Earlier in the year, Staples advertised a new Free After Rebate (FAR) deal almost every single week. Since Staples Easy Rebates are true to their name (i.e. they really are “easy”), it was possible to use these deals to easily increase credit card spend by about $1000 per month (to meet minimum spend requirements for sign-up bonuses) and to earn many thousands of free frequent flyer miles by shopping through an online portal such as the Ultimate Rewards Mall.
Every Friday, Staples publishes a preview of their weekly ad that takes effect that coming Sunday. So, every Friday morning I anxiously open their preview with the hope of finding a new FAR deal worth reporting. Unfortunately, Staples hasn’t offered a big FAR deal since the last one ended on April 14th. We’ve suffered over a month now without our FAR fix. Come on Staples, we need more!
Will tomorrow’s preview finally bring FAR deals back? Or, will it be yet another FAR-less Friday?
Note: some FAR deals aren’t reported in the weekly ads so we learn about them when they go live on Sunday.
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It’s at newegg, but http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832286077&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=361116&SID=FWatqiho
Trend Micro, FAR – up to 5, also comes with a free 4 GB flash drive.
Rebates are in the form of git cards it appears.
The FAR deals went away as soon as I got the new Ink Bold card!
Funny this posted the same day I received my refund check from the last FAR. Barely saw it with the rest of my mail. Smaller than a postcard.
do i get 5 points per dollar on ink bold for shopping at HPDIRECT.COM? I bought some inks. The chase UR mall site has 2 points per dollar but i used external coupons so i don’t get that part .
05/16/2012 Pending HP HOME STORE $53.07
@gregorygrady, people on fatwallet and SD have been doing this for YEARS to monetize rewards so troll somewhere else please.
@Chris what have you been buying?
^— sarcasm, or course 🙂
@gregorygrady, that’s such a well thought out and defended argument! maybe you should share your opinion on the Eurozone crisis next…
Hoping for another round in the coming months. Did almost $2K in them and have all back save for that last April one that should be here any day. For now it is GC buy/resell to meet the spends! (at a small profit usually thanks to TCB!).
My best guess: These FAR deals were killed prematurely by blog leeches due to overexposure by bloggers. 😉 One of these years bloggers will hopefully learn their lesson.
Only ones I see are OD and NewEgg where they have FAR, info from FW, but those deals are “VISA” cash back.. its not the same.
Some people on FW claimed to be able to price match it to Staples to “Make” money off the cash back. But that’s not my game. I hate going through price matches.
Beware I have not received my 700 rebate from the February FAR deals. It got validated quickly and mailed out when everyone elses did, but after that it has been a nightmare. I knew to look for a postcard but never received it. Then I had to wait a month till Staples would reissue it. When it had been a month I made the request to reissue, and I guess the CS Rep said they reissued it but did not. Two weeks late I checked in again and the finially reissued the check (so they said). A week has passed since then, and no check. I will NEVER take this risk again. PLEASE BE AWARE IN THE FUTURE NOT ALL EXPERIENCES HAVE BEEN EASY!!!
@Churnity I think that this is the future. As @harvson3 said, the publishers were not seeing much download / installation activity on a loss leader, so they have throttled things back by requiring a small payment. We can help the publishers by donating our downloads to people who will use them (e.g. schools, charities, etc.) so that there is some perceived upside.
patience padawan. 🙂 i’ve been doing this for years. they come and go. it’s dependent on the software release cycles. there are a couple/few big pushes during the year and lulls in between.
s & od love the promos because it gets them eyeballs/traffic.
No FARs recently, but it seems Trend Micro has been releasing some that reduce the price to $15 instead of being free.