[If you sign up for SwagBucks using my link I’ll earn 10% of whatever you earn. This doesn’t affect your earning capability at all. We appreciate you using our links, but you don’t have to. We also give a portion of our blog income to charity]
Update: It looks as if Staples will stop paying cash back portals on gift card purchases. As such the portals will most likely stop paying their users for these purchase. You can read more here.
One commentator stated that SwagBucks might not pay out on gift card purchases. My purchase has now gone to pending and my purchases are shipping currently. I’m confident that I’ll earn SwagBucks on these purchases, I’ll update this post when my points do post.
Here are some data points below for other cash back portals (note: all of these data points are from before Staples sent out an e-mail saying they will not be paying the portals for gift card purchases):
- Alaska portal will pay: 1Â (May 4th),
- Chase UR will pay: 1
- Upromise will pay (usually takes 10-12 days, can take up to 3-4 weeks): 1, 2, 3Â (only credited 0.5%: 1)
- Topcashback will pay: 1, 2Â (May 4th)
- Shopdiscover will pay: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Â (May 1st), 6 (May 3rd), 7 (April 26-28th)
- Staples rewards will not pay: 1, 2
- Swagbucks currently pending: myself, 2, 3
- Swagbucks will pay: 1, 2
On May 5th Swagbucks has also updated the page to say that Gift Cards and Gift Wrapping are not eligible for Swag Bucks. We will see if this is the case or not.
This is another post in our manufactured Monday series where we discuss popular manufactured spending techniques. Staples has just added $200 Visa Gift cards to their online store, previously the highest gift card they had available was $100 visa gift cards. This is excellent news as it’s now profitable to purchase these gift cards, these cards come with a $6.95 fee which means we need to earn at least 3.5% cash back to offset this fee. Below we look at the best methods for doing so:
- Shop through SwagBucks and get 6 swagbucks (6-6.6% cash back) here are the best redemptons:
- $5 amazon gift card: 450 swagbucks (1.11¢)
- $25 paypal credit: 2,500 swagbucks (1¢)
- Purchase a $200 visa gift card with a rewards credit card, you’re best options are going to be as follows:
- Chase Ink Cards (Ink Bold/Ink Plus): 1,000 Chase UR Points (usually valued at 1.8¢ each, which works out to be another 9% back).
- Enroll in Visa Savings Edge and get another 1% cash back
- American Express Simply Cash: 5% cash back
- Chase Ink Cards (Ink Bold/Ink Plus): 1,000 Chase UR Points (usually valued at 1.8¢ each, which works out to be another 9% back).
- Use your Visa gift cards & Walmart to load them onto your Bluebird account which can then be used as a regular checking account
Let’s have a look at how profitable this is using the best case scenario first.
- -$6.95 fee
- 1,200 Swagbucks ($12 cash or $13.30 in amazon credit)
- $18 from using your Chase Ink card
- $2 from visa savings edge
This gives you profit of $25.05 ($13.05 without swagbucks) in cash (assuming a point value of 1.8¢ per Chase UR Point) or $26.35 ($13.05 without swagbucks)if you count the amazon credit at it’s full value. I’ll definitely be taking advantage of this while it lasts, because it’s not going to last long. If you liked this post, consider signing up using my swagbucks link, make sure you also use the sign up code “FreeGiftCards” to get a bonus 50 SwagBucks when you sign up.
Orders over $2,000 are being cancelled by staples due “federal regulations”. It also seems if you make orders totaling $10,000 or more per day all of them will also be cancelled (even if you use multiple cards, but ship to the same address). Start slow and build up.
Hat tip to Chasing the Points for letting us know about the Visa Gift Cards & slickdeals for letting us know about the swagbucks promotion
Please update on this post. Thanks!
What type of update are you after? We don’t currently know of any portals that are working, but I’ve seen hints that a few still are. I haven’t had a chance to check all the usual suspects yet.
Will the ink cash chase card also work for this?
Yes.
Kind of sad that the mass publication of this deal killed what was working for years within 9 days. That stinks.
Thanks Jeremy. My swagbucks was credited and is pending. I just noticed today they put in special terms that says no credit on gift cards! I didn’t see any terms last week when I made my purchase. I think staples is cracking down on the cash back portals. I think I might try upromise to make sure I get credited the cashback on my subsequent purchases. Thanks guys
So what’s the final verdict on whether Swagbucks pays out on Staples $200 Visa gift cards or not? I made a purchase through TCB and it shows as pending the full 3%. Thanks
It’s pending for me with SwagBucks, I think it’ll count.
Hey, the Ink bold cards have an increased signup bonus
Does staples except amex gift cards when buying visa gift cards?
You should be able to use Amex gift card anywhere Amex is accepted. I would suggest you call Amex c/s number on card and register your name, address, & phone number though incase Staples tries to verify it with Amex
No, they don’t unless it has your name on it!
I wouldn’t bet against swagbucks. No where on staples terms on swagbucks does it say gift card purchases are excluded. Also as a data point I placed 3 orders over the last week for a total of $1000 in visa gc and all the purchases are now pending to earn swagbucks. It usually takes 3-4 days after purchase to receive the tracking email. This email comes roughly at 3:20am EST every time. 6 sb/$ and a chase ink card now make this an easy way to earn over 8% in profit and that valuing ultimate reward points at $.01 per point.
Is there a limit of how many you can buy? For example could I buy 5 $200 gift cards with my Chase Ink credit card in one transaction?
That shouldn’t be a problem, but as always YMMV. Try it and see for yourself and report back here with the results.
Also the 200 Visa gc I got from Staples.com looked very different from any other visa gc, was a dark yellow color and very flimsy. It wouldn’t load to my bb and it wouldn’t go through as a debit purchase for a money order or cash back. It did work at the gas pump, thankfully.