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Dell is currently offering two stackable specials. Thanks to reader Dee Tee for alerting me to this deal:
1. Buy $350 worth of gift cards for $300
This offer ends tomorrow. Buy a $300 eGift card and get a $50 eGift card. Note that the $50 card is only valid for 90 days, so do this only if you have a purchase in mind.
2. Buy select PCs over $699 and get a $200 promo eGift card
You do need to provide evidence that you are a student or that you’re buying this for a student, but it appears to be very easy to do.
Here are a couple of laptops that qualify and are only $700:
3. Stack savings and points
Suppose you plan to buy a $700 laptop. Here are some ways to increase saving and point earnings:
- Buy two $300 eGift cards in order to get $700 worth of eGift cards. That alone will give you approximately 14% savings on a $700 laptop!
- Pay for the two $300 Dell gift cards using Visa or Amex gift cards that you bought for extra points (see, for example, “One card to rule them all”, and “What’s my X?”). Dell allows up to two credit cards for each purchase so you could use a $100 Visa gift card and a $200 Visa gift card or a prepaid Amex card, etc. Assuming 5X earnings, you will receive 3500 Ultimate Rewards points.
- Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall for all purchases. You probably won’t earn points for buying the gift cards (although it can’t hurt to try), but you should earn points when using the gift cards. The Terms & Conditions say “Eligible on the redemption, not purchase, of gift cards.” Currently Dell Home is at 5X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall. For the laptop purchase, you will earn $700 X 5 = 3500 Ultimate Rewards points.
- If all goes well, you should then receive a $200 eGift card. Remember to go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall again to use the gift card for whatever you want. Assuming you make a $200 purchase, you can then expect 1000 Ultimate Rewards points.
4 Add it up
If you manage to buy a laptop for exactly $700 and then something else for exactly $200, here are your total costs and benefits:
- Total cost: $600
- Total merchandise value: $900
- Total savings: 33.3%
- Total Ultimate Rewards points: 8000 (worth over $100 according to the Fair Trading Price).
Will it work?
One question I have is whether you can really apply two regular eGift cards and two promotional eGift cards to the purchase of a $700 laptop. The terms and conditions have this to say about using multiple promotional gift cards:
Using Multiple Cards
10. Dell will only accept a limited number of Cards per purchase. If you would like to use more than one Card, you can merge funds from multiple Cards onto one Card by calling Dell’s Customer Service department at 1-800-624-9897. Your Card can only be merged with other non-expiring Cards issued by Dell or through its retailers and affiliates. When you call you will be asked to fax photo copies of the Cards to verify possession. Gift cards that were not originally purchased but were distributed by Dell or its partners for free may not be merged with purchased Cards. Dell reserves the right to reject request for consolidation of any Cards at its own discretion for any reason.
Thanks Dell, but this doesn’t answer the question. Specifically, how many is a “limited number of Cards per purchase”? If anyone tries, please let us know!
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vr, thanks for the insight. Miler, you probably realize that many of us are looking for ebay sales opportunities where we save enough, it makes ebay at least a break even. Any analysis you can provide on that side is very much appreciated.
THEsocalledfan: I’d look at the Southwest Sears 15X deal instead if I were you. I’m not planning to do the Dell deal, but I did want to alert readers in case they were interested.
FM, to me atleast there is a fatal flaw with this one.
I would not pay $699 for i5 dell laptops. It is overpriced for a 2nd gen intel chip. If you searched around slickdeals, right now you can probably find a few places where it is possible to pick up a similarly spec’d laptop for close to $500. why do all this and end up holding $200 dell gc that i have to spend on overpriced dell again? These same laptops were going for around 450 without any coupons during thanksgiving. As always your idea for maximization is creative and great. But I think this one is targeted at a wrong product.
vr: Very good point!
Third what Alan & Jonathan said. One other consideration – by purchasing the gift cards first and then purchasing the computer, you lose out on the warranty doubling power of the AMEX cards. So if it comes with a 1 year warranty, an AMEX will double that to 2 years and they are very good about it. That said, it’s just another element to consider if extended warranties are important to the buyer.
I am sure you can’t apply two promotional eGift cards to the order.
Nice find.
To elaborate on what Alan said, you can use a maximum of 3 forms of payment, and to do this you have to call and have them process it.
You can consolidate normal gift cards into one, but you can’t consolidate promotional gift cards. So if you buy two $300 cards and get two promotional $50 cards, you can consolidate the big ones into a single $600 card (you can do this online), but you can’t combine the $50 cards.
That means, if your order comes in at or below $700 after tax, you can use the $600 card and both $50 cards and retain the leftover balance. If your charge is greater than $700, you can use the $600 card, a $50 card, and the rest on a credit card — so you would have a $50 card left over.
Also, whatever promo gift cards you have left expire after 90 days.
The caveat is I have not done this personally (I got close) but this is my understanding from reading a lot about these gift card deals recently on slickdeals.
I usually prefer to find good Dell deals in the outlet at http://outlet.dell.com. You can find refurbished and clearance computers there for great prices.
In the past you’ve only been able to apply 3 gift cards to an order. I don’t know if they’ve changed this policy, but what you can do is combine your two $300 giftcards into one $600 giftcard. You’d have to contact dell about this. Once you do that, you can then use 2 promo gift cards.
Alan and Jonathan: Thanks for the clarification!
Jon: Just note that you will not earn Ultimate Rewards points for outlet purchases.