The Offer
Direct Link (upcoming ad page 14)
- Get a $20 Visa gift card via Staples Easy Rebates when you buy $300 in Visa gift cards at a Staples store
The Fine Print
- Valid Sunday 5/7 through Saturday 5/13
- In-store only
- Limit one rebate per household
Our Verdict
This is as good as these Staple rebate deals get, Visa giftcards! Learn more about Staples Easy Rebates in this post. As always, be sure to use a credit card that earns bonus points for office supply stores. Alternatively you might want to use an American Express card if you got targeted for the recently spend $100, get $20 back deal.
The rebate loaded today from the Sunday purchase. Hopefully it will work for y’all too!
Same here. Purchased two VGC first thing Sunday morning. Easy Rebate online still said “Your eligible rebates are still being determined”.
Bought the cards Sunday. Usually it takes till the next day for the rebate to become active so that I can submit it online. But now it’s 2 days and it still says “Rebate TBD”. Anyone else having this problem with this rebate, or am I the only one?
Yes, they must be having tech problems with their rebate system. So far, no rebates even though purchases were legit at $300. I’ll give them some time to fix this before I go to the manager. No sense buying anymore (different households) if no rebate. Heard they’re having activation issues too and some cards were deemed a bad batch.
It’s not limited to the VGC rebate. I have the same issue with the rebate for $0.01 paper
I did get the rebate form printed out, but haven’t tried submitting it online yet. Is online submission not active yet?
I bought two $200 VGCs today and submitted the rebate soon as I get home and it went through. I drained these w/o issues at WM.
Maybe the rebate problem was only with Sunday vgc purchase? I used to get a rebate preview as soon as entering the ID (before submitting). However, their online system did not recognize the rebate ID this week.
I wanted to do 3x 2x 200 today. The cashier was totally cool with letting me do two at a time, I’d just give him two cards at a time, and leave the rest by my side.
But he also took out his phone, pulled out the calculator app, and started adding each transaction (including the fees!).
On the third transaction, after I clearly indicated “and these last two cards, please”, after scanning just one card, and using his calculator again, he told me that there’s apparently a limit of 1k per day, and he can only sell me that one card just scanned, not the other one as well, but that I can come back tomorrow. WTF?
I guess Staples is working really hard to make it nearly impossible to go into amounts that require any sort of paperwork?
With the plethora of OD/OM action, I think this will be the last Staples run I do, unless a long dryspell from OD/OM comes our way. Yes, you do get more UR and $20 back vs. generally $15 at OD/OM, but it’s also 6.95 vs. 4.95 per card in fees (e.g., 20 back actually becomes more like 16 (~17 with the extra $1 from the 5% UR points of the extra $20 in principal)), plus non-scalable, plus way too many rebate receipts to collect at the register and carry home and/or discard, and I still have all those prior cards that require liquidation, too…
Ugh when the calculator app comes out it’s time to leave.
Quick question to those who maximize Staples deal:
I have a Chase INK card and is it better off buying 2 of $200 or 3 cards? I guess buying 3 cards will be more URs und $20 rebate almost covers VGC fees.
Also, I have recently changed the addresses. Will I be able to submit 2 rebates? I have auto mail forwarding setup.
why would you want to buy 3 cards unless you have to?
2 x $200=$400 is sufficient to qualify for the rebate.
Bought 2 $200 cards this morning and the rebate slip printed out as expected. Used my Amex card for the $20 sync statement credit as well.
How’d you get targeted for the Amex offer? I looked in my offers but I didn’t see it
Not possible to get targeted for it, either you are or you aren’t. Think it’s only on business cards.
I have 2 Amex business cards and the offer was only on 1.
Can you get two $500 cards on one purchase?
@TJ
They only have max $200 cards. You can purchase any number of cards as one purchase but have to pay separate fee foe each.
What’s so special about this deal? You’re going to have to buy one $200 card and one $100 card for $5.95 each which equals $311.90 using your 2% cash back card which brings the total down to $305.66. You’ve only made a profit of $14.34 doing this which gives you an effective cash back rate of 4.7% on the gift cards ($14.34/$305.66). Maybe if you were targeted for an Amex offer or if you didn’t have to wait for a rebate in the mail then this offer would make more sense.
Bonus spending requirements is why it’s useful for me.
But you could just open a checking/savings account at radius bank and fund $1000 each. Less effort and more efficient that way.
It is a very valuable promo for those of us with cards that offer 5x points at office supply stores (Ink+). So if you buy two $200 cards @ $6.95 each. You only net a $6.10 profit after the rebate. However you are also earning 2000 UR points which are worth $30 when used through the CSR 1.5x multiplier.
So you can make approximately $36.10 for each pair of cards you buy. I typically do 12 pairs of cards per deal. So I make a profit of around $433.
The downside is the high fraud rate of rebate cards and the waiting time to get them.
so u actually bust out 12 households? and i am just surprised how pple blatantly MS 5x office only on their INKs. i guess some people just dont care.
How’d you manage to do the deal 12 times? I thought it was one per address?
Jake, I ended up funding the Radius checking/savings with 1k each. I see it pending on my CC since Thursday but don’t see the deposit in Radius chk or sav yet. Is that normal? It better go through. I’ve read with other banks it took a week or more to see initial credit card funding to show up, but all my others have always been instant.
For me it showed up pretty fast but they placed a hold on the funds for like 10 days so be patient and wait a few days
Hey Jake, I opened the Radius checking and savings act on the 11th and my CC cleared the 2k on the 14th, and my Radius acct shows $0 in both accounts still. When I call no one is able to tell me anything. Is this normal? Should I wait longer and just expect that it will go into my account? I don’t want to do a charge back bc I’m using it for bonus spend requirements. Do you have any advice?? Thanks
Don’t charge back. It will become available soon just be patient
So last night I sent a SM online and said “Hi. I opened this checking and a savings account on May 11th. I funded both accounts with $1,000 each from my credit card. The 1k x2 transaction posted on my credit card a couple days later. It’s now been 12 days and I don’t see the 1k in either my checking or my savings account and I’m getting concerned. That money had to have gone somewhere. If you look at my signature card it shows I funded 1k on both. Can you please look into this? It’s not the best way to start a banking relationship. Thank you”
They replied today and said “Thank you for contacting Customer Service at Radius Bank. I sincerely apologize for the error. I’ve had our Operations Department look into this matter, and due to a technical error at the time your account exported, your funding deposits were routed to our general ledger and were never pushed out to your accounts. I’ve debited the account & funded both your checking and savings account. I hope we make a better impression on you moving forward. Thank you for choosing Radius Bank! Our team is here for you via chat, email or phone. Have a great day!”
I’m glad I messaged them. I work at a bank and I knew the money wouldn’t have routed to my bank after so many days. I knew it had to go to some ledger account within the bank. Either way, I finally got the money deposited into both accounts. I feel so much better!
Thanks Jake!
Deal is a lot better when you add in a 5x card.
How much is the fee for this gift card?
$6.95 for $200s
$5.95 for $100’s
Does Apple Pay work when purchasing VGCs at Staples? Seems like a good way to extend getting 3x points at more merchants using the Altitude Reserve.
theoretically yes.
but the issue is that when buying a gift card they are supposed to see the card and check name against your ID… which they can’t do with ApplePay.
so YMMV… if the cashier allows it, it will go thru.
I had no problem doing this at my Staples this morning. I even swiped a $20 Staples Rebate Card from the last promo first – that’s definitely frowned upon – but thankfully the young cashiers don’t seem to care.
Are they supposed to check your credit card when you buy these at Staples? I’ve bought probably 10 of these in the past two months and not once have they asked to look at my credit card.
Here all stores call the manager and s/he actually checks the ID and credit card, the cashiers won’t even proceed without that.
but if you live in a low fraud area I guess they don’t care…. you’re lucky.