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Office Depot and OfficeMax stores are back with a profitable way to earn an easy 5x with their semi-regular sale on Visa Gift Cards. Note that there is currently a Chase Offer good for 10-20% back up to $8-$11 available on some cards that will stack with this in-store sale.
The Deal
- Buy $300+ Visa gift cards at Office Depot/OfficeMax & get $15 off instantly.
Key Terms
- Valid May 14th to May 20th, 2023.
- Limit 1 per household/business (YMMV)
Quick Thoughts
The best option points-wise is to buy two $200 Visa gift cards. Although you’ll pay an additional $1 in purchase fees (compared to buying a $100 and a $200 card), you’ll also generate $101 worth of spend which can be worth far more than $1 if paying with a card that earns more at office supply stores such as the Chase Ink Cash or Ink Plus cards.
With two $6.95 fees (note that some Pathward/Metabank Visa’s are now $7.95), you’ll make $1.10 profit in addition to 1,995 Ultimate Rewards points for every two $200 Visa gift cards that you buy.
In addition, there are two versions of an Office Depot/OfficeMax Chase Offer giving 10% back on up to $80 or $110 of spend.
We’ve seen some data points that suggest that, in some stores, the discount extends to multiple $300 increments(ie, buy $600, get $30 off, buy $900, get $45 off), but your mileage may vary.
See the full list of Visa and Mastercard gift card deals here
Past Office Max/Office Depot $15 off $300 deals
April 14th to April 22nd, 2023March 19th to March 25th, 2023February 19th to February 25th, 2023January 22nd to January 28th, 2023December 18th to December 24th, 2022.November 12th to November 18th, 2022.August 28th to September 3rd, 2022.July 4th to August 6th 2022.May 21st to May 28th 2022.
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I went to Office Max last day of the gift card sale. Discount did not trigger. I was purchasing a $200 Grocery Everywhere and a $100 Movie everywhere card.
So with bluebird charging a fee to reload at Walmart, do you know if this also includes relaoding with pre-paids?
Have been capitalizing on these OD/OM V/MC GC sales for a while, without much issue. But yesterday, ran into an obstacle I hadn’t even heard of before. Happened to be in Eugene, OR and went to the local OD, planning to buy three $200 cards on my CIC. At the register the manager then said that due to corporate policy, customers can only buy these GCs using cash or debit card – no credit card! What?! He wasn’t mean about it, but firm, despite any mention I made of never having run into this policy at any other OD/OM before (including earlier that very day at another store). He also said I’d run into the same policy at the local OM in Eugene (though I didn’t verify).
Anyone else run into that “policy”? Sure hasn’t been any chain-wide policy, but I hope it’s not a sign of things to come. Also wondering if anyone else by chance has had better luck at this particular store. Maybe I just ran into the one-off errant staff (though he said he was a manager)?
Store employees occasionally mention this type of policy, but there’s little danger of this kind of thing getting rolled out company-wide. What most likely happened is that someone bought some gift cards at that particular store with a stolen credit card and so they’ve decided to avoid that risk for now. Give it a try again in a future sale as they won’t have hardcoded any kind of restriction against paying by credit card.
Good stuff, Stephen. Thanks for the quick reply. That’s reassuring.
Where is the Chase offer mentioned above
When you log in to your Chase account, you should see a section for Chase Offers – check on those for each of your cards to see if you have this offer.
May I kindly ask you Stephen or other readers how tho liquidate these at Walmart?
It has been a couple of years sinceI did this and I knowthe rules changed…..Are $200 VGC without a name still OK, how many swipes do you get now, it use to be 4. I know we would not be spiiling the beans here on any hidden secret and would just appreciate a heads up be i get back MS at Walmart. Thank you in advance to who ever help us out with an answer.
I have found that the $200 VGC may load at Walmart in $99/swipe with a reload fee. I recommend that you just go to Walmart and see what happens. Trial and error looks like your best course of action.
Yay! Thank you for the heads up.
I have three stores in reasonable driving distance. In one, they are always out of the $200 cards; another runs out after a couple of days; but the third has them in abundance, and doesn’t mind running multiple $400 sales one after the other, or doing three cards for $600 for the $30 discount (requires manager approval, no problem). I’m curious. These offers keep coming back. Who is running the sales, OD or Visa and MasterCard? How does the local store fare?
It has been over a month now since I purchased and still not received, is this normal or should I do a chargeback? Thanks
What didn’t you receive? This was an in-store deal; were you meaning one of the online deals where they gave $10 off $100 cards that get mailed to you?
Oops…yes! Should they take a month to receive?
I don’t think so, but I’ve not ordered from them before. It’d be worth reaching out to Blackhawk Network to follow up on the order and they can hopefully advise. From what I can remember that deal was supposed to have free trackable shipping, so it at least should mean they’ve simply not been sent rather than gotten lost in the mail or intercepted.
Good suggestion, thank you!
Is this on the Office Depot website somewhere? I went to my local store and they had no idea what I was talking about.
No, it’s an in-store only deal and they no longer produce weekly ads on their website.
Employees frequently don’t know about this offer, so just try buying a couple of these gift cards. The discount should be applied before you have to insert your card, so you’ll be able to verify the cost before paying.
Even if there’s no signage, does this deal trigger across any ODOM? Or case by case basis? The past two weeks my ODOM has said nothing was available when both FM and DOC called out MGCC and VGC. I’ve used this ODOM for past deals, but didn’t want to test it without it triggering for sure.
It should still trigger at any ODOM. When checking out, the discount will be applied before paying. Don’t insert your payment card until you see the discount applied and you’ll be fine as you can cancel the transaction otherwise.
I think with the 3x $200 for $590 deal this has become a really great vehicle for consistent MS, even without a card that gets better category spend at OS stores.
So someone help me out with the math here!
(A) Based on the standard guidance here, when these Office Depot sales are announced, the ideal option advised is to buy 2 x $200, at $6.95 fee per card. (Actually, you’d get better buying the $200 Grocery Everyday cards at $5.95 fee, as others have noted. Also, let’s ignore for now the recent improved approach of buying three $200 cards to get $30 off, which is obviously preferable.) Here you get $15 off, netting you an immediate $1.10, plus the value of the $398.90 x 5 = 1,994.5 points (using a 5x office supply card like Chase Ink Cash). If we were to value the points for calculation purposes at $0.01, the total net gain here is $1.10 + $19.95 = $21.05. (For the purposes of my question, I don’t think it’ll matter if we value the Chase UR points differently, say at $0.015/pt. or $0.02/pt, so long as we’re consistent.) If we divide that gain by the total value of the cards, we get: $21.05/$400 = 5.26% return. So effectively it’s like earning 5.26% (or more, if you value UR points higher than $0.01) for any purchase made with those V/MC GCs.
(B) But when we consider buying instead one $100 GC (at $5.95) fee + one $200 GC (at $6.95) fee, the parallel math seems to work as follows: immediate gain of $2.10 (after $15 discount) plus ($297.90 x 5 = 1,489.5 points = $14.90, at $0.01/pt). So the overall gain is $2.10 + $14.90 = $17. Then $17/$300 = 5.67%. So effectively it’s like earning 5.67% (or more, depending on how you value UR points) for any purchase made with those V/MC GCs.
So doesn’t that mean option (B) is actually preferable to (A), in terms of the rate of return you’re getting? Would seem so, but Nick’s common point about how spending one extra dollar in fees by going from (B) to (A) results in gaining more value than that lost dollar in 5x points on the extra $101 of spending … well, that makes good sense, too. So what gives? Where am I confusing myself?
(This is probably all moot now that we realize we can get 3 x $200 to get $30 off. But I’m still puzzled and would appreciate anyone’s help so that I don’t have to keep neurotically wondering about this.)
Although getting a $200 + $100 card might get a better return percentage-wise than two $200 cards, to me the percentage return is less important than the absolute return. So while your spending gets a slightly higher return with the smaller transaction, you make $4.05 more profit (using the 1cpp valuations) when buying two $200 cards. I’d rather make more money/points for the same amount of effort than getting a better percentage return on smaller amount of spend.
Ah, got it. OK, well I feel better knowing the math itself was sound then, though I get the pull in the other direction as well. In my case, Office Depot is an easy pit stop on my normal commute. And I’m rarely needing to aggressively buy all that many cards (just what I can legitimately use for real spending), so it’s not a bother to make an extra stop to capitalize on a better rate of return.
But again, with 3 x $200 now on the table, all this is moot.
Thanks for the quick reply, Stephen! Appreciate all you and the team are doing.
The reason it’s $30 off $600 is because there’s a limit of 2 offers.
Not just $15 off $300. $30 off $600 also works (in a single transaction). I was able to purchase 3 x $200 VGCs at Office Depot today in a single transaction for a total cost was $590.85. Purchasing more than 2 at a time requires manager override, but at least at my store they had 0 concerns with that.
Now I’m half tempted to see if $60 off of 6 x $200 would work…
I did the same for this and for Mastercard last week
The manager at mine did not let it fly. I got away with the two $200. I told him yeah well I heard the other managers are doing it.
By purchasing the 3 x $200 Grocery Everyday cards, was able to get three cards for $587.85, after the $30 discount. I’m thinking that’s the best possible value/return one could get (provided you can make use of the grocery cards, of course)?
The need for manager override for 3x $200 seems to be YMMV. My OD let me purchase them today without requiring a manager to approve it.
Thanks for the data point. First I’d heard of it. Worked for me twice this afternoon. No questions asked.
this deal only apply if you go to the store?
Just wanted to throw my experience in. My local store had a sign stating limit 2 discounts. Cashier ran them as 2 separate transactions though as sometimes it can require a manager approval and stated not all will approve
Called to activate them and spent 20m doing so, to find out when I went to my local Fry’s that 2 of them didn’t activate.
Other than the hour I wasted driving around and activating the things, was pretty smooth.
Went back with some other gift cards and they’re getting “not authorized”. Tried with 4 others and 2 went though, while the others failed and when we started it over just to do the 2 that went through, those were now coming back “not authorized”. Kinda annoying since I bought these to pay bills while getting cash back. 🙁
Is it just me or is anyone else having problems using VGCs to buy MOs at grocery stores that sell Western Union money orders? I used to be able to buy 5 x $500 MOs in a single transaction and use 13 x $200 VGCs to pay for the MOs plus fees and have funds left over on the last VGC. Now I can’t even buy a single MO for $499 using a $500 VGC, or a $199 MO using a $200 VGC. Every attempt gets declined. And the store personnel look at me like I’m running a scam. What’s going on?
Where have you been for the last month or so?!?!? Search latest blog articles for Pathway…Try a smaller amount for the 500 cards and good luck!
OK. But FYI my VGCs don’t say “Pathward” or “Pathway.” The cards say they are issued by MetaBank and distributed and serviced by Blackhawk Network. So I guess that doesn’t matter. As for trying smaller amounts, I tried 498 on the 500. And 198 on the 200. Neither worked. Per another earlier commenter, I guess I can try 398 for the 500s and ?? for the 200s. I’m open to suggestions.
Any gift card serviced by blackhawk doesn’t work as it used to. Pathward bought the metabank business. Stay away from these unless you dont mind the frustration
what other companies are there selling $200-1000 mastercard or visa gc besides metabank/pathward?
Bump this, are we seeing any better luck with other meta banks?
This started happening to me 2 weeks ago. I believe the VGCs I buy say issued by Sunrise on the Blackhawk network, but I will double check. In any case, a $450 money order on a $500 card seems to go through as did $463.
Any thoughts on the ethics of MS?
Seriously, what is “unethical” about it?
I bot three $200 Visa GC with a $6.95 fee. Total cost $590.85
All in a single transaction? Seems that you got 2X$15 discount. Technically it’s supposed to be a single $15 discount total, not $15 per $300.
Your comments do seem accurate. But all in a single transaction. $600 transaction was a net charge of $590.85. Fee was $6.95/card.
How are you draining these $200 cards? Is Walmart an option for money orders?
My regional grocery store chain is my option for money orders. I have never tried Walmart.
I apologize if this is a dumb question. But, if you.purchase 2 $200 gift cards and get the $15 discount, can.you go the.next day and purchase 2.more and get the discount again?
In theory, the terms state that you can’t. In reality though, yes you can. Depending on the store, you might be able to do the deal multiple times in the same day.
yes you can.I do that all the time
I cannot reach
tcardmall.com/ or http://mygiftcard.giftcardmall.com/ to register my gift cards, and the issue has been going on for a few days for me. Anyone else experienced this?
[…] real eye-catcher, due to the frequent fee-free Visa and Mastercard gift card sales at Staples and Office Max/Office Depot. If you are able to maximize the 10x category bonus, you’d end up with a total of 202,500 […]
This sounds like a recipe for an AMEX shutdown, especially while earning the signup bonus.
Office max is not on my Dosh app as of today. Anyone else with this issue?
Dosh is saying for Office Depot, “This brand does not have any offers at this time,” for me as well.
Me too as of about a month ago, no more Home Depot.
Oops. Office Depot.
Does anyone know if the cards say Pathward on them now instead of Metabank and if this changes how they work? Pathward is the new name of Metabank. I’m hoping the name change might make them start working at places they haven’t worked at in a while.
Bought a couple yesterday at OD. Looking at the card now…yep, it says “Pathward” on the back. Ruh-roh…
Have not tried liquidating yet. Lowering my expectations. 🙁
with all the new stoppage of MS by pathward this becomes a useless avenue.
Anyone knows if I can use this Visa Giftcard for Venmo in a person to person transfer?
I just tried and it was declined. I wonder if anybody else had luck. Finding them very hard to use
I tried several times with several cards and it did not work.
Can you pay for Visa cards with Office Depot gift cards?
Not when I’ve tried it. OD will not let you buy a gift card with a gift card. They won’t let you use your rewards on gift cards either.
Manager says today they are having coding issues with the $5.95 cards and some of the $6.95 ones, too, but the new $7.95 ones ok. I got a coupla $200, $6.95 floral MetaBank, though, and the $7.50 off/ea credited fine.
Worked in California today. 6.95 fees each, standard Visa gift cards.
Worked this morning at two ODs in Texas. One still had the variable VGCs with the 6.95 fee, but the other only had the newer $7.95 fee cards.
Thanks for the update. I went too my OD in Texas and the discount worked. Did not work on Monday with Dining Everywhere.
And the rebate did work with DEverywhere as of yesterday, Dec. 22.
There was no sign posted in the store but the discount worked at the register in St. Louis on 12/20.
I just got this in Nebraska
Sign was up in Alabama but discount didn’t work at register. Manager didn’t understand the promo so he said he could give me a $15 store credit for each of the 2 gift cards so got a $30 store credit.
LOL! Fantastic!
Worked in California. Store only had these Visas – didn’t find out til cashier rang me up – $7.95 fee/card. Got it anyway since I already wasted gas – total $401 for 2x$200/card
Dining Everywhere did not trigger the rebate here in Texas.
DEverwhere triggered the discount today.
Worked for me today with the new GEverywhere. Was able to buy 4 sets. Business as usual.
My store in California didn’t have this deal either
Visa GC rebate is not live at my location in Texas.
I went to my OD this morning and the manger looked on his computer for the Visa GC promotion and he could not find it. I believe that there is not a Visa GC promotion this week.
Seems like its only for specific stores targeted in certain areas. There are success posted in DOC
Yes, the rebate eventually worked for me. OD must not have programmed all of the POS terminals in a timely manner.
Maybe this was posted mistakenly? Seems like no promo anywhere…
Not working this morning in Virginia
Not working today in Wisconsin.
Not working today in Minnesota.
Didn’t work in Washington state.
Does not work in CA OD! Tried 2 Five back type VGC which normally works at that OD. Store clerk also said no promo going on.
I wonder if it’s 1 or 2 bonus per transaction this time around? Last few times were 2 x $15 off when you buy 3 or 4 $200 cards.
Second time that $15 off promotion did not work at my OD. Tried using both Grocery Everywhere Visas and regular VGC today but did not work. Same issue with MCGC promotion from previous week. The OD employee did say it worked later in the week though.
Offer not working at all in NW Ohio 🙁
Managaement has no idea why, but no $15 disocunt
The limit this time is 2 offers. Confirmed that buying 4 x 200 in one transaction triggers $30 off.
OD/OM just charged $7.95 per Grocery Everywhere card (even with the expiration in 2031. Fees is still reflecting the $5.95 activation fee).
A pair of $200 Grocery Everywhere Visa cards now rings up as $400.90.
Not in my world. They are still ringing up 2 for $394.90. If you liquidating at WM for MO’s Style Everywhere still works there. Try finding those with a lower activation fee of $4.95.
Did you buy the Grocery Everywhere card at OM/OD? If so, I am curious why one store would raise the fee and not another store.
Have you ever purchased wallpaper for your house? If you do, you need to make sure each roll is from the same dye lot. If not, the color won’t match exactly and it will be very noticeable when it’s on the wall. I believe that the fee on newer batches of these cards has increased. Until the older cards work their way out of the system, there will be overlap of higher and lower fees in cards that are otherwise identical. The many ODOM stores I frequent have yet to receive any of the higher priced cards. However, armed with the information you have provided here, it’s time to remerchandise as many of the older inactivated cards as possible to an undisclosed location for future use. I have noticed, during this recent run, that the Grocery Everywhere variety is non existent on the many racks in my area. However, Style Everywhere, with the lower fee are still plentiful, which is fine for me because they work at WM for MO’s here. Just to be clear, the fee is not increased at the store level. The fee amount printed on the card package is the amount which must be changed at the cash register. To do otherwise would be illegal false advertising.
The packaging shows $5.95 and I was charged $7.95. I questioned the young clerk and he had no idea why the fee was charged differently than the packaging.
That is very strange. If you still have the card and the receipt, I’d contact ODOM corporate about it. Not because of a couple of dollars, but to find out if that particular store is fleecing people.
It’s not the individual store fleecing people. it happened a month ago on the everywhere cards, dining and grocery for me. a month later and the majority of the $4.95 cards have been purchased and replaced by the $5.95 cards. I am sure you have experienced that by now.
Had same issue with the new grocery everywhere cards…register scanning $7.95 fee despite pack stating $5.95. Seems more of a programming issue at corp level as that is the new fee for the regular visas. Old ones still ring $4.95
[…] Update 8/28/22: Deal is back for 8/28 – 9/3 (ht FM) […]
What is the OD offer? I don’t understand, sorry if someone could explain I would truly appreciate.
Will chase shut you down or claw back subs if I purchase this on my ink business cash card while working on the sub?
Likely no. It’s always hard to predict shut down risk because there are far too many factors, but Chase is not generally sensitive about this. Like if you got the card yesterday and you’ve never charged more than $100 at a time on a Chase card and today you go out and buy $7500 in gift cards then sure — that might raise a red flag. If you’re talking about popping in three or four times this week to buy $400 at a pop, then likely no problem at all.
The general rule of thumb with bonus categories is not to go too wildly above whatever the monthly limit in that category would work out to be. For instance, Chase caps you at up to $25K in purchases on the 5x office supply category. Therefore, the “speed limit” is around $2K per month, so the conventional wisdom is to stay within reason of that. Buying $3K or $4K in a single month is probably still fine, but buying $20K in the first month you’ve had the card is risky.
Thanks nick. I’ve never done any MS but trying juggle 2 cards Min spend for the SUB (Amex biz platinum and Chase biz ink cash). I dare not try with the Amex as I know they’re very sensitive to GC purchases (especially during the Soend to qualify for your SUB, plus only 1x) But I’ll give it a try on the chase since I do have the OD offer and of course get 5x
I’d actually not characterize Amex as “very sensitive”. Amex clawed back welcome bonuses on a bunch of people a few years ago and they stopped awarding points and progress toward spend-based bonuses on Simon purchases (and perhaps GiftCards dot com). Personally, I err on the side of caution in not using obvious gift card purchases to hit Amex spending bonuses simply because it’s not worth the risk of missing out on a “once in a lifetime” bonus when I can find other ways to meet the spend. But that’s not to say that I’ve never bought a gift card during the minimum spend period — I just don’t make it obvious repeated gift card purchases. I don’t tend to worry about it at all with other issuers (except for the fact that I generally don’t try to hit the minimum spending requirement all at once with a single big gift card purchase).
Thanks Nick. It was all for not anyways because I went to my local Office Depot and could not find those Visa gift cards with a $6.95 activation fee and up to $200 all I could find were 25, 50, and $100 visa gift cards with activation fees That range from $4.95 to $5.95. But none that were $6.95. I asked the employee and they didn’t seem to know anything about the promotion. Can you please specify which specific visa gift card qualifies for this offer? Or is it any visa gift card ?
I went yesterday and asked for the $200 denominations. They looked in the back and all they had were variable load cards, marked as $20-$200 for a $6.95 fee. I wasn’t sure if they would work… but they did. Triggered Office Depot’s discount just fine.
Not to step on Nick’s answer at all, because he gave you prudent advice, especially if you’re new to the game. However, I’ve been manufacturing spend for many years in large volume. Of course, I’m confident that your personal track record with Chase plays an important role, but that said, I purchase $10K of VGC’s each time they are on sale at OfficeMax/Office Depot. This is more of a data point rather than a suggestion or encouragement to anyone considering MS. I also cycle my Ink card to do this, which means that my limit is only half of my spend, so I prepay the card during the sales in order to achieve my desired goal. In other words, in my experience, Chase is very MS friendly in this particular environment.
Thanks Brant. I wanted to dip my toes into the MS process but couldn’t even find the specific Visa cards that would work for this promo at OD. Do you know which ones work? The employees knew nothing and i could not find it online except on blogs which don’t reference which specific Visa cards work. Thanks
You need to Google these terms. “Grocery Everywhere Visa” and “Style Everywhere Visa”. These cards continue to work for purchases of money orders at Walmart. I would ignore all other cards because they are more difficult to liquidate.
A couple of thoughts:
While Brant isn’t alone in the volume he’s doing, note that I definitely wouldn’t recommend cycling your limit and wouldn’t recommend going out for $10K at a time if you haven’t scaled up to that. Those things are known shut down triggers when they seem to be far outside of your normal spending pattern.
I’d also excercise some caution on Style Everywhere as I thought they didn’t universally work at all Wally Worlds (maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve avoided Style for lack of backup uses if they don’t work at my Wally World and/or stop working – I don’t want to be stuck with a bunch of cards that have a limited scope of use). Personally, I ignore WM as I’ve found them to be much more of a hassle than local grocery chains. Obviously, things are different in Brant’s neighborhood. I would also characterize the “ignore all other cards” as painting with far too broad a stroke. I have no issue at all using 5Backs or other Meta cards at the chains in my area. That’s not to say that his advice might not be right for your situation (maybe they are more difficult to liquidate where you are) but they aren’t any more difficult where I live, so YMMV. The reason I prefer Grocery Everywhere is just because the activation fee is less, so I come out a little farther ahead on deals like this one. Otherwise, I’d personally rather have cards that aren’t limited to grocery store use on the day when the party ends. I’d hate to be stuck with $10K in cards that can only be used in grocery stores. I know you could use them to buy other GCs in that situations, but I’d rather just have general-use VGCs in that scenario. Of course, I say that and admittedly buy many Grocery Everywheres, so I’m not saying I don’t buy them, just that I don’t limit my purchases to only them.
All great points!! See what I did there?
I wasn’t even thinking about MS to that degree but just doing the $400 on the OD offer since I had it on my chase card. But I couldn’t even find which visa gc worked at OD. (Still trying to find the answer to that one )
Literally any of the Visa Gift Cards they sell. It doesn’t specify. Most people buy the Variable load ($20-$200 ones) because you’ll have the best ratio of points to activation fees. Doesn’t matter if you buy the 5 Back Visas, the plain-looking “Visa Gift Cards” ones, the Grocery Everywhere / Style Everywhere / Movies Everywhere (don’t know why you’d want to buy the movies one though). You could even buy $50 and $100 cards, but it wouldn’t make sense to do that over the $200 cards. Like you could buy a $200 card and a $100 card and save like $1 in activation fees, but you’re better off getting 5x on another $100 in spend (500 points, worth at least $5 if cashed straight out or $7.50 toward travel with the CSR, etc). Buy two of whichever cards that can be loaded with $200.
At first, they’ll ring up with the activation fees, but once the cashier hits the “total” button, the $15 will come off.
Thanks for clarifying! I guess I was confused because in your post you referenced $6.95 fees per card, but every Visa card I saw at my local OD had $4.95 or $5.95 activation fees so I thought maybe there was a specific one. Of course since the $15 off was not advertised on OD’s website, they could not look anything up and none of them employees seemed to know anything about any promotion. I’ll give it a try again since I have until 9/3. Thank you
Man, I just received my Ink Cash card last week and was excited to go for my first gift cards when I saw this offer – then realized that OfficeMax/Depot apparently closed EVERY store on Long Island at some point. And I’ve got those 10% off offers on some other cards too – Bummer. 🙁
It didn’t ring up on sale today for me. Might want to wait a day for more data points.
Worked for me about two hours ago
Didn’t ring up for me either at about noon today. I used the variable VISA cards (you choose the amount, $25-$200); tried to purchase 2x$200 and no discount. Maybe I tried to buy the wrong thing? They didn’t have the $200 VISA cards.
I tried variable visa metabank cards for $200 each at 5pm. They have worked in the past.
2x$200 variable visas worked for me just fine.
I bought 2 of the variable VISA gift cards @200 each, it worked for me. Discount was automatically applied at check out. Total paid was $398.90
Wow this community is obsessed with gift cards.I don’t have any business cards, so I never get the 5x earn rate at office stores.
How do you keep track of them all? What do you do when the balance drops below $1.00 and stores refuse to accept them for such a small purchase?
Good question, but it really varies by person. Some people use them right away to pay or pre-pay recurring bills like utilities, insurance, etc.Others use them for daily spend — in many cases supermarkets will auto-drain the remaining balance on a partially-used card (varies by chain and type of card). This post might also help explain why fee-free gift cards are of high interest to many: https://frequentmiler.com/manufactured-spending-complete-guide/#Buy_liquidate_gift_cards_for_manufactured_spending
.
One can buy Amazon digital gift cards in any denomination. This what I do when I have less than $20 left on any VGC or MCGC.
Thanks Nick and Deb! The Amazon hack might make me a believer…
Hi Big Jeff. If you shop at Costco, they’ll auto drain your VGCs. I frequently drain 3 or 4 in one trip.
Yes, Costco works great. Just scan one card after another until you’re all paid up or out of cards (and pay the balance with a 2x Visa).
Unable to buy money orders using these cards at my local Albertsons/Safeway any longer. Never had problems until the last 2 weeks.
Anyone have similar or know what’s going on?
Have you noticed OD is no longer available at Dosh? I can’t find it this morning.
I saw that, too, but then I later got an email saying it tracked anyway!
I bought VGC this morning and I haven’t received anything from Dosh yet. I could not locate OD on my Dosh app either.
Just struck out. The cashier saw my credit card and told me gift cards had to be purchased with cash. I said, “Oh?” And she said ‘Yeah, it’s like that at ALL stores.” Oh well, just like my local Staples. A wild goose chase.
That’s too bad. I bought with a CC at my local Office Max yesterday. Depending on where you live, it might be worth trying at another type of day. It certainly could be a local store policy, but it could also be an overzealous cashier.
No problems with me using a credit card, either, but now the stores say “Corporate” is requiring Manager approval for all purchases at every store? Had been only over $500. Hassle waiting on a manager.
No manager approval necessary at the store I just visited. My wife asked to split tender over two cards (got the Chase Offers to use) and the cashier said he couldn’t do that (made-up rule I think, but he wasn’t going to budge), so she asked if she could do another separate transaction and he said no problem, so she did two separate $400 transactions (and then I bought $400 behind her). No issue.
ODs seem to make up rules as they go along. One OD came up with the cash only rule; another would not let me buy another gift card on the same day with a separate txn (two offers)
seems publix stop money order using VGC
Chase offer for10% off says no gift cards.
Never been enforced.
Sad Im on the Big Island and unlike last time.
The promo was only $2.50 per card.
Bought $1000 worth cards still cost $41.70
At least its 5X points
Anyone know if “anywhere” visas are still working? Think the fee is 4.95/200 on those.
That’s what I always buy until they run out. Still worked as of the last Visa gift card deal.
Sweet, looks like it’s still working this go around too 🙂
Yes, the “anywhere” cards will load to Go2Bank. I have not attempted to purchase a MO with a “anywhere” Visa GC.
I tried loading to go2bank card and it didn’t work, what do I need to do? Do I click “debit card transfer?”
Have you set a pin to the “anywhere” Visa GC? You will be asked to enter a Pin#-4 digit Pin at the terminal. I go to the Money Center or where you return merchandise at Walmart to load to the Go2Bank card.
Setting a pin worked thank you so much I really appreciate you!
Great to hear. You can use the website address on the back of the card or call into the toll free number on the back of the card. the website address route is usually faster.
Is this at a person or is there like an automated kiosk to load the go2card.
you load at the Walmart money center with a person.
Can you buy a variable GC with this promo? The ad doesn’t specify. Thanks
Yup!
How to know if any Office Depot store has this promo for VGC? On Wednesday day, I went to a Office Depot store in 98133, they say they don’t run such promotion for MCGC
Never ever heard of a store not participating. That was more likely and uninformed employee.Did you try ringing up the gift cards? Discount should come up automatically
Yeah. I asked the cashier but didn’t really try to check out. I will
Try check out this time
Is this instore only?
Always. I don’t think they sell VGCs online at all.
Office Depot does sell VGCs online but it’s not an official Office Depot purchase (sends you to Gift Card Mall) thus no 5X points on Chase and the $15 off promo does not apply.
[…] Update 5/21/22: Deal is back from 5/22 – 5/28. Hat tip to FM […]
Awesome tip about the offer showing up on the Chase Ink Cash card! A while back, when the offer showed up on personal cards, I checked my ink, but it was not there. Happy even though mine maxes out at $8.
Tim, wouldn’t you say that it is a disservice to the community if you don’t caution individuals about the liquidation issues associated with VGCs? I see the questions on this and other posts. And, I see newbies running into trouble.
Tim I have only done these deals in-store. Remind me, can you get this deal online?
Unfortunately, no. In-store only.
Any ideas on where to cash out (ie Money order) in SE Michigan (we are in Bloomfield Hills)? Trying to help my Mom meet a min spend. Thank you.
Could you explain how it’s $101 of spend after buying 2x $200 VGC?
Sure, I just added a note to make that clearer in the post. If you buy a $100 card and a $200 (to be right at $300 spend), you’ll pay activation fees of $6.95 for the $200 card and $5.95 for the $100 card. So, swap that $100 out for another $200 card, you pay an additonal $1 in activation fees ($6.95 instead of $5.95) + $100 in additional gift card for a total of $101 more.