This past Saturday I posted a great offer: Up to 14.5% off Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  This week only, OfficeMax has a deal where you can buy two $25 Nook or Kindle gift cards and get $5 back.  That alone amounts to a respectable 10% discount. Since the cards can be used at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, respectively, this is a great deal.  Depending upon how you pay for the cards, you can do even better:

• American Express business card with OPEN Savings: 5% back on purchases of $100 or more at OfficeMax (until June 15).
• Chase Ink: 5 points per dollar at office supply stores
• American Express SimplyCash card: 5% cash back for office supplies plus 5% back with OPEN Savings.  That amounts to a 19% total discount!

Visits to OfficeMax on Sunday were mostly disappointing.  OfficeMax hadn’t yet figured out how to actually ring up these discounts.  A few people managed to get the discounts anyway, but others left empty handed.

Problem fixed

OfficeMax fixed their register issue.  They now have a sheet of paper with a bar code that applies the discount when scanned.  I’ve heard from a number of people who have successfully bought a bunch of gift cards with this discount.  A few stores limited people to no more than 6 cards, but most stores had no limit.  I walked out of a local OfficeMax yesterday with 40 gift cards!  Today, my mom (AKA Mom Miler) bought 20 cards at an OfficeMax near her!

Finding cards

The main problem you’ll face now is that many stores are sold out.  I highly recommend calling before making a trip.  Once in the store look near the e-book reader displays as well as at the gift card rack.  They tend to put e-book gift cards in both places.  Also, ask a manager if there are any more.  I only found 8 in the store before I asked a manager who dug up 32 more for me!

Which card to use?

If you have the SimplyCash card, that’s clearly the best option.  Otherwise, the Ink and the Amex business card options are very close.  With the Amex cards you get 5% back plus the usual 1 point per dollar from your card.  With the Ink you get just the 5 points per dollar.  If you value points at the Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents each, then each option is about the same.  Go with whichever card gives you points that you value the most.

A reader who goes by bitachu tipped me off to this upcoming OfficeMax sale.  Starting tomorrow and until May 12th, you can buy Amazon Kindle or B&N Nook gift cards for 10% off.  Specifically, they advertise that you will save $5 when buying two $25 gift cards.  This is interesting because, I believe that Kindle gift cards can be used for any Amazon.com purchases and that Nook gift cards can be used for any Barnes & Noble purchases.

Double dip the discounts with OPEN or Ink

It’s not clear yet whether OfficeMax will have a per person limit, but if they allow at least 3 sets to be bought at once, you can increase the discount by using an American Express business credit card with OPEN Savings.  This will give you a 5% statement credit for all OfficeMax purchases of $100 or more.  It’s nice of OfficeMax to offer this deal before the in-store OPEN Savings benefit goes away as I reported yesterday.  When you stack a 10% discount with a 5% discount, the total discount comes to 14.5%.  Not bad!

Alternatively, use a Chase Ink credit card to get 5 points per dollar at office supply stores!

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but it kept slipping my mind.  Remember when Barnes & Noble was 10 points per dollar in the Ultimate Rewards Mall?  During that time, I did a little experiment.  As a B&N member, I had received a coupon for $50 off a Nook Color.  We are a Kindle household, so rather than buy a Nook I thought I could turn this opportunity into points.  Here’s what I did:

• I listed the Nook on EBay before buying it.
• Once the Nook sold, I went through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to buy a B&N e-gift card for myself for just a little bit less than the Nook was going to cost me.  The reason for buying the gift card was that the Barnes & Noble terms & conditions made it unclear whether I’d receive points when using a coupon.  However, I knew from experience that I’d receive points for buying the gift card.
• To buy the gift card, I used an American Express business card in order to get 5% cash back from the OPEN Savings program.
• I went through the Ultimate Rewards Mall again to buy the Nook.  I knew they wouldn’t give me points for the part of the purchase using the gift card, but I hoped to get points for the extra amount above the gift card value.
• I picked out the Nook and applied the $50 coupon.
• I addressed the shipment to my EBay buyer.  Thanks to my B&N membership, shipping was free.
• When it came time to pay, I used up my gift card and had a remaining charge of a few dollars.  By total coincidence, B&N and MasterCard were running a promotion that day in which you would get a $25 gift card for buying a Nook with a MasterCard.  Well, why not?  So, I used my Ink Old MasterCard to pay the remaining few dollars.

Results:

• My EBay customer was happy.
• I received the full 10X points for buying the gift card (as expected).
• I received 5% back from Amex OPEN Savings (as expected).
• I saved $50 thanks to the Nook coupon (as expected).
• I received 10X points for the little bit of the Nook that was paid for with the Mastercard.
• I received the $25 gift card!  I didn’t expect that!

After factoring in EBay seller costs, I made a little bit of money on the deal and received the full 10X points.  Not bad!  Sure, it’s not quite as good as Amazon paying me for collecting BA miles, but I’ll take it!

Now to drop ship stuff from Office Depot for 15X…

NOTE: PLEASE SEE WARNINGs ABOUT DANGERS OF DROP SHIPPING IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THIS POST

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April 1st kicks off with a cruel joke from Chase.  Many of the big bonus point offers in the Ultimate Rewards Mall have dropped precipitously.  Below are some of my findings this morning when logged in with my old Ink Bold and my Sapphire Preferred (note that you may see different results with a Chase Freedom).

First, the good news:

• Office Depot: 10X Ink Bold; only 4X Sapphire Preferred
• Kohl’s: Still at 10X for both cards
• Nordstrom: 10X Sapphire Preferred (only for 3 days)
• Drugstore.com: 10X Sapphire Preferred; only 5X with Ink Bold

The exciting news here is the Office Depot 10X opportunity.  Since the New Ink Bold offers 5X automatically when used in office supply stores, you will get a total of 15X when making Office Depot purchases with your Ink card through the UR mall!  Last I checked, though, there were no merchant or bank gift cards available online (also the T&C says “not eligible on purchases of gift cards”).  If they begin to offer free after rebate products, though, this could be a big win.  It might even be worth filling out rebate cards for 15X!

And now the bad news (very bad):

• Staples: down to 2X (from 4X).  Noooooooo!!!!!  The perfect PPM may still be perfect, but for fewer points.  And for those of you who have been buying gift cards with your Ink card for a total of 9X, the total is now down to 7X.  Nooooooo!!!!
• Barnes & Noble: down to 2X (from 10X).  No longer can you buy ultimate rewards points for less than a penny.  Nooooooo!!!!
• Home Depot: down to 4X (from 10X).
• Magazines.com: down to 25X (from 40X).
• Sears: down to 4X (from 5X on the Ink).
• Lands End: down to 2X (from 5 or 6X)

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Last month I wrote a post titled “How to buy Ultimate Rewards points for 1.05 cents”.  The scheme involves using an Amex business card to buy Barnes & Noble gift cards through the Ultimate Rewards Mall where you gain 10 points per dollar. Next, you sell the gift cards for a slight loss, but the points gained make up for the loss.  In my original write-up I hadn’t properly taken into account gift card shipping fees charged by Barnes and Noble.  It turned out that the real cost for points came to 1.10 cents each if you limited your purchases to one $200 physical gift card at a time.

A new discovery has changed the math for the better.  As I mentioned a couple of days ago, a reader told me about TopCashBack which offers 4% back for selling gift cards to PlasticJungle.  Previously I had advocated using ShopAtHome for 1.6% back.  This new finding sweetens the pot considerably!

Prerequisites

To get in on this deal, you need a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card and the intention of keeping it at least until annual dividends are paid in early 2013.  You also need an American Express business credit card with OPEN Savings.

Risks

• The trick here involves going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Barnes & Noble for 10 points per dollar, but paying with your Amex business card.  Does this work?  Usually, yes. See my post “Ultimate Question” for more.  However, there is a real risk of not getting points so do this only if you accept that risk.  The reason you need to pay with your Amex business card is that this trick relies on the 5% cash back you’ll get from the Amex OPEN Savings program that is available only to Amex business cards.
• Another risk is the possibility of PlasticJungle lowering the rates that they give for Barnes & Noble gift cards.  The current rate of 81 cents to the dollar has held steady now for many months, though, so I believe this risk to be low.  The easiest way to view current rates is via GiftCardGranny.
• Finally, I have no experience with TopCashBack.  Are they reliable?  Only time will tell.

If you’d like to proceed despite the risks, here’s what to do:

1. Buy a Barnes & Noble gift card:

• Log into the Ultimate Rewards Mall and click through to Barnes & Noble
• Add a single $200 physical gift card (not an e-card) to your shopping cart.
• Check out and pay with your American Express business card (make sure it has OPEN Savings).  The total should come to $200.95

2. Once you get the gift card, sell it:

• Log into TopCashBack and click through to PlasticJungle (TopCashBack will give you 4% cash back for selling gift cards to PlasticJungle)
• Sell your Barnes & Noble gift card to PlasticJungle for 81% of its value.

3. Add it up:

Here is how the math works out with the purchase and sale of a $200 gift card:

• Total expenses: $200.95
• Total rebates: $178.53
• OPEN rebate: 5% of $200.95 =  $10.05
• PlasticJungle Payment: $162
• TopCashBack rebate: $6.48
• Total cost: $200.95 – $178.53 = $22.42
• Total points earned: 2352
  • Ultimate Rewards: $200.95 X 10 = 2010 + 7% annual dividend = 2151
  • American Express points = 201
• Total cost per point = $22.42 / 2352 = .95 cents per point.

Notes

• The type of points earned from American Express depends on which card is used for purchasing the gift card. For example, you might earn SPG points, Membership Rewards points, Delta Skymiles, etc. If you use a card that gives more than 1 point per dollar (such as the Hilton Surpass), then you will obviously earn more points with this approach.
• Theoretically you could make many individual purchases in this way.  Don’t be surprised, though, if you get a call from Barnes & Noble investigating this “suspicious” activity.
• Barnes & Noble has offered 10X bonus points via the Ultimate Rewards Mall for several months now, but the terms say “Special increased earnings now through 3/31/2012!” so the deal may expire soon.

Disclaimer

I have not yet tried this trick all the way through.  There are several risks as shown above.  As always, proceed at your own risk.

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UPDATE: Once you factor in shipping charges, the real cost per point is 1.1 cents.  See comments section for details.

Barnes & Noble is currently running a promotion in The Ultimate Rewards Mall in which they’ll give 10 points per dollar for purchases (including gift cards).  At the same time, the American Express OPEN Savings program (which comes with American Express business cards) gives 5% back for Barnes & Noble purchases.  If you have an Amex OPEN card and a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you can combine these deals to get a fantastic rebate from shopping at Barnes & Noble.  If your goal, though, is not to buy books or Nooks, then consider the following approach to buy Ultimate Rewards points (and a few Amex points):

1. Buy a Barnes & Noble gift card:

• Log into the Ultimate Rewards Mall and click through to Barnes & Noble
• Add a physical gift card (not an e-card) to your shopping cart.
• Check out and pay with your American Express business card (make sure it has OPEN Savings).

2. Once you get the gift card, sell it:

• Log into ShopAtHome and click through to Cardpool.com (ShopAtHome will give you 1.6% cash back)
• Sell your Barnes & Noble gift card to Cardpool.com for 81% of its value

3. Add it up:

Here is how the math works out with the purchase and sale of a $100 gift card:

• Total expenses: $100
• Total rebates: $87.60
• OPEN rebate: $5
• ShopAtHome rebate: $1.60
• CardPool payment: $81
• Total cost: $100 – $87.60 = $12.40
• Total points earned: 1170
• Ultimate Rewards: $100 X 10 = 1000 + 7% annual dividend = 1070
• American Express points = 100

Total cost per point = $12.40 / 1170 = 1.05 cents per point.

Notes

• ShopAtHome will not send you a rebate check until you have earned $25.  If you calculate the costs without the ShopAtHome rebate, the cost rises to 1.2 cents per point (which still isn’t bad!)
• The type of points earned from American Express depends on which card is used for purchasing the gift card.  For example, you might earn SPG points, Membership Rewards points, Delta Skymiles, etc.  If you use a card that gives more than 1 point per dollar (such as the Hilton Surpass), then you will obviously earn more points with this approach.

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

As of this morning (Feb 1), there are a number of changes to the payouts from Chase’s Ultimate Rewards Mall for the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold (note that when logging into the mall for other Chase cards, you will have different offers).

Let’s look at some key bonus rates for the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold:

• Avis: 5X
• Barnes & Noble: 10X (up from 7X)
• Drugstore.com: 5X (down from 10X!)
• Groupon: 0 (has been missing from the UR Mall since January)
• Hotels.com: 4X
• HP: 3X (down from 5X)
• Kohl’s: 10X
• Magazines.com: 40X
• Office Depot: 5X
• Sears: 4X (Same as before. Boo!  I was hoping Sears would go up!)
• Staples: 4X (down from 5X)
• Target: 3X (down from 5X)

Comparing to predictions

Last night, I made the following predictions:

• Staples.com will stay at 5X
• Target.com will decrease from 5X to 3X
• HP will stay at 5X
• Drugstore.com will decrease to 8X
• Sears will increase to 6X or 7X

How did I do?  I got Target exactly right.  I also correctly predicted that Drugstore.com would go down, but it actually went all the way down to 5X instead of my predicted 8X.  Against my predictions, Staples and HP both went down, and Sears stayed the same.  So, I batted 1 (or maybe 1.5) out of 5.  Not very impressive!

Analysis of Changes

Ick.  Most of the changes are not so good.  Sears staying at 4X is a big disappointment.  Staples dropping from 5X to 4X slightly lowers to value of the Ink Bold double dip I’ve been writing a lot about lately (in fact, I need to re-write a new post that I had ready to go).  Office Depot at 5X doesn’t help too much as their terms and conditions explicitly say that gift cards are excluded (but it’s a great deal if you actually want to buy something from Office Depot).  Also Groupon is still missing from the site altogether.  On the plus side, it’s great to see Barnes & Noble back up to 10X.  I’m really pleasantly surprised, as well, to see Magazines.com staying at 40X and Kohl’s staying at 10X!  Also with Avis at 5X and Hotels.com at 4X there could be some great opportunities to save on travel and double-dip with other promotions.

What’s Next?

Virtually every shopping portal, including the Ultimate Rewards Mall, is heavily promoting Valentine’s Day related merchants right now.  So, my next bold prediction is that rates will change again on Feb 15th.  Let’s hope for some good news then!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

The Ultimate Rewards Mall is showing some changes for the beginning of 2012. Here is what I’ve found so far:

Sears drops to 4 points per dollar

Not only is Sears planning to close many Sears and Kmart stores, but they’ve also dropped the Ultimate Rewards Mall bonus points down to 4 points per dollar (previously 6). In the past 4 or 5 months, the bonus point amounts changed several times (10X, then 5X, then 6X, then 10X for one day, etc.) so I’d recommend waiting, if you can, before making Sears’ purchases to see if the bonus amount jumps up again.

Magazines.com jumps to 40 points per dollar

Magazines.com was previously 35 points per dollar so this isn’t a huge jump, but it’s an amazing bonus. The terms and conditions say that book purchases are not allowed, but you can get around that by buying a magazines.com e-gift card and then buying books with the gift card. I can confirm, though, that double-dipping doesn’t work for book purchases. However, with magazine purchases it might be possible. I just tried it tonight and will report back once I see what happens with my Ultimate Rewards activity. If we can find a reliable double-dip (that is a way to get 40X points for both buying and using gift cards) then we would get an unbeatable 80 points per dollar. Add in the Chase Sapphire Preferred card’s base points and 7% annual bonus, and you would get an unbelievable 86..67 points per dollar. That would mean that you could buy UR points for only 1.15 cents simply by buying magazines! Do I really think this will work? No. Am I hoping? You bet!

Barnes and Noble drops from 8X to 7X

Still a great deal even though the double dip doesn’t work here.

Staples is giving 5 points per dollar

If you have the new Chase Ink Bold you can get 5 points per dollar for office store purchases and then another 5 points per dollar by going through the UR mall!

Others worth noting:

• Groupon is back to 12X (from 15X in December)
• Kohl’s is still at 10X!
• J Crew is at 5X
• Target is at 5X
• Home Depot is at 5X

Have ideas or questions about double-dipping? Please join the gift card churning conversation on Milepoint.

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Through a variety of tricks, it is possible to stack three discounts when shopping at Barnes and Noble! 

Last week I wrote about how I was going to attempt to “double dip” at Barnes and Noble by buying a B&N gift card through an online shopping portal (Ultimate Rewards) and then using the gift card through other portals (Big Crumbs, Mr. Rebates, and EBates).  You can read the full story here.  Well, the results are in!  And, despite the title of this post, it didn’t really work.  On the plus side, the Ultimate Rewards points posted almost immediately!  On the other hand, the cash back portals have listed my B&N purchases as “$0 dollars” which makes me confident that I won’t get cash back from them.  Don’t feel too bad for me, though: I did use 20% off coupons so I really came out well ahead anyway!

Due to the information above, I was going to title this post something like “No double dip at Barnes and Noble”.  But then I read Gary’s post “The Enduring Value of the Starwood American Express Card“.  That post reminded me about the American Express OPEN discounts that are available to people who hold the business version of certain Amex cards.  Most Amex cards have both a personal and a business version, and if you get the business version you will qualify for a special discount program that Amex runs called OPEN. When you use your Amex business card with certain merchants, you will automatically get a discount credited back to your card.  It so happens that Barnes and Noble is one of those merchants!  It only works when you buy online, though.

If you happen to have the right mix of credit cards, here is how to triple dip at Barnes and Noble:

Step 1: Figure out how much you want to spend

Step 2: Buy a gift card

• Go through Chase’s Ultimate Rewards Mall to Barnes and Noble in order to buy an e-giftcard for the amount you want to spend.  You will get 8 points per dollar by buying the gift card this way.  If you do not have access to Ultimate Rewards, then go to EVReward.com to find the best alternative.
• If you have one, make sure to use a business Amex card that is part of the OPEN program.  If so, you should get 5% back from your gift card purchase!

Step 3: Find the best coupon code

• For online purchases, you can use code T3N9N3L until the end of the year to get 20% off your purchase.  Otherwise Google for the best promo code you can find.
• If you want to make purchases in person, consider getting a B&N membership.  They’ll send you coupons that can be used in store.

Step 4: Buy what you want using your gift card

Savings Listed

• From the Ultimate Rewards mall, you will get 8 points per dollar.  Since the fair trading price for Ultimate Rewards points is 1.31 cents, this amounts to a 10.48% rebate (on everything, including shipping and taxes).
• From Amex OPEN, you will get another 5% rebate (NOTE: I haven’t tried this yet, so there is some risk that they won’t award this for gift card purchases, but I think the risk is very small).
• From B&N promo codes or coupons you will hopefully get about 20% off.

Not bad!

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