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At first blush, this deal looks pretty sweet. $10 back from a $50 gift card purchase seems like a nice 20% rebate that should also be stackable with other offers. Let’s look closer…
This is not a 20% discount
When you get a gift card as a bonus for buying stuff, the math gets a little confusing. It’s not really correct to say that the $10 gift card bonus on a $50 purchase is a 20% discount. Remember that the gift card isn’t worth anything until you use it. So, its more accurate to say that you get a total of $60 worth of Staples purchases for $50. That’s a 16.7% discount. In reality, though, you probably won’t buy exactly $60 worth of stuff. For example, let’s say you actually buy $70 worth of stuff and use the $60 of credit to pay for all but $10. In that case, overall, you will have realized a combined 14.3% discount.
The ePromo Card is not a normal gift card
Unlike normal gift cards that never expire, this card is valid only until July 7th 2013. So, if you don’t use the card right away, you won’t get any value from it.
Neither card works online
Even though Staples sells and promotes eGift cards like these, Staples.com does not allow you to use gift cards for online purchases! Seriously. Print out the gift cards and bring to the store or bring up the email on your smart phone when you shop in-store.
You can’t buy gift cards with gift cards (Yes you can. Maybe)
The terms & conditions are clear on this point:
eGift Cards cannot be used for credit card payments or to purchase other gift cards (including Staples gift cards) or wireless cards.
…
ePromotional Cards cannot be used for credit card payments or to purchase other gift cards (including Staples gift cards) or wireless cards
In practice, though, in my experience I have been able to buy gift cards at Staples using printed out gift cards as payment. I’m not sure the same would be true for the promotional gift cards, but maybe.
You won’t earn portal points or cash back
These days when shopping at Staples.com I usually start at uPromise in order to earn an extra 5% cash back on all of my purchases. And, when buying 3rd party gift cards (physical or egift cards), I’ve always had success getting cash back (or points from other portals). With these Staples eGift cards, though, I don’t think any portals will track the purchase. The reason is that when you checkout you are taken to a different website: staples.cashstar.com. In all past experiments, when a website behaves this way, I’ve found that points or cash back are not awarded.
You might not earn 5X
One of the reasons I always love deals from Staples, OfficeMax, and Office Depot is that I know that I can pay with a Chase Ink card and earn 5 points per dollar for my purchase. This is in addition to any special offers going on and in addition to points or cash back from a portal. In this case, though, the payment is processed by CashStar, not by Staples. A reader tweeted that his transaction was coded like this: CST*STAPLES CSTR GFTCD. CSTR apparently stands for CoinStar. It’s still possible that the purchase will be coded as an office supply purchase, but it might not.
Bottom Line
Despite all of my misgivings, I still think that this deal is a very good deal in certain situations:
If you know that you will make purchases at Staples in the next few weeks and you don’t mind not getting automatic warranty from your credit card, then you might as well take advantage of this discount.
Or:
You are willing to take the chance that before the promo gift card expires, you’ll be able to cash it out by buying free after rebate items. Alternatively, you can watch for promotional items that offer 100% back in Staples Rewards. This way, you will extend the time you have for using the credit.
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Jesson: No, I don’t buy and sell gift cards much anymore. It seems like too much trouble when there are much easier ways of manufacturing spend with bluebird, gobank, etc. I saw the cardcash deal but didn’t see any attractive offers on the site when I glanced it over.
Hi, FM, Since Plastic Jungle is down, are you still buying gift cards from other website selling GCs? I just received an email from its partner called Cardcash which will provide 5% discount for all GCs. Do you know about this website? Is cardpool better than it?
Thanks
Jesson
Good deal
Only the promotional amounts have expiration dates. So if you spent $250 that would not expire but the 5 $10 bonus ecertificates I received had an expiration of 7/7/13. So use those first.
You can always buy items with egift card and return it to get physical one which doesn’t expire. Correct me if you experienced otherwise
This is a very good deal if you actually need to purchase any tech items (computers, tablets, etc). If so, you get the 16.7% + 5% staples rewards and still get 1x points for whichever card you use. Used it two days ago with no problems, printed them and headed to store. Obviously not a miles bonanza.
The deal doesn’t seem like such a deal now that you describe it in detail. I’m hoping Staples and OD have a gift card promo like OM. That would be awesome.