UPDATE 3/23/2014 at 11AM PST: Shopkick lowered the amount that you will earn for shopping at Office Depot, so I had to recalculate my numbers. Thank you Rajiv for the heads up.
Office Depot + Plink + Shopkick = 1 Big Happy Family
Create a Shopkick account here.
Plink Points not enough? Well, you are in luck then. A new company called Shopkick will reward you with Shopkick “Kicks” aka points for certain purchases. The great thing is you can double dip with Plink Points and Shopkick Kicks on all Office Depot purchases. You can link up to 6 Visa and MasterCard credit cards to Shopkick (hopefully one is an Ink Bold/Plus card). The payout structure is shown below. You earn 1 Kick per dollar plus bonus Kicks if you spend more than $25, $50, or $75.
Let’s say you wanted to buy a $200 Visa gift card at Office Depot with your Chase Ink Bold card, your total would come to $206.95. Here is what you would get back:
- 207 x 5 = 1,035 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
- 300 Plink Points = $3.00 in Amazon/Walmart gift cards
- 206+ 375 = 581 Shopkick Kicks = $? (see below)
So what exactly is a Kick worth? Great question, I thought you were never going to ask. Kicks can be redeem for egift cards, here are my top 3 choices (other gift card options exist):
| Value | Kicks | CPP |
| $2.00 | 500 | $0.40 |
| $5.00 | 1250 | $0.40 |
| $10.00 | 2500 | $0.40 |
| $25.00 | 6250 | $0.40 |
If you do the math, each Kick is worth 4/10 of a cent. So 581 Kicks x 4/10 of a cent = $2.32. So let’s go through the math one more time:
- 207 x 5 = 1,035 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
- 300 Plink Points = $3.00 in Amazon/Walmart gift cards
- 206 + 375 = 581 Shopkick Kicks = $2.32
$3.00 in Plink Points + $2.32 in Shopkick Kicks = $5.32, almost enough to cover the $6.95 activation fee. So essentially you are “buying” 1,035 Chase Ultimate Reward Points for $1.63 cents. Not bad right?
Currently, there is no transaction limit in place, unlike Plink’s 10 transactions per 30 day period. If you have any questions, please let me know.
P.S. Create a Shopkick account here.
A good alternative to plink, who’s rewards have become a joke. Haven’t seen Amazon GC in weeks.
I keep refreshing every day in the hopes (hopeless naive?) of seeing Amazon gift cards. Got $25 of gift cards to redeem.
How do you link a c card to shopkick. I don’t see any way to do it on the app.
Good point. Go to settings, then click Kicks When You Buy, and enter your CC info.
I’ve been using shopkick for about a year. I’ve used it without linking a credit card. I’ve redeemed for CVS gift cards and Target. When AMEX had their Best Buy promotion last year, I had them scan my shopkick app, and ended up with a lot of “Kicks” which I redeemed for Target gift cards. The only annoying thing about shopkick is it goes off all the time when I’m driving and near a shopkick store.
I believe you can disable notifications if they become too annoying. How many Kicks have you earned over the last year?
After Plink ends their relationship with Office Depot, I have a hypothetical idea to earn 5X UR points either very cheaply or for a profit. Buy a $200 Visa gift card at Office Depot using an Ink card. Ask for a 3-way split transaction. Make two of them equal to $75, and the last one for the remaining balance. If this were the case, then you would earn 1906 Shop Kick points, which are worth $7.62.
Or, to make it easier, you could just do a 2-way split transaction with $100 on each. That would earn you 1506 Shop Kick points, which are worth about $6. With this method, you are still earning 5X UR points for less than a tenth of a cent per point.
My only concern with this method is that split transactions might look suspicious, and that might put the deal in jeopardy. How risky do you think my idea is?
In theory it would work fine. Most places will let you do split payments, but they make you use 2 different credit cards or forms of payment. Unless you have a good relationship with the cashier, you might not be able to convince them to do a split payment. It is always worth a try though!
Maybe it would be best to have 2 Ink cards to increase your chances of success with the split transaction. Either have 2 Ink cards under your name, or be an authorized user for someone else’s Ink card. Or, if your friend or family member also has an Ink card, go with him or her to Office Depot.
That could work. You might just be able to do 1 split payment before the cashier gets annoyed at you. I think if you ring up each Visa/MC gift card separately, they would be able to do that for you.
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Update: Shopkick no longer offer 650 kicks at OD, it’s 375 kicks now.
Thanks for the heads up Rajiv, I will update the post now.
Am I correct in assuming this is for online GC purchases at office depot and staples and not in store purchase. Last time I checked office depot doesn’t allow in store GC purchase with credit card.
Raul, I don’t think you can buy Visa gift cards online on Officedepot.com. These are in-store purchases of Visa gift cards at Office Depot. What city are you from? Last time I checked at an Office Depot in Tuscaloosa, AL, it explicitly said on the sign that they accept credit cards for purchases of $200 Visa gift cards. I was definitely pleased to see that as part of their written policy.
You can actually buy fixed value gift cards in store with a credit card. It has to say the dollar amount on the card (like $100 or $200), not the variable load cards ($20-$500).