Another day, another awesome deal! This deal works best if you have the Ink Bold or Ink Plus card that gives you 5X Ultimate Rewards points on office supply stores but it is a deal even if you pay cash or put it on your debit or any credit card. Staples is having a promo until 11/24 where you get a $15 Staples gift card via an easy rebate (which means you can do it all online) for every $100 Mastercard or Visa gift card you buy (limit of 10 rebates per customer/mailing address).
The Basics
- Buy $1000 worth of Mastercard or Visa Gift Cards from Staples
- Submit your rebate online
- Wait 6-8 weeks for your extra $150 in gift cards to arrive.
- Liquidate or use your gift cards (can do part of this before #3 )
The Details
1. Buy $1000 worth of Mastercard or Visa Gift Cards from Staples
Run down to your nearest Staples and find their gift card rack which is usually in the front near the cashiers. Select any denomination of gift cards that total up to $1000. I used the $100 gift cards (with a $5.95 fee each) because that is what the ad said, but folks over on Fatwallet have reported that doing 5X$200 (with a $6.95 fee each) works as well which makes your out of pocket cost $1035. Make sure you give them your Staples Rewards so you can qualify for the rebate. Sign up for a free Staples Rewards number here if you don’t have one yet.
You can use any credit card you want, a debit card, or even cash. I used my Ink Bold card because it gives me 5X UR Points for every $1 I spend at office supply stores (the same rate as the Ink Plus), but you could use your SPG Amex or SPG Business Amex too to get 1X in Starpoints which can be very valuable for hotel stays as I found out recently. If you use your Ink Bold, you end up with over 5,000 Ultimate Rewards points. That is almost 1/10 of the amount needed to get a round trip to Europe on United (60,000 miles)!
2. Submit your rebate online
Rebates can be a hassle, but Staples really does make it easy with their easy rebates. Go to www.stapleseasyrebates.com and select Store Purchase as the source of your rebate. You just need a few pieces of info from the forms that print out with your receipt.
Put 12-28680 in the offer number box and put your Easy Rebate ID number from under the barcode in the box that says that. Then follow the prompts to tell them where to send your $150 Staples gift card. They automatically combine the 10 Staples $15 cards into one $150 card for you.
3. Wait 4-6 weeks for your Staples gift cards to arrive.
While you wait for your $150 in Staples gift cards to arrive, you can skip to step 4 and start liquidating the $1000 in Mastercard gift cards. They will automatically send you periodic emails as the rebate processes but you can check the status manually at the stapleseasyrebates.com site.
4. Liquidate or use your gift cards
With this offer you will end up with $1000 in Mastercard gift cards and $150 in Staples gift cards. The easiest was to get rid of them is to just use them for day to day spending wherever Mastercard is accepted. Over the course of a month $1000 is easy to spend at grocery stores or gas stations or really anywhere, especially with the holiday season upon us. Finding something for a good price at Staples during their holiday sales is a great way to use the $150 Staples gift card you get.
However, a lot of people would rather have cash and while there are many ways to convert gift cards to cash, I will give a few examples here. One way if you don’t need the cash right away that has zero costs is using Kiva.org which I just wrote about in this article. You will have all of your money back in cash with no fees within 4-5 months. If you are trying to get the money back in time to pay off the credit card bill, my preferred method is using the Amex for Target prepaid card that I talk about in this article. You can take your prepaid Amex for Target card to a Target register, tell them you want to load $1000 on it with a 3 dollar fee, then use the $1000 in gift cards you just bought to pay for it.
Then you take that card to an ATM at Costco which charges $1.25 a withdrawal and take out $400 a day until you get all $1000 out. Since they give you a free withdrawal every month, if you take one withdrawal in November and one in December you will save on costs. I personally will probably take $400 in November, $400 in December, and then use the final $200 for normal spending at a grocery store or something.
If you can’t find anything you need at Staples, you can cash out that at Cardpool.com which is a site that buys gift cards for cash. You can get up to 88% today for Staples cards, or $132 for your $150 in gift cards.
Conclusion
There ya go, an easy way to get free miles or points and help meet a spend requirement at the same time. Also a way to make money or get free stuff from Staples. Can’t beat it! I love this game!
