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UPDATE: This was great while it lasted, but the opportunity closed quickly. Please see: $500 Vanilla window slams shut at Office Depot.
In February I reported that Office Depot had stopped carrying $500 Visa or Amex gift cards (see “Office Depot discontinues $500 Visa/Amex cards“). But tonight, Travel with Grant reports that “$500 Visa Gift Cards are Back at Office Depot!“
Grant reports finding $500 Vanilla gift cards in Tustin, CA. And, he was able to buy the gift card with his Chase Ink card!
I was in my local Office Depot yesterday and found the gift card rack practically bare. I couldn’t even find $200 Visa cards, let alone $500 cards. Hopefully, they’ll start to reappear soon across the country!
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$550 milion dollars
$550 million dollars
Don’t know how my first purchase got through last week, but Jason is correct. Yesterday, I watched the screen when they rang up the gift card along with my other items, and as soon as the card was scanned, it stated you can only pay with cash. RIP 5x bonus points and BB reloading. Bummer
Tried multiple OD in SF bay area. There is a hard-stop in the system that prevents them from taking anything but cash payment for an of these reloadable gift cards. A message actually appears, and they cannot choose any tender type but cash
Update: My purchase was categorized as “work related”, just like my purchases from office max, when they had their gift card sale. Hopefully this means it will trigger the 5X bonus like the previous cards did.
OD here in Boise, ID had a rack of onevanilla and vanilla gift cards. I purchased a random office supply ($6.99)and two $500 cards with ink bold and everything went fine. I will report back as to how it was classified when it post to chase.com
I went to my OD here in Atlanta today and the cashier told me the giftcards are now cash/debit only. I bought some on 6/29 no problem so I guess the rule changed within the last week.
check your account go to blueprint ,check your spending make sure its showing up under office supplies , i ordered from od a couple weeks ago cleaning and breakroom stuff was 167.00 but its listed on my spending under Department and Clothing Stores/Catalogs, not office supplies ,
are you guys sure that these cards will be paid by cash on Monday!!!!!
Found a rack with Vanilla silver, Vanilla Gold and My Vanilla Debit. Tried to buy one but the cash register literally said “Declined” when the item was scanned. Even before I could try to swipe my card. Same for all three flavors.
VERY frustrating to be able to see and touch the delicious sweet sweet ice cream but be unable to taste it.
Location: North Charleston, SC
I applaud Marathon Man’s ambition. Just so that everyone understands, the banks are not your friends. They have pilfered the taxpayers. That’s you and me. Consider the trillions of dollars the country lost due to Chase and its friends’ subprime mortgages. Law enforcement can’t even go after the banks because the president (current and former) won’t allow it. There’s a reason why our secretaries of treasury come from the big banks.
So everyone should abuse the perks because Chase has abused the taxpayers for decades.
…or, better yet: just work within the very laws or tcs that each bank and cc has and pound the #%%^}* out of em with heavy use but being fully prepaired, willing and able to take them to task if they try to stop you or shut you down. Youll win most if not all cases. And in some instances you wont even get shut down to begin with!
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Also, regarding rumors that these might not count as 5x…I found some data that unfortunately supports this claim. I’m not sure if this existed a couple of months ago, but if you look up the merchant category codes for Office Depot at Visa’s merchant category database, you’ll notice that each Office Depot has TWO categories it reports at. One is office supplies (5943) as well as “General Merchandise” (5965). The Gen Merch category also reports L III Summary L III Line Item detail as well, which means Chase will know that you bought a gift card and not actual office supplies. Perhaps this is why OD is now coming back with the $500 cards…they may have actually figured out a way to prevent us from earning 5x (and thus paying a higher % of transaction fees towards chase).
Any luck for people in the Denver Metro area?
@ Marathon Man…..Heartbreak ridge
Yup! Clint!