Wow, great stuff is happening for Chase Ink fans! Yesterday I showed how to earn 5X on all purchases without the hassle of gift cards. I also reported that Staples has increased their Ultimate Rewards Mall bonus for Staples to 5X when you log in with your Ink card. What does it all mean?
First, if you plan to buy any gift cards, check staples.com to see if they have what you need. By going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and using your Ink card you will earn 5X from the mall and 5X from your card’s office supply category bonus to earn a true total of 10X! Yes, this means you can get 10X for Starbucks, Marriott, and Southwest to name just a few!
If, instead, your goal is to get Visa or Amex gift cards (or prepaid cards), there are some fantastic options if you use your Ink card:
- Option 1: Go through UR Mall to Staples.com and buy $100 Visa for $105.95
- Option 2: Go through TopCashBack to Staples.com and buy $100 Visa for $105.95 (you will get 5.5% back)
- Option 3: Go in person to an office supply store (OfficeMax, for example) to buy a $200 Visa gift card for $206.95.
- Option 4: Go in person to Office Depot to buy a $500 Visa prepaid debit card (non refillable) for $504.95.
- Option 5: Go in person to Office Depot to buy $500 reload packs for reloading Amex Prepaid cards. The cost for each is $503.95.
The first option sort of gives you 10X points, but with a hefty 6% fee. The second option comes very close to true 5X thanks to the cash back. The third option starts at 5X, but with 3.5% in fees. The fourth and fifth options have much lower fees as a percentage of the face value.
But, what are the exact numbers? Which option is best? The answer depends a bit on how much you value Ultimate Rewards points. The table below computes the true “X” for each option depending on whether you value points at 1 cent each, 1.31 cents (the Fair Trading Price amount), or 2 cents each. The idea is that some of the points earned are used to reimburse you for the card fee. The points remaining make up the true “X”:
|
|
Gift Card Value |
Fee |
Points Earned |
Value points 1 cent |
Value points 1.31 cents |
Value points 2 cents |
|
Buy online through UR Mall 5X |
$100 |
$5.95 |
1060 |
4.65X |
6.05X |
7.62X |
|
Buy online 5.5% back TopCashBack |
$100 |
$5.95 – $5.83 = $0.12 |
530 |
4.89X |
4.91X |
4.95X |
|
Buy $200 Visa at Staples / Office Max |
$200 |
$6.95 |
1035 |
1.7X |
2.52X |
3.44X |
|
Buy $500 Visa at Office Depot |
$500 |
$4.95 |
2525 |
4.06X |
4.29X |
4.55X |
|
Buy $500 reload card at Office Depot |
$500 |
$3.95 |
2520 |
4.25X |
4.44X |
4.64X |
As you can see in the table above, buying through the Ultimate Rewards Mall is almost always the best “X” unless you assign low value to points, in which case TopCashBack is the winner. Of course, with both of these options the largest denominations available are $100, which can be a hassle to spend.
To get larger denomination cards, the best option is to go in-store and you’ll get over 4X when loading $500 at a time, regardless of the approach you take. For convenience, I much prefer the reloadable American Express card option (for more on that card, see “One card to rule them all”). However, sometimes you do need a Visa or Mastercard so luckily that option works well too! For more about that option, see “Almost too good to be true.”
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New Yorker: Not only has the fee increased since I wrote this post, but Staples has also begun charging shipping and handling for gift cards. I haven’t tried to recalculate the X, but clearly it’s not such a great deal anymore
Thanks, FM. I see $100 Visa cards on the Staples website, but the fee is $6.95, where the above grid has them at $5.95. I figure it’s still a ROI of 4% after the topcashback rebate.
Thanks for the reply, I will try getting them online and away from NYC.
New Yorker: Unfortunately, they’re not sold online either. The best you can do online (that I know of) is to buy $100 visa gift cards at Staples. Sadly, they have a hefty 7% fee.
Where are the Amex refills or $500 cards in NYC? I went to the OD store on 41st St. and they only had $100 and $200 cards.
New Yorker: unfortunately a number of people have reported that they stopped selling them in NYC due to fraud issues
[…] for those with the new Ink Bold card which offers 5 points per dollar on office supplies, the Frequent Miler blog has some really unique ways to maximize that via gift card purchases through shopping portals. Last week I had the pleasure of […]
Stupid question…how do you log into ultimate rewards mall with the ink card? I have a sapphire card and it automatically is logged in. My ink card is not associated to my online profile, because I don’t have a business checking account”. Any ideas?
[…] to earn huge numbers of points by buying $100 Visa gift cards online. For example, see “What’s my X?” If one could find an easy and reliable way to turn those gift cards into cash, then a […]
Despite the higher fee % tacked on for the lower denomination cards ($5.95 for $100), the 10x points you get from Staples.com through UR mall definitely makes this worth it. What’s even better is Staples.com has Starbucks and itunes – two things that I do purchase fairly frequently and those have no fees so you would be truly getting the 10x rate on those purchases.
Btw, thanks for your blog posts – new reader and I’m loving it!
[…] If you don’t mind using non-reloadable cards, there are plenty of great alternatives: Buy $500 Visa cards at Office Depot (5X); Buy $200 Visa cards at Staples or OfficeMax (5X); Buy $100 Visa cards at Staples.com after clicking through the Ultimate Rewards Mall (10X). With all of these options, the card fees reduce the true “X” a bit. To see more about these options, including the “true X”, see: “What’s my X?” […]
Hey, PerryPlatypus,
If you have a cellphone, you can put those random $1.12 or $5.45 amounts as one-time payments on your cell bill. I do this all of the time with my Verizon Wireless bill. I also put the Staples prepaid VISA balances right on there. (Though lately, I’ve been opting for checks from them instead, as they “spend” anywhere!)
[…] for those with the new Ink Bold card which offers 5 points per dollar on office supplies, the Frequent Miler blog has some really unique ways to maximize that via gift card purchases through shopping portals. Last week I had the pleasure of […]
@Greg The Frequent Miler: Well in that case I sure hope you never discover a “new” PPM that I already know about and then go and expose that to all the leeches. You can bet that there were people that already knew about the Office Depot Amex prepaid loophole and more than likely you just ruined it for them over the past few days by posting the results of your big discovery. I’m sure they are very happy with you now.
Also, if Chase Ink Bold’s big selling pt is 5x pts at office supply stores, then I would think that they would assume that they will get some people applying for that CC that are going to be doing large spend on that CC AT OFFICE SUPPLY STORES. I don’t see if as unreasonable for somebody with the card to charge several thousand dollars per year at an office supply store. If it were me, I personally would be getting in on this bigtime right now before the house of cards falls down.
JACK,
can’t believe you dont know anything about CHASE BLACKLISTING.
just google and you will hear countless stories. there are countless posts about getting blacklisted on fatwallet and also flyertalk
I keep seeing folks referencing Chase shutting people down(Comments 55 and 21), but I haven’t seen any documented cases of this happening; I’ve only run across anecdotal hearsay.
Who is getting shut down?
That being said, I’m sticking to $1K a month until we start seeing a track record established.
Jack: Please see this post for more information about Chase shutting people down: https://frequentmiler.com/2012/04/09/why-chase-cancels-accounts-and-how-to-protect-yourself/
While moderation is ideal, I am not sure I agree with some of these limits people are screaming about.
I understand Chase is giving 5x bonus for these cards, however, I am sure there are plenty of people buying 5-10k a month in office supplies from these stores. You really think all of those accounts are getting closed?