy Rebates Steps.
As always, if you have a Chase Ink Bold/Plus Visa Credit Card, sign up for Visa Savings Edge so you can receive 1% statement credit back to your Visa.
P.S. You can use Staples Gift Cards to buy Visa Gift Cards online. Trust me, it works. Shhhh.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Happy shopping!
Thanks for the HT, Grant. I’ve gone ahead and purchased a few GCs through SwagBucks, if it pans out I’ll be making a 16% ROI. Nice little tip about the Staples GCs to buy Visa GCs as well, do you know if you can apply multiple GCs to the one purchase?
I’ve used at least 3 Staples gift cards in one order, I’m not sure what the limit is. Let me know if you find out. Thanks Will.
Thanks Grant. When you purchase through the Discover portal using your Chase Ink Bold, do you still get the 5% back from Chase Ink Bold besides the 5% from Discover portal?
Yes, 5% cash back from Discover portal and 5x with Chase Ink. If you use Visa Savings Edge, you get an additional 1% cash back.
Grant, there’s no need to advertise the option of paying for Visa GCs with Staples GCs since it’s obviously a loophole. I’ve done it a couple of times and some of the orders were cancelled because of that. In addition, I personally know one person who was banned by Staples for this exact practice and can no longer order Visa GCs online using his address.
I’ve known about this trick for a few months but have kept it on the down low. Now that Staples lets you buy $200 Visa Gift Cards online (not sure this will last very long), I thought I would share. I wouldn’t use gift cards on every order, but it’s a good way to spend small Staples Gift Cards from some of their rebates.
i have a discover card, but it only says i would get double miles on the portal ? do i need to upgrade my type of discover card? or it will just automatically post?
I have the Discover It, do you have a different card?
ya the basic miles one . .
You might need the Discover It card to get access to the better shopping portal.
… or the old Discover More card (maybe other older ones too).
The limit is 5 GCs.
What is the major advantage of swagbucks? It looks like it is 6% with swagbucks. I get 5.5% with upromise. Need to wait a year to get that extra 0.5%. Do swagbucks post faster then upromise? I get my money from upromise every time, but it is a 2 to 3 month wait. Also, can you redeem swagbucks for cash at the same rate as if redeeming for walmart gift cards?
I think you get a slightly higher cash back rate, but I prefer Discover cash back since it is easier to use.
Your Discover statement does say “pending”. Have you ever had it not posted after review?
With Visa Savings Edge, do they post the rebate to your credit card account, e.g., if I guy with my Chase Ink card will the rebates appear on that statement?
Also, any thoughts on limits of $200 cards you can buy?
Yes the savings edge 1% cash back posts to your CC statement. Grant has a post regarding that. just search visa savings edge
Yes, thanks Ajay. The statement credit goes directly to the Visa business credit card you used to make the qualifying purchase. You can learn more about Visa Savings Edge here: http://travelwithgrant.com/plink-points/visa-savings-edge/
I have only had my Discover It Credit Card for a few weeks, so I still haven’t even received my first statement yet. I assume it will post on that statement, but the email does say 6-8 weeks, so it might post the following statement. From other shopping portals, if you get an email that says they are tracking your shopping portal purchase, you have a really high success rate. If anything changes, I will post something on my blog.
I just bought 5 $200 Visa Gift cards using Ink, Savingsedge, Upromise (instead of Discover). This is my first time having gift cards mailed to me. Usually I bought them in store where they were activated, VRs. Now I’m concerned about the risk of these cards coming through the mail. For those of you who have received these visa or m/c gift cards through the mail, how are they activated? Do you have to prove identity such as your staples e-mail, etc or can anyone activate these if delivered to the wrong address, stolen, etc? If there is no security protection, this is just like the vendor sending you cash in an envelope, right?
Staples will send the $200 gift cards in separate letters in the mail. The gift cards are inactivate when you receive them. In a separate letter, they will mail the activation code. You then go online and activate the gift cards one at a time. After activating them, you can set a PIN online. Since you bought 5 gift cards, you should get 10 letters, maybe they will combine some in the same envelopes.
Gift Card Mall has good customer service and can help if the gift cards or activation codes are lost in the mail.
Hi Grant. Thanks for the GREAT tip on this!
What’s the Mastercard version of the Visa program?
What’s the alert level at which point Staples or UPromise or someone won’t fulfill the order? It’s amazing that UPromise gives 5%. That’s an incredible subsidy from Staples.
The MasterCard equivalent is MasterCard Easy Savings: http://www.mastercard.com/easysavings/common/en_US/index.html
They don’t partner with any office supply stores unfortunately.
Glad to hear about the 2 letter protocol. That puts me more at ease. Thanks.
I never received my activation code letters but was able to call Gift Card Mall and they helped me activate them over the phone. They verified my info with the Staples order info.
Can i buy the GC on online and still get the $20 Staples Gift Card ?? Thanks
Staples only sells Visa Gift Cards online, so you will have to purchase the MasterCard Gift Cards in-store.
They sell Visa in-store here in NJ, including $200 version.
Yes, same here in SoCal.
Hi Grant, I just received the visa gc’s I ordered. Do I still need to activate online or can I just go to walmart and load on my bluebird card immediately? Thank you!
You have to activate the gift cards online. I am working on a post now about the gift cards form Staples.
Wondering if you are having problems accessing the orders page on Staples.com? I’ve tried for 4 days now and it always come back as non-functional with a message. Tried different computers, browsers, etc. So I finally wrote them yesterday and they confirmed there is an issue. Today still no resolution so I called Staples. She refused to tell me why there was an issue but also confirmed their orders pages are down and have been for days. I asked if this involved any type of security breach and she again wouldn’t answer, like pleading the 5th. Anybody else having problems?
Me too. I bet they end up not fulfilling 95% of these orders. The did something like this a year or 2 ago. Took FOREVER to have the pending credit drain removed from my Chase card. 5 weeks as I recall. Staples is incompetent and uncaring.
Thanks for your info. Sheds a little light, dark light unfortunately.
My orders page doesn’t show up either, I get this message:
“We’re sorry, but this feature is temporarily unavailable. Please try again in a few minutes. If this problem continues, email us at support@orders.staples.com or call a Staples associate at 1-800-STAPLES (1-800-782-7537) for assistance.”
Grant – how long does it take for the Discover cash-back to hit? Before I jump in for more than onesies-twosies, I’d like to see if my first order (last week) actually pulls through on Discover. Thanks!
If you purchased your cards after 4/30 through any cash back portal, indications are that Staples won’t pay out. There was an internet report on it yesterday.
One person on Flyertalk said he got a an e-mail stating Staples won’t commission affiliates sales on gift cards. He stated he is an affiliate. We’ll see if the portals back off their 5%.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending/1572582-200-dollar-visa-gift-cards-staples-com-25.html
Interesting, thank you for the link Kent.
Hmm can you send me a link to that site or FlyerTalk thread? Thanks Mike.
http://www.doctorofcredit.com/staples-to-no-longer-offer-cash-back-through-portals-on-gift-card-purchases/
Thanks Mike, I’ll read that article when I get home.
I’ll check my Discover It statement and give you some dates. Thanks RJP.
The discover portal says “Must link to retailer site from the ShopDiscover Web page found at Discover.com and use your Discover Card for each transaction”
Did it say that about using your discover card when you ordered or is that new wording?
I believe that wording has always been around. As far as I know, you will not earn any online portal payouts if you buy Visa gift cards from Staples.com.