Staples is again offering $200 Mastercard Gift Cards with no purchase fee through Saturday, 1/4/25. Note that there a new limit of nine per customer per day is listed, but some may be able to purchase more at their local store.
The Deal
- Staples is offering fee-free Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, 1/4/25.
- Direct link to weekly ad (see 12/29 ad, page 7)
Key Details
- Valid in-store only
- Limit of 9 per customer per day
Quick Thoughts
These deals can be great way of getting rewards through spending at office supply stores. If you can buy 9 at a time, that’s a potential of $1,800 that’s possible each day. Note that some stores may allow you to purchase more than 9, and we also hear occasional reports that some managers will only sell a smaller amount despite what the ad says.
See our Current Visa and Mastercard Gift Card deals page for other currently-available deals.
This fee-free Mastercard promotion recently ran on the following dates:
- 12/1/24 – 12/7/24
- 11/3/24 – 11/9/24
- 10/6/24 – 10/12/24
- 9/8/24 – 9/14/24
- 8/11/24 – 8/17/24
- 7/14/24 – 7/20/24
- 6/16/24 – 6/22/24
- 5/19/24 – 5/25/24
- 4/21/24 – 4/27/24
- 3/24/24 – 3/30/24
- 2/25/24 – 3/2/24
- 1/28/24-2/3/24
- 12/31/23-1/6/24
- 12/3/23-12/9/23
- 11/5/23-11/11/13
- 10/8/23-10/14/23
- 9/10/23-9/16/23
- 8/13/23-8/19/23
- 7/16/23-7/22/23
- 5/21/23 – 5/27/23
- 4/23-4/29/23
- 3/26/23-4/1/23
- 2/26/23-3/4/23
- 1/29/23-2/4/23
- 12/4-12/10/22
- 11/13/22 – 11/19/22
- 10/30/22 – 11/5/22
- 8/21/22 – 8/27/22
- 7/17/22 – 7/23/22
- 6/26/22 – 7/2/22
- 5/22/22 to 5/28/22
- 4/24/22 to 4/30/22
- 3/20/22 to 3/26/22
- 2/6/22 to 2/12/22
- 12/5/21 to 12/11/21
- 11/14/21 to 11/20/21
- 10/10/21 to 10/16/21
- 8/22/21 to 8/28/21
- 7/18-7/24/21
- 6/27-7/3/21
- 4/25/21 to 5/1/21
- 3/28/21 to 4/3/21
H/T: GC Galore
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
After depositing two money orders, I received a message from my bank that my deposit was on hold. I have been depositing Money Orders for some time now. Is this a potential warning from the bank or is this something else? Curious what your experiences might be. Thank you!
Anyone have any updated liquidation strategy for these cards?
Purchasing a Money Order with them is one way to turn them into generic cash. I use them for normal spend at in-store purchases at grocery stores, Walmart, Costco, and other misc stores. I also use them at Amazon by purchasing store credit with them. Since most stores need all the amount due be present on one debit card, when I get below $25 on the debit I put that exact amount into Amazon credit. Just be careful to have the remaining debit card amount be > $5 or Amazon will not let you use it.
I see comments in this thread about these Staple no-fee Visa/MC gift cards being all sold out after day one of the sale. This is clearly not a problem where I live. I suspect areas near big cities have a lot of more players into this optimization travel awards game.
I tried and failed to do MO at both usps and walmart with these. I had no issues with visa gift cards before but for some reason the mastercards from Staples do not work.
Good to know. I have not tried to do a money order with the MC gift cards. I mostly just use these gift cards to pay my bills directly so hopefully someone with more experience liquidating GC’s into cash will respond. Searching Reddit I see a lot of discussion on this.
Nothing “easy” about these cards anymore. Have no problem finding them in stock, but wow, liquidating them is the really hard part. Everything that used to work for me and friends no longer. What’s worse is still seeing headlines, wow, easy rewards. (that’s between lazy lack of editing of flat out dishonesty. You guys are better than that) How about some candid jargon-free commenting on this somewhere…?
Yes, such dishonesty! and how dare they write positively about deals that don’t work for Will?! I bet it’s because Staples is giving them a slice of the gift card fee they collect during those promos!
I would be helpful if this post appeared *before* the promo started. These sell out everywhere by me on day one of the sale.
I do an internet search for staples ad on sunday morning. you can see the promo in the ad. sometimes you need to be proactive.
To add to my last comment, these do not appear to be working towards any online purchases at the moment. I’ve used these to pay rent many times, never had any problems, but it didn’t work last month and has not worked for any online transactions I’ve tried since.
Even though they have been registered online, with my name and billing address added, and a PIN added. Balance is there, but online spend doesn’t work. I’ve tried 3 of my 15 cards so far, none of them working for online purchases. They do still work for swiped in-person transactions (no chip or contactless).
So I have $3,000 in Mastercard gift cards I’m slowly working on using for in-person swiped transactions while I wait for the problem to be resolved. Super annoying as most of my purchasing is online and this used to be a nice way to get 15k Chase points per month on rent.
I will not be purchasing the Mastercards again, only the Visa gift cards.
Max, do you know of any other ways to liquidate these? What about money orders? I have 1400 I just bought but am having the same issues you mention with online orders.
Haha, no kidding that there’s no chip or contactless. These things aren’t even plastic anymore. They’re made of cardboard. I’m afraid of taking them to the store on a rainy day.
Just a note that I’ve used these Mastercards (and the Visas Staples sells) to pay rent many times and never had an issue. Now not working, despite me registering the cards and confirming the balance. I tried multiple Mastercard gift cards and all failed, then also tried a SoFi Mastercard debit to test and it did work.
Looks like at least 2 other people are having this same issue. Until it’s resolved, I would not purchase these. I now have $3,000 in Mastercard gift cards I need to find ways to liquidate.
These $200 MasterCard gift cards just stopped working for a couple of my utility payments. Never had this issue before. Tried multiple gift cards; all declined. Just a FYI.
Just declined at Godaddy for a website renewal charge. They are laughing at us.
Same issue for me. Not working for any online purchases, even after registering the card online to add billing address and PIN.
Only working for in-person, swiped transactions.
Hi Tim. Don’t remember if you guys covered this, but there is an AMEX Offer out there for buy $325 of AMEX gift cards and get $25 back. There is a $5.95 service fee, but it is an easy $19.05 back for virtually no work since you can choose an e-gift card which gets delivered in about three minutes and can be used right away (I paid my telephone bill).
Would Chase be upset (like Amex) if I buy these gift cards to meet the $6k spend requirement on a Chase ink cash card?
wasn’t a problem for me
Nope.
Re problems with MC card :
I’ve used these for a year and had problems twice .
1) When swiped, there was $20 less on it than I had just confirmed it having.
( There were no pending purchases).
2) Triple A auto club would not accept for on-line membership application
Thanks Stephen, I love your website GC Galore
Are there still problems with the Mastercard Gift Cards? On the Staples website, there are many negative comments but many are at least 3 years old. Since I haven’t seen many recent negative comments, does this mean that Mastercard has resolved the activation issue? If you have any recent experience with these cards, positive or negative, then please let us know.
It’s not live yet
Thanks, fixed.
Walmart would not accept the Mastercard in person last round or today. I buy them on occasion just to get 5x on some regular spend and have not had trouble before.
Consider calling ahead… went into Staples in Branford, CT, and was told they rarely have the $200 M/C gift cards. In fact, the assistant manager was quite rude about it, and said he didn’t know anything about the promotion.