[Expired] Staples: Save $5 on Activation Fee of $200 Visa Gift Cards (8/16-8/22), Limit 5

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• Was able to snag $2K worth of VISA giftcards yesterday in SW FL. Went in the AM and again at night. It's getting harder to buy MO's at my grocer w these cards, but I can still get it done if I go to multiple stores. As far as WM Neighborhood Mkt, they seem to still be OK with using 4 Visa GC's to buy a $799 MO w/o showing ID...but they definitely will not let you buy more more than 1 MO..at least at my Neighborhood Mkt. One word of caution, one of my 10 cards' mag stripes was completely shot. I swiped VERY carefully about 10 times at 2 diff stores and also made sure that no sticky stuff was on the stripe. Not a big deal to me...I'll just register that one card for online purchases and buy an Amazon GC at Fold...but this would be a very big deal going fwd if multiple cards have the issue. If anyone has any tips to fix the mag stripe (at home, not at the grocery store), I'm all ears. I don't really want to draw attention to myself at the point of sale by doing anything weird with the card as it seems that the employees at my local grocer now think they are all FinCEN officers with the amount of hyper scrutiny they give to these simple transactions.

• The cashiers at Walmart do not like me anymore. It is a hassle with showing ID for less than $1K MOs.

  I am glad I switched from a W-2 employee to self-employed owner with regular high dollar transactions. Minimum spends are now simple and legitimate. Namaste, Amex RATs (Rewards Abuse Team).

  “Being a self-employed means you work 12 hours a day for yourself so you don't have to work 8 hours a day for someone else.”
  ― Oliver Markus Malloy, Inside The Mind of an Introvert

  Thanks for daily info guys.
  Long live and prosper!

• Y'know, I think that in the same way OD/OM are now doing $10 off $100 GC (instead of $15 off $300), this is going to become Staples' new normal.

  • People always say this whenever we see the lower promotions

    • Hey, I hope I'm wrong!

• OOS ~15 mins after the opening at my local Staples that usually has them in stock. Either they decided not to sell VGCs this time or the point fiends beat me to it. Bah, you can't win them all.

  • Probably the former.. my local staples stores always has tons of them

• Just some tips I thought I would share...

  Whenever I plan on going to a Staples that isn't directly on my way, I call in and they are usually happy to check the stock for me and confirm if they have any $200 vgcs in stock

  many have been commenting about how they hide the gift cards inside the gift card rack. Many a time I have simply opened up the rack and checked for myself and no one has said anything to me. If you're uncomfortable I totally understand... But if not it's worth a try

  While getting it a bit cheaper is always a plus keep in mind (I think it has been mentioned before) that while you usually pay a similar fee percentage-wise ( granted a bit more) here it is split up into smaller denominations which are considerably more difficult to liquidate

  And just to finish with some words of encouragement in the past deal or two I have been able to get tens of gift cards so it's still something that is possible

• Office Depot/Max has 10 off 100 or more master gift card sales this week

  • Where did you see this?

    • i bought this morning, limit one

  • @TI, is there a limit to the amount you can buy at OD?

• @will
  Just got this offer:

  Albertsons, Pavillions, Vons, has a JUST for you deal:
  Save $15 Instantly
  Visa® Gift Cards
  When you buy TWO $100 Visa gift cards.
  ------------------

  So this is going to be a Hard NO, on this deal with staples. Grocery stores right now have these giftcards with full waiver.

  Don't want buy these and set a precedent of these guys not giving us the whole fee waiver.
  \

  DON'T TAKE THE BAIT GUYS, go to Vons or Safeway, they have the full waiver deal.

  • Some people have cards to use that only work at specific stores

• as local safeway & affiliated stores now have a profitable $500 vgc deal, this offer will be a hard pass for me

  edit: correction, mine needs to buy 2 of $100 vgc; variable likely won't work

• I think my staples hides them in the inside portion of the gift card carousel until the week is over

  • My Staples said this week they’re putting hem behind the counter. The 5 limit is killing the stock the first day.

    I wouldn’t buy these normally Without being free but I have two Amex SC with the 10% offer and no guarantee there will be a free offer before it expires,

    • I gave up and bought a Target giftcard with my 10% + 5% AMEX

    • The AMEX offer expires on 12/31/20. Pretty certain there would be a few more fee waived / reduced Gebits before that.

      • Possibly, but I can use them this month for my med bills. Later in the year, it'll be harder to organically spend them. But that's my situation, everyone's is different.

• Nope