Free money and points from Staples

I used my $150 Staples gift card to purchase $150 worth of Kindle branded Amazon gift cards which are much more useful to me.

@Richard K – wow. How did you amass $1050?

I just went and bought $120 worth of stuff at Staples. About $20 will be free after rebate, the rest comes back in the form of Rewards. Maybe you could just chip away at the $1050 with these promos; go grab a couple packs of photo paper? I believe there is also a deal on reams of paper – buy four, pair with a $5 off $25 coupon, and it will save you another $24. So…now you only have $1k to burn. 😉 Every couple weeks these things pop up.

Got my $1050 in Staples gift cards yesterday. Too bad I dont want anything from Staples and a 16% cut off the top is to much to swallow. Anyone got any great ideas to turn this into cash beyond whats in this post?

Dan: I received the email that the check was in the mail on December 11th and received the check on December 20, so it took 9 days. Hopefully yours will arrive any day now.

My $150 gift cards came in as well.

Has anyone got their rebate yet? And if so, for how much? I got the e-mail on Dec. 11, but no GC yet.

Staples in Portland has a bunch left.. On a gift card rack with them facing the wall. I had to search but found them. Not really advertised at all in-store looks like they are hiding it!

If I’ve not yet acted on this, am I likely out of luck? I will check on Friday or Saturday anyway, but any data points as to whether your local Staples is out of stock?

I also had trouble at Target. They said you can’t “load a prepaid with a prepaid”. Cashing out my Visa $200 GC’s over the next five days using AMEX serve ($200 daily limit to load from debit cards/ $1,000 month) since I already did amazon payments this month. Good news is that I got some sort of $25 merchant credit in my serve account from AMEX…no idea how or why but I’ll take it!

@Chris – I agree the revised wording is unclear, but currently my rebates are still showing the full amount of $150, of course all orders are still “pending.” I’m in for $16K so I certainly hope they honor the promotion the way we interpreted it.

The website still notes “Limit 10 Staples Gift Cards per name/address/household” so I think the argument can be made one combined receipt versus 10 separate $100 receipts shouldn’t impact your qualification for the rebate. Hopefully it is an argument that I don’t need to make.

@chris

That’s fine. I just submitted rebate form for 3x $100 cards and received a message saying I will be getting Staples gift card for $45.

@victor and @umc – I’m confused. Did your submission say you were to receive $150 and then you got an e-mail saying it was possibly calculated incorrectly? Or did it say $15 and then you got this e-mail. I did 5 x $200 and my submission says I will receive $150 rebate.

Received the same email. If I get $150 Staples gift card for my 5*$200 visa gift cards purchased, I’m happy. Worst case scenario is $15 staples gift card for $1000 purchase, but I earned miles so it is not too bad.

Was told by Staples that promotion has been extended thru November 24. I purchased 5 $200 Visa gift cards today, followed your instructions and, viola, $150 gift card is on its way. Hope to be able to use the FAR to realize the full $150 in cash.

My staples didn’t have any visa or mastercard gift cards. UGH!!

Just bought 10 x $100 @ Staples…got home and registered my rebate but my $1k purchase is only generating a $15 rebate, not $150! All 10 items are on the transaction…anyone else with this problem?

ARGH.

Works here too. Says they’ll send $150 card for the 5 $200 purchases.

Nov/14, ez rebates was not worked, but today(Nov/15) it works again.

Same for me. I wonder if Staples realized they were giving the gift cards away for $200 purchases instead of limiting it to $100 V/MCs.

This makes it much less of an “Easy Rebate,” Staples!

I just tried submitting the rebate online and got the error message “The Rebate Offer Number you entered is no longer valid for online submission.” So I’m going to mail it in and hope for the best.

My partner has a Staple’s business account linked to his business. Can we use the name and address for that business and also use our home address, to get the rebate times two?

I believe Gregory in comment #30 because L/P managers watch for what they may consider suspicious activity all the time.
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Take Walmart for example… Every stood in line at the CS desk and one wall has a black shiny section to it? This is actually a one way mirror like you’d see at a police station. Yes, it is!
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L/P managers there are such that other staff does not know when they are in or where they are, but often times they are behind that glass watching you. Certainly you can imagine Target has this too.
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If someone walks up with say, 20 gift cards and wants to buy something, they are trained to instantly consider this fraud, crime, laundering, etc. To use that’s stupid and laughable. I think so at least, but they possibly have a bit more experience with people scamming something than people who are just trying to earn miles, points or rebates. And their first inclination is to wonder: So where did that shopper GET those gift cards he is using? Must be fraud! It’s a risk! As the manager, I am tired and fat and lazy and way underpaid, and don’t want that right now because I am closed minded and intolerant but I also now finally have a purpose in my job, so… he’s outta here! Call security!
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We ‘hide’ our mile-isious activities and may even have to make up stories to the clerks at the registers because we don’t want to blow a deal we found online or in these blogs, but to them, that hiding in itself–the way we may try to act or speak with a manner that is less willing to tell the whole story, is a huge red flag. It took me many moons to figure out this anomaly and how once you happen to get into the cross hairs of these L/P, Compliance, Risk Prevention types of thinkers, it is the fact that you are IN their cross hairs that makes them now think that everything you say and do MUST be wrong or bad–and since I have also run into my own share of L?P personnel and corporate compliance officers over similar matters, I can tell you that it’s a tough thing to try and “un-prove” yourself as a crook and merely state what exactly you are doing! For, if you ‘go there’ and expose, say, how you earn miles doing this stuff, you may risk killing it at all levels for yourself and your online friends. But if you don’t, you risk them shutting you down, holding funds, running unnecessary reports and more. I’ve been faced with the balancing act before… and depending on the amount of money being held up, you do what you must. So far things have worked out–gigs still safe, money not lost, etc. Time is lost but not much else.
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This Staples/GC/Target thing is just a small example, but FM if you are reading this bit right now, please do push for me to be able to speak at the April Do because this whole thing is EXACTLY what I wanted to talk about and I have a great deal of experience with it. Go tell Gary and the other bloggers it would only be a benefit to hear more on the subject of earning über miles and points and what happens when you hit the ceilings, get into cross hairs and the like. And oh, just because someone does those things, doesn’t mean they screwed up or that it was their fault the L/P manager or Risk Manager got after them. Many think that’s the case–until they themselves are also chomping at the bit for help! I’ve seen it a million times in varying degrees over the years: “Hey if you got caught doing X, you must have been the problem you arse! Hey I need your help cuz now I am the arse!”
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In the end, many stores and clerks working at stores cannot fathom WHY on earth people would want to get say 10-20 GCs somewhere and then combine them all to another GC and clerks are trained to listen not think. Managers are trained to listen to their bosses and most in such stores are trained that everyone is trying to screw the store and any sign of frustration or argument means you get ousted–even if you are right. Everything is fraud these days, everything is ‘for security reasons’ and everything is over-zealously inconvenient–especially if you just happen to be willing and able to spend lots of money.
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I have said it before and wont stop til it curbs, which it never may. Miles and points cannot be explained to 90% of the population and most who would listen don’t understand so they think you are a scammer. And if they do listen, you lose them and you have way too much time on your hands, so you must be a loser. the L/P manager in Gregory’s post was very wrong to do what he/she did in the minds of many, but also the store has the right to use its own experience to not sell to anyone it doesn’t want to for whatever reason.
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I have already bought 20 Staples $100 GC MCs and used them similarly as did those who have had success at some Targets. They say they are issued by the U.S. Bank National Association and http://www.mygiftcardsite.com is where one can apparently register them if so inclined (although there has been no need to do this). I stated in another post somewhere that one would be best suited to not buy more than 10 on one Staples receipt or else the rebate thing could get messed up, and if you buy less, just keep track of how many you need to make an even 10 on added receipts but not more. In my case the online Staples rebate page would somehow not allow this to be submitted so I decided to mail it. No big deal–I’ll lose only a few days in the process.
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Good luck!

I loaded 6 $100 Visas on my Target Amex, but it was a battle. Was first refused by two cashiers, then by one manager as they all said “can’t use gcs”. Eventually found the only manager who knew what he was talking about and he told them it was ok to load. Then cashier could not get multiple gcs to load so had to load one at a time and pay $3 load fee each time. Won’t be doing that again…

Every time it’s been a hassle to reload at Target – none of the cashiers know what they are doing – and the managers are usually just as clueless.

Anybody else notice that AK got a $135 rebate for 3 $200 cards? Anybody else experience the exact same thing?

@gregory I like the part about the ‘loss prevention person’. where i’m from we call them ‘security guards’. but your version is more scary. perhaps your story will keep everyone but you from taking advantage of this deal……

@Miguel: you could buy Amazon gift cards at no cost and try reselling them on eBay. Some sell at higher than face value. However after the 9% eBay cut, you’d need to sell that $100 for 100/.91 = $111.11 or higher. Not easy. The best use is for stuff that is non-bonused or…amazon payments, kiva and al.

You can always link the mastercard gift cards to amazon payments and drain them that way. Just make sure to register the cards at https://www.consumercardaccess.com/main/mygiftcardusb/Home first with your name and billing address.