[Expired] Staples: No Activation Fee on $200 Mastercard Gift Cards (8/22-8/28), Limit 5 Per Day

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• is this continuing next week?

  • Clearly posted as 8/22-8/28, so no.

• can I buy 1k of GC 2 or 3 x and qualify for my cc SUB? or do they look down on this?

  • Amex is a no-no. Have had no issue with Chase.

• Rakuten 5% seemed to have tracked using Citi Double Cash card. (5x$200 in MC... effectively $1000 for $930 with 5%Rakuten and 2%CB)
  Now hoping to do another round using the Chase Ink Card later this week if there are any left.

  • i don't see any mastercard 200 gift cards available on staples...so idk what you mean?

    • Yeah wasn't able to find any $200 card on the shelves in my second visit.. guess they're all gone :/

      • but which link do you click on or category for the 5% staples via rakuten?? and then you go to store and get gift cards?? plz tell me step by step :)

        • The offer is no longer listed on Rakuten but for future, you need to link your credit card(s) to use in store shopping and then activate it in your account. There's a separate category for in store offers.

• Sorry for dumb question, but I am new at this game. How does one make money with such deals? If I buy $200 using a credit card, what return do I get other than whatever credit card rewards associated with buying something at Staples?

  • So if you spent $1000 on Chase Ink Cash card at random place you'd get $10 (1%) in cashback. But with this deal you'll get $1000 to spend in form of mastercard gift cards for effectively $50 off (5%). So what would you pick [$1000 for $990] OR [$1000 for $950]? Obv assumption is you can liquidate them easily (utility payments, home insurance, car insurance, medical bills, taxes etc)

  • Ah, I see. I didn't think about SUB. And category bonus makes sense, too. Thanks!

  • You get the credit card rewards, that's the main benefit. Useful for meeting minimum spend requirements or if you have a category bonus at office supply stores.

  • Rewards and CC SUB MSR.

    Volume, not profit margin for these particular deals.

• Wish more of these prepaid gift card deals were available online. The last couple that I have gotten in online several months ago were also only virtual cards.

  • But that one was a really good deal.

    • I am not suggesting that was not a good deal, I am just saying that I personally would prefer if these deals (that just discount card purchase fees, for instance) were also available online and prefer physical prepaid cards over virtual. Time and gas costs are also a variable, and the greater flexibility of physical cards over virtual.

• didnt this just ended yesterday?

  • Visa’s ended 8/14

• I bought them during last month's sale and cannot use these $200 MC card to load my BB at WM. How do you all spend them after buying?

  • Worse case go2bank will load at 1.5%. probably easier to just spend them on actual bills

    • @guest_1242750 Could you elaborate more on this? Go2Bank let you load gift cards?

  • Just noticed that you can deposit money into etoro with a credit card or paypal, and apparently seems that they will wire to your bank account when you withdraw.
    Anybody have any experience with this? And unrelated to this post if I deposit using a credit card does it code as a purchase or as a cash advance?

    • Not credit card, debit card. And only bank, debit, or wire. Not sure where you got credit and PayPal.

      PPK don’t work either. Also don’t be an idiot like me and use eToro for trading. The worst spread and fees.

    • Just tried with one of these MCGCs and no dice. Good angle though.

  • I use a local grocery store with MO's

  • Regular spend or pay off bills that would normally take credit card.

• I tried liquidating some $200 VGCs last week at several Fry's (Kroger) here in the Phoenix metro. All were rejected with a "Transaction Not Allowed" message. This week I opted for a $99 MO and the transaction went through. Has Kroger gone the way of Safeway with the $100 cap on MOs?

  • I had the same issue at Frys. I haven't nailed it down yet. I had a similar failure at one location but went to another and a $200 MO worked, so it can't be a $100 cap. Perhaps the POS changes are rolling but some locations differ? Need more testing.

    It could be helpful to get some more DP on this to try to figure out what's going on. If interested, drop a contact so we can discuss further.

    • They're likely updating the system to block the meta BINs. It's been done in many other parts of the country too, now it's our turn.

      • Yeah, that seems like the best explanation. I went to couple other locations today without issue so it seems like the changes are selectively being rolled out. RIP

  • All the Kroger family stores near me are cash only for MO.

  • I am in the heart of Kroger land and all the stores around me check the card I am using to swipe.

• Any way left to liquidate these?

  • Same question pops up every Staples and OD/OM deal. It's purely YMMV at grocery stores and Wally Worlds. Otherwise maybe some folks have some magical super secret methods and they aren't going to share. Mostly organic spend these days for a lot of us.

• How are you guys liquidating these mastercards? I feel like it’s much more difficult than the visas

  • Prepay utilities bills when they have no processing fee for debit card.

    • Ideally you can pay utilities with the US Bank Cash Plus and get 5% back. Although my electric is thru the city and doesn't code as utilities so I pay the $2 flat fee and put $198 prepay to empty the card.