Deal has ended, view more Staples deals by clicking here.
The Offer
- Staples stores are selling $200 Mastercard gift cards with no activation fees from 7/19-7/25.
The Fine Print
- Limit 5 per customer
- Valid 7/19 – 7/25
- In-store only
Our Verdict
Normally the limit is 1, this time it’s 5. Use a card that earns at a high rate on office supply store purchases.
Hat tip to GC Galore
Thanks for the heads-up!
I went to my local Staples today and they had plenty of these MCGCs for $200 but with fee to buy. I asked if they have them without fee and they said no. Do you guys actually have to bring this coupon printed paper to show them that they should have it for no fee? I never have been buying these GCs before.
it’s the fixed $200 mcgc like the above pic that u need to find; local stores here sold out since Wed
Do you have to find packages that say “No purchase fee” on them? No need to bring printed coupon? Yeah may be they all were sold.
No it’s not on the card. But it should come off at the register. The staff may or may not know how it works. Before paying confirm the total can still cancel if it doesn’t work
Which personal card to use to buy this gift card for max benefit? Citi double cash?
Delete
A bit confused after reading these comments.
Will these Meta MC gift cards from Staples work at
grocery stores like Publix ?
The only reason these won’t work at Publix would be an overly anxious cashier who goes out of their way to check your payment card (happened to me once this wk…happened to be a manager). Fortunately, the initial pin for these Meta MCGC’s sold at Staples is the last 4 of the card…so you don’t need to go through the tedious process of setting the pin like certain other prepaid cards.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out this afternoon that the daily MCGC limit at my local Staples for this promo is TEN / $2000!
sb 5 at a time; could get 10 if visiting twice when shift changed; any rate, stores make up own rule… this week, some still insist 1 only while another like yours okd for 10
In S FL I’ve had no problem purchasing the max 5 on both Sunday and Monday. Stock was decent too. For the good of DoC readers, I can tell you that my local grocer who is almost always fine with most VGC’s to buy MO’s rejected this MGC from Staples yesterday…likely because of the big “$200” printed in the upper right. It’s only one data point, of course. Maybe next time I’ll block the big “$200” with my thumb etc., A word of caution on these… you may want to start to liquidate before accumulating several thousand $$. In addition to my issue above, and as noted by others, there are potentially point of sale issues at WMT w MGC’s (maybe only related to USBank MGC’s and not these Meta MGC’s??) Also there have been mysterious “drainage” on Staples’ MGC’s on occasion though it seems that this issue is in the rear view (happened to me once 2 yrs back..eventually got it fixed via manual fax process etc).
I’d appreciate updated comments/data points from readers with very recent experience and a larger sample size on 2 questions below as I’ve had very little luck on Reddit or FT:
1) Are these MetaBank MGC’s currently sold by Staples OK to use at WM w/o having to perform the very, very quick “change of payment” routine? Will the WM POS allow you to enter a pin for transactions over $50? Has anyone used these Meta MGC’s at WM this week for MO/billpay/BB-Serve successfully w/o having the perform the “change payment” routine?
2) Has anyone had success aggregating/combining these $200 Meta MGC’s on giftcardmall.com or giftcards.com? Example…I would register 5 of these $200 MGC’s for online purchases. Then I’d buy a ~$991 Visa gift card (and maybe even get it personalized w my name to avoid issues at the grocer). With the ~$9 shipping/handling/processing my purchase would = $1000. I wouldn’t mind phoning in my order to a live rep., if necessary, to accomplish the goal here as aggregating these $200 MGC’s from home represents value to me.
I’ve gone with bunches of 200’s to my closest Simon Mall in the past to combine the cards. North Florida. Might be worth scoping out.
Good option. Will give Simon a shot. Very nice staff at my mall office. Today’s trips to the grocery w Meta MGCs were much more productive. No issues w hyperactive cashier & card inspection.
So you say we can buy $1000 VGC at Simon Mall with 5 $200 MC by partial payment?
Hi BIGCHURNA,
1) In my area, one has to do the cancel trick to liquidate at WM. It can be a PITA compared to the VGCs. Some WM employees will not follow or are unable to follow the procedure. Today 2 new to the game WMs would not follow the procedure and definitely tested my patience. Some comments here say some of the newer WM POS do not require the cancel trick. All the WMs in my area do require this procedure. Have you had much success liquidating these MGCs? Do the WMs in your area require the cancel procedure?
2) You should in theory have no issues combining these MGCs and the MGCs on giftcardmall.com and giftcards.com.
I got one jumping thru hooplah: tell the store manager you want to buy the $200 MC GC, he will get it from the back of the store. One per customer per day. Good Lord!
Our Staples has plenty of the MCGCs but is always cleaned out of the Visas, which I think says a LOT about how many people are buying these to MS at Walmart.
Dan, you can take something told to me by a Staples employee with a grain of salt, but I asked an employee how they had so many MCGCs during a sale, considering they were, and still are, cleaned out of VGCs. He told me the store gets a lot more MCGCs.
different stores & areas vary; if there’s no sale, local store(s) here had many of both vgc & mcgc on the racks; frankly, don’t see myself driving 20 miles to get there, paying almost $7 fee for a $200 gc even CIC earns x5 pts
#gobank circa 2015
Went to two staples in LA within 15 min of open time both didn’t have stock 3rd and 4th did so it wasn’t a total waste of 90 min. 4th spot a guy walks out with $1k still in his hand and i asked him if there are any left and he’s like about 10, Cheers. People in the midwest must be loving this!
Hit a bit of (I hope) temporary wall with this today. Went and got $1000 worth of these at Staples and then went to WM to get a MO. My first one still had that glue on the strip and didn’t go through so had to skip it. By the time I got to the 3rd one the cashier started to do some quick clicking on the screen and said the register canceled it when she asked if it was a gift card but I think she was the one that canceled it. Will wait a few more days to try at another WM but will try only 2 at a time this time around.
Unrelated but while rubbing off the glue on VGC/MGC, I noticed this “special” rubber glue removes the mag strip quite easily if you are carelessly rubbing it off. I haven’t screwed up a card to the extent that a mag strip doesn’t work but I can see it happening if I’m not careful. I make sure not to stack my cards with the glue still on too.
Oh, thanks for that, that’s exactly how I had them and they were stuck to each other. I’ll keep that in mind in the future.