Deal has expired, view more Office Depot deals by clicking here.
The Offer
- Office Depot/Max stores are offering a $15 instant discount when you buy $300 in Mastercard gift cards.
The Fine Print
- Limit 1 per household/business
- Discount applies at register
- Valid 8/18 – 8/24/19
- Purchase fees may apply
Our Verdict
Either purchase two $200 cards or one $200 and one $100. The variable load $20-$500 cards are cash only so won’t work. Normally you can do this deal multiple times in different transactions but YMMV based on cashier.
Nice to see this OM/OD deal return. $10 doesn’t completely wipe out the purchase fees, but it comes close. Make sure to use a credit card that earns at a high rate at office supply stores. Some people have an Amex Offer for $5 off $25 too.
Hat tip to reader Larry L & Matt C
Visas next week
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/cus355/comment/ey2wmv2
This hadn’t happened to me any other time during this promotion, but today the cashier had to call a number to okay the purchase. I thought that might result in a denial bc I’ve used that same card numerous times for this, but it ended up being okay. Resulted in my card getting hit with a $300 pre-auth plus the $297.90 actual charge though, so that’s annoying. It’ll probably be a week before that pre-auth falls off.
I know the PIN for the visa gift cards are the last 4 digit. Is it the same for these Mastercard gc? I haven’t bought these for ages (card got drained before), but i vaguely remember some Mastercard requires call in to set PIN before used to buy money order.
Yes, it’s the same. Last four digits.
Thank you! That will save a lot of time.
Can Metabank MasterCard gift cards be used in Walmart for getting Money order ?
I have known Meta Visa working before and Us bank Mcgc having issues while using as debit.
Yes but all MC gift cards have the issue where you have to be super fast and let cashier know ahead of time it’s Mastercard so they can press something on their end.
DP:
Went to my closest Office Depot. They had two versions of variable load cards. One did not register in their inventory, another had $200 load limit so it failed to activate with $300. I will try another store tomorrow that may have cards with larger load limit.
Ended up buying $200 and $100 cards, $297 total including $15 discount and activation fees for both cards.
Oh, and no problem using Amex to buy the cards. No cash-only enforcement.
Sounds like these MCGCs are no go for liquidating at WM/WMNM with Serve Green? I only have a Serve Green and can’t get approved for a BB. Though I’ll be around a DG soon while I’m traveling, so I can load into Serve then, it seems? I’m not used to MS while on vacation so I’m gauging whether it’s worth it.
Weird DP.
When buying 2x$200 MCGC at my local ODOM (Denver), the cards came up as not in inventory on the POS. Tried both fixed and variable. These were all US Bank versions, which from other comments sounds like were supposed to have been replaced by MB? Anyway, I got the cashier to manually discount VGCs for the same deal.
I usually buy ODOM GCs in a state that doesn’t have sale tax. Now, I’m traveling and am in a state that has sales tax. Will buying these invoke a sales tax on these ODOM GC purchases?
Nope!
Hmm. They’re still pending, but it appears that OfficeMax is coding as a Wholesale Store on Amex, which makes this far less useful for my SimplyCash Plus card (1% CB rather than the 5% it would be if it coded as Office Supplies). Still a slight moneymaker even at 0% CB, but not enough to spend extra trips on.
Happy (and pleasantly surprised) to report that these ended up yielding 5% CB anyway. 👍
I’ve been able to buy variable loads at my local OD with a credit card. In fact, it was the manager who recommended I do that over buying multiple cards in smaller denominations.
You mean $200, or $500?