Office Max / Office Depot is this week offering $15 off on $300+ in Mastercard gift cards. This makes for an easy opportunity to pick up 5x points — but note the cautions below regarding Mastercard gift cards.
The Deal
- Instant $15 off on $300+ in Mastercard Gift Cards at Office Max / Office Depot from 1/15/22 to 1/21/22)
Key Details
- In-store only
- Limit of one per household/business
Quick Thoughts
This deal makes the Mastercard gift cards slightly profitable on top of picking up a nice haul of rewards if you’re using a credit card with one of the best category bonuses at office supply stores. This is how the math works out on that:
- Buy two $200 gift cards with $6.95 activation fees on each for $413.90
- Get a $15 instant discount to pay a total of $398.90.
- Earn 1,994.5 Ultimate Rewards points if using the Chase Ink Cash card
That’s obviously a good deal on the surface and a way to pick up some easy Ultimate Rewards points. The official limit is one discount per household or business, but YMMV. Some stores will allow multiple transactions.
On the other hand, it’s worth noting that Mastercard gift cards have been more susceptible to fraud over the past couple of years than Visa Gift Cards. For that reason, I only recommend buying Mastercards if you have immediate plans for liquidation.
Furthermore, there have been recent issues with some Mastercard gift cards — see that post for full info, but the short story is that purchases at some stores have drained the cards while displaying a “not authorized” message. A couple of readers have been successful in getting their money back on that, but it has been a major hassle without resolution for many. If you do buy Mastercard gift cards, it seems like the best practice would be not to drain them entirely (i.e. put a charge on it for $199.99 rather than the full $200). Note that this may not be necessary — I’ve drained Mastercard gift cards recently at grocery stores without issue, but many haven’t been so lucky, so it would be wise to approach liquidation with some caution.
We’ve added this to our list of current visa and mastercard gift card deals.
H/T: Doctor of Credit
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Office Depot and Max has a $13 off if you buy $300 or more in mastercard gcs this week.
The best bet is to not drain them all the way. Leave a few cents on each.
@Anthony. What purpose is served by not completely draining a non-reloadable card?
It’s mentioned in the post. See also this post: https://frequentmiler.com/major-problems-reported-w-mastercard-gift-cards/
In a nutshell, there was a problem where charging $200 (the full balance) at some stores (including Kroger) was coming up with a “Not Authorized” message on the POS register, so the purchase didn’t go through, but the card was still drained to $0 — leaving the customer with a $0 card and no money order. People who tried charging $199.99 did not have the card drained to a $0 balance. One theory I heard that made some sense was that Blackhawk was initially authorizing the $200 charge and as a result their computer system marked the card at $0 and closed it out (just automatically in the computer system — the kind of thing that happens instantly), but then the store system for some reason was declining to process the charge. Ordinarily, that would then get refunded to the card — but the theory is that Blackhawk was shutting the card off / making it “inactive” because it had hit the $0 balance, so the refund had nowhere to go. On the flip side, if you charged $199.99 and the point of sale rejected it, the card would still be active with Blackhawk since it still has a $0.01 balance and it would therefore be able to process the refund of $199.99 to the card.
That’s a lot of conjecture and I’ve personally not had a problem at my local stores with $200 charges, but a number of people have had hundreds of dollars tied up for the past month and a half or so as they work through the system disputing it. The store shows the transaction didn’t process and Blackhawk shows that it did. I expect it to eventually get resolved for everyone, but not without some headache — so it may be worth running a $199.99 charge to avoid that problem.
“On the other hand, it’s worth noting that Mastercard gift cards have been more susceptible to fraud over the past couple of years than Visa Gift Cards. For that reason, I only recommend buying Mastercards if you have immediate plans for liquidation.”
Is this still true now that most (all?) MC sold at ODOM/Staples are from MetaBank?
I haven’t continued to track it. Truth be told, I never had an issue with mine, but I know many others had issues with OD/OM MCGCs for quite a while, so I’ve had a warning in my posts about them for a while. The recent issue with MCGCs draining despite the transaction not being approved happened with Staples MCGCs (just over a month ago).
I had a problem the one time (2017) I bought a U.S. Bank MC gift card. Drained and U.S. Bank was a total pain to deal with. No issues with the dozen or so MetaBank MC GC’s I’ve bought in the past year.
OM/OD / Staples have had so many of these sales this year that I’ve hit my 5X limit already and I’m only 6 months into my account anniversary year!
Curiously how did you liquidate so many in half year?
Ditto
Easy. Money orders and GoBank loads.
It helped that up until October, my Staples was allowing 5 VGC’s per day. There were many times my wife would stop by on her way home from work and pick up 5, in addition to the 5 I was buying. I limited my OD purchases to $400 per day. I did this every day of the sales.
Wasn’t hard at all to hit the $25,000 5X limit considering I also take advantage of the other 5X categories.
Isn’t money orders usually debit card only? Also what is the GoBank load?
Just like VGCs, they are pin enabled debit cards. Never tell a cashier or let them see you are using a GIFT card. FWIW, buying money orders with Mastercard gift cards is easier at MY local grocery chain that sells MOs than at WMT.
GoBank? Google is your friend.