The Offer
- Buy $300 worth of Visa gift cards from a Staples store and get a $20 Visa Prepaid card using the Staples Easy Rebate system
The Fine Print
- Valid from 10/23 until 10/29
- Limit 1 per household
Our Verdict
Best option is to use a card that earns at a high rate on office supply stores. Not as good as the recent OfficeMax/depot deals, but still profitable.
Hat tip to slickdeals via reader @J_Turnbow
Can I unload these with a swipe?
A profit of $6.10 – even with the 5X points you get on $412, is not worth the gas and time it takes to drive to Staples to buy these – especially when you consider having to keep track of how much money is left on 2 $200 gift cards, possibility/hassle of loss of the cards, etc
I see you don’t know how to MS
not everyone likes to MS
If you don’t want to MS you can always overpay your cell phone / internet / insurance / … bill and not worry about that for a couple of month. Not that much hassle.
If that is your calculations, you’re reading the wrong blog.
If it’s not worth your time, that’s fine. But a lot of readers love this promotion
call first to see if the stores have the $200 ones; going out of the way to get there to find out that they don’t have or only $100 ones, then it’s not worth it
RE: more than 1 rebate per household: Staples rebate IT software application looks at name, address, phone number and email address to determine uniqueness. If any of these fields is the same across more than one rebate then it is rejected as a duplicate. Also, you cannot be logged into your Staples account when submitting the rebate since important fields from your account profile replace the fields that you keyed into your rebate form which will invariably cause the duplicate error downstream in batch rebate processing.
Good summary, “faux blogger.” This is exactly the limitation on more than one rebate per household. If one rebate is not enough, best to submit rebates for friends, family, etc at totally different addresses, with totally different identifiers and log-in credentials.
If you’re one of those few folks without access to a 5% office supply card, like myself, Amex has a deal out right now if you’re targeted. It’s $25 back after $100 spent. No guarantees if gcs will trigger when purchased at store. Online I think they will Not.
since the limit is 1 per household, you cannot do 3x $200 GCs ($600 total) & receive 2 rebates like OD/OM allows?
so the best options is 2x $200 (206.95) GCs -> 413.90 – 20 = 393.90?
thanks.
Does the 100 vgc have lower fees?
by a dollar
Why is getting 2×200 better than a single 300 GC? Thanks!
$300 are on-line only, not in the store
because there are no $300 visa gift cards in stores
Define “limit 1 per household”…. The closest Staples from me is 40 minutes. If I’m limited to 1 $20 rebate it’s not worth the drive.
I sometimes see folks say they can get more than one rebate per address, but the only time I ever tried it (a few years ago), it was denied. Has anyone had more luck with this? Otherwise, you can bother friends and family to use their addresses, and hope you get the cards back from them. 🙂
There is still a trick out there for getting multiple rebates at one address but it’s hush hush.
No. I don’t know what it is.
I have been able to get one for myself and one for my wife at the same address for quite a while now, never any problems. But never tried pushing it more than that. I try to word the address differently- Rd and Road, spell the street name with a different vowel but not enough that it won’t still get to me, etc. Who knows if that helps avoid some automated check.
There is definitely an actual trick out there though- I’ve seen it referenced a ton in a lot of places but always without specifics, and I have no clue what it is! It has definitely managed to stay very quiet for a long time somehow.
Since it pretty much doesn’t work anymore I’ll say it
Old trick was to use your house and just attach Apt 101, 102, 103, 201, etc… til infinity. Since it’s a house it’ll get to you no matter what.
But Staples now auto rejects same address even if you’re in a legit apt building. You have to contact them for each one to get it manually pushed through. Annoying
do staples have the variable $200 visa like OD/OM?
Excited. I’ll be in my small hometown this weekend; all the Staples around Los Angeles seem to be cleaned out of VGC by the time these roll around. I can only imagine these promos exist to get rid of remaining gift card stock…
These are always in-store only deals.
Is this offer in-store only or can it be used for online orders?
In story only, on page 6 of weekly ad (10/23-10/29) of staples
In store only, we will be very specific if it’s available online.