Starting today and scheduled to end on Saturday, June 10th, 2017, Office Max and Office Depot will be offering a $10 instant rebate on Visa Gift Card purchases of $300 or more. That’s not as good as past promotions and will not completely eliminate the activation fees, but you can still come out ahead of using a card that earns a good category bonus.
The Offer
- $10 instant rebate on $300 or more in Visa Gift Cards
Key Details
- One instant rebate per transaction
- One transaction limit
- Valid in-store only
- Expires Saturday, June 10th, 2017
The Math
This deal is best maximized by paying with a card that earns 5x/5% at office supply stores (which remember includes the BBVA NBA card as the NBA Finals are on). To maximize rewards and minimize activation fees as a percentage of cost, you would want to buy two $200 Visa Gift cards. Alternatively, you could buy one $100 gift card and one $200 gift card (or any other combination to reach $300 in gift cards), but activation fees will cumulatively make up a higher percentage of your purchase price. In other words, your “cost” will be the same, so you might as well earn some more rewards at 5X/5%.
$413.90 (2x $200 Visa Gift Card + activation)
-$10.00
$403.90 + 2019.5 Ultimate Rewards OR $20.20 cash back
These Visa gift cards should be PIN-enabled, with the PIN being the last four digits of the card. For more information on these cards, see our Beginner’s Guide to Buying & Liquidating Visa and Mastercard Gift Cards.
The lower instant rebate (past instant rebates have been $15 or $20) is disappointing. However, I’m hopeful that this is a move to avoid pulling the promotion early. I’d rather see negative-cost gift cards, but this is better than paying the full fees and remains a useful sale for some. The official terms state that the limit is one rebate per customer, but YMMV on a cashier allowing more than one.
H/T: Doctor of Credit
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FYI I was able to buy Style Everywhere cards with only the $4.95 fee and basically break even after buying MO at Wally World.
Thanks for pointing this out, because I was able to do this, too! 🙂
[…] even a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express gift card. In fact, you could take advantage of this deal at Office Max / Office Depot to get the $200 gift card nearly fee-free (if you buy a total of $300 […]
Valid in-store only, according to Doctor of Credit. Also worth noting that some Office Depots don’t allow gift card purchases using credit cards.
True about it being valid in-store only. That’s the case for all of the Visa/Mastercard rebates (instant or mail-in) at Office Max/Office Depot/Staples/Grocery stores these days. Updated to include that.
Also true that I’ve read about some Office Depots not allowing gift card purchases using credit cards — but from what I’ve read, that seems pretty isolated at this point (mostly in high-fraud areas).