Last week I described the beginning of my quest to find the perfect Visa gift cards (see “The hunt for perfect gift cards, part 1“).  As a reminder, here are the characteristics of the “perfect” gift cards that I’m searching for:

• Low fee as a % of total value.  The ideal gift card would have a fee equal to, or less than, 1% or its maximum value.
• Ability to earn credit card category bonus points (see “Best Category Bonuses“).
• The ability to earn store reward points (such as fuel points) would be a big plus.
• Ability to set the card’s PIN quickly and easily.  I would like to be able to pickup the gift card at one store and then drive over to Walmart to load it to my Bluebird account with minimal fuss in between.
• High denomination.  Bluebird cards can be loaded up to $1000 per day (and $5000 per month) at Walmart.  If I’m going to visit Walmart anyway, I’d like to load the full $1000 each time.  The fewer gift cards it takes to do this, the better.  In other words, a $1000 gift card would be ideal (but I’ve never seen those in stores), and $500 gift cards are really good.  Cards with lower values are much less attractive.

In part 1, I visited Kroger, Speedway, OfficeMax, and Sears.  At that time I found that Visa gift cards from all four merchants worked fine to load Bluebird.  Overall, the gift card from Kroger was the best deal because I earned fuel points along with the purchase.  And, the OneVanilla card I bought at Speedway was the most convenient because it did not require a PIN to be set in advance.

In the comments of my previous post, a reader named Chris said:

I would like to add that you do NOT have to add a pin to the “Kroger” gift card. Just go to CS at Walmart give them your BB card and then swipe the card as debit, enter any pin and load. It sets up with the first pin too. It even asks if you want cash back!!

If that’s true, that would be huge.  Gift cards from Kroger would be both a fantastic deal and incredibly easy to use.  So, for the second part of this quest, I returned to Kroger to try this out.  I also bought $200 gift cards from Staples and Office Depot to see how those compared…

Kroger

I bought the same $500 U.S. Bank Visa gift card that I had bought before.  Again, I earned 500 fuel points for the purchase.

My goal was to see if I could use this card as a debit card at Walmart without first registering a PIN.  I went to Walmart’s MoneyCenter Express ATM (see “Bluebird swipe reloads via ATM“) to try to use the card to load $500 to my Bluebird card.  When it was time to enter my PIN, I made one up.  The machine tried to authorize the transaction, but it was denied.  I remembered that some gift cards use the last four digits of the card number as the default PIN so I tried again with those numbers, but once again the transaction was denied.  Ugh.  I then called Visa at 866-952-5653 to setup a PIN.  Once done, I tried again.  Again, the transaction was denied.  I then used my phone’s browser to register the card online.  And, I tried again.  Denied again.  Frustrated, I gave up on that card for the day.  I’ll try again this week.

Office Depot

My local Office Depot sells Vanilla Visa gift cards in denominations of $200 with a $6.95 fee.  I bought one and paid with a card that offers 5 points per dollar at office supply stores (see “Best Category Bonuses“). 

Since this was a Vanilla gift card sold by the same company as the OneVanilla card I had bought previously at Speedway, I thought that I would be able to use this card without first setting a PIN.  At Walmart, I went to the MoneyCenter Express ATM and attempted to load $200 using a PIN that I made up on the spot.  Success!

Staples

Just like Office Depot, Staples sells Visa gift cards in denominations as high as $200 with a $6.95 fee, but these are issued by MetaBank.  I bought one and paid with a card that offers 5 points per dollar at office supply stores (see “Best Category Bonuses“).

I wanted to see if this card could be used without setting a PIN in advance.  At Walmart’s MoneyCenter Express ATM I attempted to load $200 using a PIN that I made up on the spot. Denied.  I tried again, but this time I used the last four digits of the gift card’s 16 digit number.  Success!

Summary

My experiment to use the U.S. Bank gift card bought at Kroger without pre-setting a PIN was a failure, but I don’t know why.  Even after setting the PIN, I wasn’t able to use the card.  I’ll have to do more experiments with these cards to try to figure out what works and what doesn’t.  If you have experience with these cards, please let me know what you’ve found!

My experiments with gift cards from Office Depot and Staples were successful.  The gift card from Office Depot could be used with any made-up PIN (for the first time use), and the gift card from Staples could be used with the last four digits of the card number as the PIN. 

Let’s look at how the office supply store gift cards rate with each of my criteria:

Low Fee

$6.95 for a $200 gift card is definitely not a low fee at 3.48%.  $500 gift cards have fees close to 1%.  However, $100 gift cards generally have 6% fees, so these are right in the middle.

Category bonus

With the right credit/charge card (see “Best Category Bonuses“), 5X at office supply stores is the best category bonus available.  This goes a long way toward making up for the relatively high gift card fees.

Store Rewards

Neither Office Depot nor Staples give rewards for gift card purchases.

Easy PIN setup

It doesn’t get any easier than this.  No need to register a PIN with either card.  With the Office Depot card, use any PIN you want.  With the Staples card, use the last four digits of the card number.  If you forget which is which, simply always use the last four digits of the card number and you should be good to go.

High Denomination

These cards are in the middle of the pack again on this score.  They’re not nearly as convenient as $500 gift cards, but they’re twice as convenient as $100 gift cards.

Relative value of office supply gift cards

If you don’t mind dealing with $200 cards, then the main problem with the gift cards from Office Depot and Staples is their relatively high fee.  Suppose, though, you use some of the points earned to pay yourself back at one cent per point.  Would these cards still be a good deal?  Here’s the math:

• Buy $200 Visa gift card for $206.95
• Earn 5X:  5 X 206.95 = 1035 points
• Pay back fee with points: -695 points
• Points remaining: 340
• Points earned as a multiple of $200 spend: 1.7X

That’s pretty good!  This means that you can buy and liquidate Visa gift cards (through Bluebird) for free and still earn 1.7 points per dollar.  That’s a better earning rate than you would get from buying gift cards at a grocery store with most credit cards, but there are better deals (depending on how you value each type of point earned).  Here are a few examples:

• Earn 5X at grocery stores (and drug stores & gas stations) for the first year with the special Citi ThankYou Preferred offer.
• Earn 6% cash back at grocery stores with the American Express Blue Cash Preferred card (capped at $6K per year in spend).
• Earn 2X at grocery stores with the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card.  This is only a better deal than the office supply options if you earn fuel points for your purchases (as I did at Kroger).

Conclusion

I have more work to do to figure out what’s going on with the U.S. Bank card from Kroger, so there’s really no news right now on that front.  As to the $200 gift cards from Office Depot and Staples, I found that they are quite easy to work with, and a really solid way to earn extremely valuable points if you don’t mind dealing with their lower denominations.

What have you found that works well or that doesn’t work at all? Please comment below.

Office supply stores and travel hacking are a strange combination, but in the past year or two they’ve been great together.  Thanks to credit card bonus categories, Easy Rebates, big portal promotions, Vanilla Reload cards, and more, office supply stores have been a fantastic source of free or cheap points.  While many of these deals have gone away, there are still some great opportunities.  For example, here are a couple:

1. Take advantage of American Express’ OPEN Savings program (automatically part of most Amex business cards) at OfficeMax.com to get 10% back on orders of more than $250.  This way you can get credit card rewards from your purchase (as always), plus sizable savings.  And, OfficeMax.com recently began selling third party gift cards…
2. Take advantage of credit cards that offer extra points at Office Supply stores (Chase Ink cards, for example), and go through an online portal to Staples.com to make purchases.  Staples.com carries some third party gift cards, and their e-gift cards are fee-free.  I’ve successfully gone through TopCashBack to Staples to get 5.5% cash back plus I’ve earned 5 points per dollar using my Chase Ink card!

So, now that Office Depot and OfficeMax are merging, what’s next?  Here are my completely uninformed guesses of what will happen:

• The new entity will be called Office Depot and will act like Office Depot in terms of what products are sold, the rewards program, etc.
• Many stores will close, especially where Office Depot and OfficeMax are currently in close proximity.
• We will lose the ability to save up to 10% via Amex OPEN Savings.  Of course it’s possible that Amex will negotiate a similar deal with the new entity, but my guess is that this benefit will go away entirely.
• There will be short term deals as stores close and as stores formerly known as OfficeMax get rid of whatever inventory is not carried by Office Depot.
• OfficeMax’s MaxPerks rewards program will be phased out.  I expect that they’ll give people time to spend their MaxPerks rewards, but will issue new rewards as Office Depot Worklife rewards.

So, yeah, I expect that most of this will be bad news to consumers and pointaholics.  For people who live in places with either OfficeMax or Office Depot, but not both, there may be some good news in that whatever deals are available should be available to them.  On the whole, though, its probably not a good thing.  On the optimistic front, maybe this bigger entity will work harder to compete with Staples and we’ll see some new, great opportunities.  We’ll see…

Hat tip to Tweeter named Mark for coming up with the name “Office DeMax”. I like it!

Reports have been pouring in from readers saying that their local Office Depot stores have discontinued selling Visa and American Express cards that were loadable up to $500.  Mommy Points reported the same, as did The Points Guy.  This is a big deal because the sale of $500 bank gift cards at an Office Supply store was a big deal.  By buying these cards with a credit card that offers bonus points at office supply stores, it was possible to buy these bank gift cards for a small 1% fee while earning points or cash back worth 5% or more.

Since I’m currently in Bangkok, I haven’t been able to fully research this situation.  At the time of this writing, I still don’t know for sure whether all Office Depot stores have stopped selling these bank cards, but I suspect so.

The loss of this “5X everywhere” technique essentially kills two of the 5 options I wrote about in the post “Multiple paths to 5X everywhere.”  Sadly, these were the two best options of the lot, in my opinion.

Neither Staples, nor OfficeMax ever carried these cards (to my knowledge), so I suspect that their inventory is the same as always.

Have you tried buying these cards at Office Depot in the past day or two?  If so, what was your experience?

UPDATE: Pizza In Motion reports the possibility that $500 loadable cards will still be carried at Office Depot, but with higher fees.  Read the details here.

A couple of weeks ago I presented at Frequent Traveler University in Los Angeles.  One of the topics I covered was how to earn 5 points per dollar (or more) on all spend.  We started with a moment of silence for the end of Vanilla Reload cards at Office Depot (see “Office Depot discontinues Vanilla Reload cards“).  We then went on to discuss a number of opportunities that still exist.  Below is a brief outline…

1. Buy gift cards and use them

Many grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, and office supply stores sell gift cards.  The trick is to use a credit card that offers 5X or more at one of these locations to buy gift cards that you can then use elsewhere.  See “Best Category Bonuses” to find credit cards that offer the best bonuses.

Example 1: Suppose you are about to make a big purchase at Lowes.  You can always stop by a different store first to buy Lowes gift cards (usually with no fee and no sales tax) and then use those gift cards at Lowes.  The advantage is that, depending on which card you use, you may earn 5 or 6 points per dollar when buying the gift card compared to 1 point per dollar if you made the purchase directly at Lowes.

Example 2: Go to a store in which your credit card earns a high multiple and buy a bank gift card (e.g. Visa, MasterCard, or American Express).  Use that gift card for all purchases in which you would normally have earned only 1 point per dollar.  Watch out for fees, though!  Most bank gift cards have very high fees as a percent of their overall value.  For example, most $100 cards have $5.95 fees.  That means you would be paying 6% in fees in order to earn 5 points per dollar.  It’s not worth it!  Instead, look for $500 cards with $4.95 fees.  Losing just 1% in order to earn 5 points per dollar is often a great deal.

Caution: When you buy merchandise with a gift card, you do not get the benefits such as extended warranty and purchase protection that many credit cards offer automatically.  Use gift cards only to buy things where you are sure those protections don’t matter. 

2. Buy reload cards

Prepaid reload cards are more versatile than gift cards because they can be used, indirectly, to pay bills that can’t usually be paid by credit card.  The way they work is that they come with a PIN number that is used online to load the money from the reload card into something else.  The “something else” could be your Bluebird account, your PayPal account, or one of many prepaid reloadable debit cards.  For more information, please see “The reload game is on.”  Currently, reload cards are no longer available at office supply stores, but can be found elsewhere.  As with gift cards, the trick is to use a card that earns a high multiple at a place that sells reload cards (see “Best Category Bonuses“).

3. Buy reload cards with bank gift cards

This is a combination of options 1 and 2, above.  The idea is to buy bank gift cards at a place that offers you the best points per dollar, then use that gift card to buy reload cards at a different store.  While I and many others have had success with this, it doesn’t always work. Some stores that sell reload cards won’t allow gift cards as a form of payment.  Note also that you now have two fees involved: there is the initial fee for buying the bank gift card (e.g. $4.95 for a $500 card) and then the fee for buying a reload card (e.g. $3.95 or $4.95 for a $500 card).  Make sure these fees are worth it before doing this!

4. Load a Target Amex card with bank gift cards

Full details of this technique can be found here: The 5X everywhere backup plan

5. Load an American Express Campus Edition card

The American Express Campus Edition prepaid card can be loaded at the register at Barnes & Noble campus bookstores.  Find a card that offers a high multiple at bookstores, and you can earn points by reloading this card.  Yes, it works!  More details can be found here: American Express Campus Edition

Caution

5X Everywhere techniques often involve some risk and hassle.  Please see my post “5X dangers and headaches.”

Discussion

As shown above, there are quite a few ways to continue to earn “5X everywhere”.  In my talk, I described ways to take things ever further, but I’ll leave those details for another day and venue.  Is it worth the hassle?  That really depends on your tolerance for this stuff.  Yes, its possible to earn far more points with these techniques than without them, but at a cost of time and sometimes great frustration.  I’ll follow up soon with a post about putting 5X into perspective.

The Mayan calendar ends on December 21 2012.  Many believe that the end of the Mayan calendar signifies the end of the world as we know it.  Is it possible, though, that the real meaning is the end of “5X everywhere”? 

OK, settle down, I made the title of this post purposely provocative in order to get your attention.  I don’t really think that “5X everywhere” is coming to an end, but rumors are spreading and it would be irresponsible of me not to warn you of the possibility…

Background

“5X everywhere” is a technique for earning 5 points per dollar for all spend (see   “One card to rule them all“).  This technique relied on, among other things, being able to buy Vanilla Reload cards at Office Depot.  Some believed that “5X everywhere” was dead when Office Depot stopped carrying Vanilla Reload cards (see “Office Depot discontinues Vanilla Reload cards“).  Many of us, though, continue to earn 5X everywhere the easy way (see “Almost too good to be true“) or the hard way (see “The reload game is on“).  Recent rumors, though, make me wonder if even these techniques are near an end…

The rumor

A couple of readers have recently and independently reported the same story:  when they went to Office Depot to buy gift cards with their Chase business card, the cashier told them that Chase has stopped awarding 5X for gift card purchases.

Is this true?  I know that on my most recent statement I still saw 5X for gift card purchases.  Is it even possible for Chase to distinguish regular purchases from gift card purchases?  I don’t know.  What if you buy gift cards and a pack of gum at once?  Will Chase somehow see the details of the transaction and be able to award 5X for the gum, but not for the rest?  It seems unlikely to me.

Why spread a rumor?

You might wonder why I would bother reporting this with so little information either way.  Normally, I wouldn’t.  But this feels similar to something that happened before where rumors eventually evolved into fact…

Vanilla Stories

I first wrote about Vanilla Reload cards in May 2012 in the post “One card to rule them all.”  A few days later, I received an email from a reader who was told by an Office Depot manager that Office Depot would no longer carry Vanilla Reload cards.  Naturally, I was worried about this, but soon found that it wasn’t true.  At least, it wasn’t true nationwide.  Office Depot kept selling them. 

A week later, I received a very similar email.  The gist was the same: Office Depot would stop selling Vanilla Reload cards.  And then, a week or two later, I received another email just like it.  About once a week I heard the same story.  But Office Depot kept selling the cards.  In fact, in some cases, the same store that reported the end of Vanilla would restock and continue selling them!

In November, things changed.  The rate at which I received these reports spiked up suddenly.  It was time to take the reports seriously.  So I called a number of Office Depot stores and heard the same story.  The end had come for real.

From rumor to fact

So, the Vanilla rumor evolved from fiction to fact in a period of 6 months.  What about this new one?  Will it pan out?  Or, is there just a single misinformed cashier spreading this misinformation?

Reader input

Have you recently bought gift cards at Office Depot with your Chase business card?  Did you hear anything like this from the cashier?  Did you receive the full 5X points on your statement?  Unfortunately, its not easy to check.  See “Chase Ink: Check your X” for details.

A reader contacted me recently asking how he can maximize points earned at semi fast food places like Panera, Chipotle, Subway, etc.  He recognizes that restaurants like these aren’t available through point-earning dining programs, but he’d still like to earn more than 1 or 2 points per dollar.  Overall, he averages about $130 per month at restaurants like these. 

Of course, the first thing to do is to join whatever loyalty program each food place offers.  Beyond that, let’s look at some options…

Simplest approach: Use a credit card that offers extra points for dining

Off the top of my head, here are a couple of good options:

• The Chase Sapphire Preferred offers 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at restaurants, plus a 7% annual dividend so it really returns 2.14 points per dollar.
• Even better, the Citi Forward card offers 5 ThankYou points per dollar at restaurants (including fast food).  ThankYou points are not generally as valuable as Ultimate Rewards, but with an earning rate over twice as high as the Sapphire Preferred, it’s still worth considering.

With the Citi Forward card, $130 per month will become 7800 points per year.  When you’re ready to redeem points, you can sign up for the Citi ThankYou Premier card to make your ThankYou points even more valuable.  With the Premier card, 7800 points are worth over $103 in airfare.

Better approach: Buy gift cards strategically

Gift cards for places like Panera, Chipotle, and Subway tend to be readily available at grocery stores, drug stores, etc.  Take advantage of your credit card bonus categories to buy gift cards for the places you visit the most.  Here are some examples:

• Use a Hilton HHonors Amex to buy gift cards at a grocery store, drug store, or gas station.  You’ll earn 6 Hilton points per dollar.  If you buy from certain grocery stores, you’ll also earn fuel points for saving money on gas!
• Use a Chase Freedom card within its quarterly bonus categories to buy gift cards.  For example, until December 31st 2012, the Freedom card offers 5 points per dollar at hotels, airlines, Best Buy, and Kohl’s (up to $1500 in spend per quarter).  At Kohl’s you can buy gift cards and earn 5 points per dollar.
• Use a Chase Ink card to buy gift cards at an office supply store such as Staples, OfficeMax, or Office Depot.  You’ll earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.
• Use a Blue Cash Preferred card to buy gift cards at a grocery store. You’ll earn 6% cash back. At certain grocery stores, you’ll also earn fuel points for saving money on gas.

My preference among these options is to earn Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Chase Freedom or Ink card.  With either card, $130 per month will become 7800 points per year. With the Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Freedom (when paired with one of these Ink cards or with a Sapphire Preferred card), your Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to high value loyalty programs such as Hyatt, United, Amtrak, or British Airways.  With these programs, you can easily get at least 2 cents per point value for travel.  So, those 7800 points could be worth $156 or more in travel.  Note that you can expand this idea well beyond dining options via the “One card to rule them all” trick.

Advanced approach: Buy and upgrade

Every now and then there is an opportunity to buy gift cards at a heavy discount or to get lots of points.  One recent example is when Sears offered 10 points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  Not all stores do so, but Sears is known to award points for gift card purchases.  Here’s how to take advantage of a deal like this:

• Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Sears and order gift cards in order to get 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar (during 10X promotions)
• Pay with the best credit card option.  For example, you could setup the US Bank Cash+ card to give 6.25% back at department stores.  That would be a great way to boost your savings!
• With gift cards in-hand, go to Sears or Kmart and find the gift card racks.  Use your Sears gift card to buy the gift cards you really want.  Note that at Sears it can be very hard to find a gift card rack that sells anything but Sears cards, but once found I’ve never had trouble buying them.  At Kmart, on the other hand, the gift cards are easy to find, but not all cashiers will allow you to buy gift cards with gift cards.  I’d recommend filling up the cart with other stuff (groceries, etc.) to increase your odds for success.

By going through this admittedly convoluted process, $130 per month in semi fast food dining can become 15,600 Ultimate Rewards points and $97.50 cash back!  Of course, that’s contingent upon 1) Sears repeating its 10X promotion; 2) Sears or Kmart carrying the gift cards you need; and 3) Sears or Kmart allowing you to buy gift cards with gift cards…

A variation on this approach is to use an American Express business card with OPEN Savings.  Use that card to buy over $250 worth of OfficeMax gift cards at a time at OfficeMax.com and you’ll automatically get 10% cash back.  Then, go to OfficeMax and use those gift cards to buy the gift cards you really want.  Caution: many OfficeMax stores do not permit buying gift cards with gift cards.

Other ideas?

Do you have other ideas for maximizing points and savings when eating out at places like Panera, Chipotle, and Subway?  Comment below.

Through July 14, Office Depot is offering a bunch of stuff for “100% back in rewards” for rewards program members:

If you need any of these items, the best deal is to use your Ink Bold card and go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to place your order.  The Ultimate Rewards Mall is currently offering 10 bonus points per dollar for Ink Bold customers.  When combined with the automatic 5 points per dollar the Ink Bold earns at office supply stores, this comes to a whopping 15 points per dollar!  Up to 6 weeks after your purchase, your Office Depot account will be credited with the price paid for the listed items.  That credit, then, can be used to buy other things.

100% rewards doesn’t equal FREE

100% rewards deals sound a lot like FAR (free after rebate) deals, but there’s a big difference.  With FAR deals, you get a check or Visa gift card back.  In other words, you get back real money.  With 100% rewards, you get the opportunity to get more stuff from Office Depot.  So, I think of 100% rewards as more like a 50% discount.  When you buy $50 worth of stuff, you can ultimately take home a total of $100 worth of stuff.  That’s a great deal if you need that stuff (or if you can resell it for a profit), but it’s a far cry from free.

A couple of Free After Rebate (FAR) deals at Office Depot can be a nice point bonanza for those with Chase Ink cards. 

As I reported earlier this month, Office Depot is currently offering 10 bonus points per dollar for Chase Ink customers who shop through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  When you add on the 5 points per dollar that the Ink gets for office supply purchases, that leads to an awesome 15 points per dollar for Office Depot purchases!

If you’re not interested in any products at Office Depot, you can still benefit by buying Free After Rebate (FAR) items.  That way, you get the points, but also get all (or mostly all) of your money back.

FAR Deals

Office Depot is currently advertising two FAR deals that are good through tomorrow (July 7th):

• McAfee Total Protection 2012, For 3 Users, Traditional Disc: $65
• Kaspersky Anti-virus 2012: $45

Each rebate is good for just one copy per household.  If you buy both, you will spend $110 and get $110 back in rebates.  Unfortunately, unlike Staples’ easy rebates, these are mail-in rebates.

Ultimate Rewards

By going through the Ultimate Rewards mall and paying with a Chase Ink card, you will earn 15 points per dollar, or approximately 1650 points.  I say “approximately” because you should earn a few extra points for the sales tax portion of the bill.  Usually, you will not get mall points from sales tax, but you should get the Ink’s automatic 5X points.

Sales Tax

If you live in a state that charges sales tax, then you won’t really get this software for free.  Still, it’s not a bad deal.  Suppose, for example, you pay 10% sales tax.  In that case, you will be out $11.  In other words, you will have paid $11 for slightly over 1650 points: about 2/3 of a penny per point. Not too bad.  You might even be able to recover your $11 loss by selling the items on EBay.

McAfee

People have reported that McAfee does not pay rebates to people who have received rebates for the same product in the past, even if the rebate form itself was different.  Make sure you don’t fall into that category before buying.

Kaspersky

For some reason, the “add to cart” page for this item doesn’t advertise the rebate:

If that makes you nervous, note that the rebate is shown in the Office Depot ad:

Also, you can click here to see the rebate for yourself:

Not for me

This is a good solid pair of FAR deals, but I’m not going to buy them.  I’m the guy that rebate companies love: I tend to get lazy and then forget to mail in the rebates.  I’m not willing to bet $110 on my habits changing in the next few weeks .

OfficeMax, Office Depot, Staples….  Not only do some of the names sound the same, but the stores look the same and carry similar products.  Despite these similarities, the points and miles schemes available at each store vary dramatically.  So, to help clarify the differences, here is a roundup of what to look for in each store:

Staples

• FAR deals: Every now and then Staples offers Free After Rebate (FAR) downloadable software with Easy Rebates.  I don’t care for mail-in rebates due to the hassle involved, but Easy Rebates are different: you make your purchase online, fill out a small rebate form online, and wait for your rebate check.  Why do we care?  FAR deals can be a great way to increase credit card spend, get additional points through an online shopping mall, and get all of your money back.  It’s been a while since we’ve seen good FAR deals, but I’m hoping they’ll make a comeback in August for back to school promotions.  I’ll cover these in depth once they return.
• Gift cards online:  Staples is one of very few merchants that sell a variety of gift cards online.  For example, through Staples.com you can buy Marriott, Southwest, Starbucks, and many other gift cards with no fee and no shipping charges.  Start at TopCashBackor uPromise for additional cash back, and get 5X points by using your Ink Bold.
• Coupons:  Staples occasionally issues valuable coupons that work on almost all purchases (even when the T&C states otherwise).  See, for example, “Staples $15 off any $100 gift card.”  You can often buy coupons like these inexpensively online if you’re not lucky enough to get one directly from Staples.

Office Depot

• $500 bank cards:  When buying Visa, Mastercard, or American Express gift cards you are normally charged a hefty fee on top of the card’s value.  Typically, for example, a $100 gift card will cost about $106.  That’s a very wasteful 6% loss.  Even with the Chase Ink Bold’s 5X office supply bonus, it’s not a good deal.  Office Depot, though, sells Visa and American Express cards that can be loaded up to $500 with a small $4.95 fee.  As long as you load the card at the register with the full $500, your cost is just 1%.  In that case, the office supply 5X benefit of the Ink Bold far outweighs the cost.
• Vanilla Reload cards:  You won’t find these (yet) at Staples or OfficeMax.  These are money packs that can be loaded up to $500 with a $3.95 fee.  Use these to load up certain permanent reloadable cards (American Express Prepaid, NetSpend, Mio, etc…).  Again, the Chase Ink’s 5X bonus is key to making this a big win.  See “One card to rule them all” for more information.

OfficeMax

• OPEN Savings:  American Express business credit cards come with a perk called OPEN Savings.  At certain merchants, American Express automatically gives you a statement credit rebate when you use your business Amex.  Until recently, they gave 5% back for all OfficeMax purchases of $100 or more.  At that time, one of my favorite tricks was to go to OfficeMax to buy high value gift cards (Amazon.com, EBay, gas, etc.) using one of my Amex business cards (such as the Delta Platinum card I wrote about yesterday).  That way, I saved 5% plusI increased spend on my card.  Recently, though, Amex changed the terms of the OfficeMax rebate…Now the rebate is available only online through OfficeMax.com (which does not sell gift cards other than their own).  However, if you plan to shop at OfficeMax.com, this is still a great deal.  The new rules state that you earn 5% back on purchases up to $250, and 10% back on purchases over $250.  Combine this with an online portal (such as Ultimate Rewards which is currently 5X for Ink Bold holders, or ShopAtHome which gives 6% cash back) and you can really do well!

All Three

• In-store gift card purchases: All three of these big box office supply stores have gift card racks in which they sell gift cards to other merchants.  If you have a Chase Ink card, use it to buy gift cards for places you plan to shop anyway and you’ll earn 5X for these purchases.

Other Tricks?

Do you know of other office supply tricks not listed here?  Or, do you know of unexpected merchants that Chase codes as Office Supply stores for 5X with the Ink Bold?  Comment below

Related posts and links

• Is Staples’ gift card gravy train coming to an end?
• One card to rule them all
• What’s my X?
• Open SAVINGS

A week ago I revealed an exciting new way to maximize point earnings.  By signing up for an American Express Prepaid card and using a Chase Ink credit card to buy reload cards at Office Depot, you can essentially earn 5 points per dollar for all purchases, and without needing to juggle multiple gift cards.  To learn the basics of how this works, please see the original post for more information: “One card to rule them all”.  If you have further questions, please see the American Express FAQ.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been almost giddy when making purchases.  Buying groceries: 5X!  Buying gas: 5X!  Buying dinner: 5X!  Buying Daily Getaways: 10% off and 5X! 

So, now that we’ve had a bit of experience using the cards, what have we learned?

Availability

In the FAQ mentioned above, Amex states that the temporary cards are not available in Arkansas, New Jersey, or Vermont; and that the permanent cards are not available in Arkansas or Vermont.  That implies, to me, that NJ residents can order the permanent card online.  However, I believe that you will have to go out of state to find reload cards to buy at Office Depot.

In addition to the stated availability limitations, a few readers have reported being unable to find these cards at their local Office Depot stores.  While most stores do sell them, it seems that some do not.

Buy with credit card

This scheme opportunity relies on being able to buy reload cards at Office Depot using your Ink credit card.  A few people have reported that their local Office Depot did not allow them to use their credit card for these purchases.  In at least one of those cases, the Office Depot manager claimed that you couldn’t use credit cards to buy any gift cards.  Let me assure you that if that is a rule, it is specific to certain stores and not at all what most people have found to be true.  In fact, most readers have reported success in using their credit card to buy reload cards.

Criminal Feelings

A few people have reported that while they were allowed to use their credit cards, the Office Depot personnel made them feel like criminals when purchasing the cards.  I think this comes from the fact that some criminals do buy gift cards and prepaid cards as a way to launder money or to cash out stolen credit cards.  Just remember that there is nothing illegal with what we are trying to do.  And, if you can, try shopping at a different Office Depot.  My local store has been very pleasant to me for all of my purchases.

Link, Like, Love: Not!

A reader who goes by Kadence reported that you cannot link these Amex Prepaid cards to Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare for additional Amex savings.  Rats!  The Terms & Conditions for all three promotions state: “certain cards are not deemed Eligible Cards, including Prepaid Cards”.  You can see the full T&C here: https://sync.americanexpress.com/facebook/Terms.aspx

International Use

I called Amex and they confirmed that there are no foreign transaction fees with these cards!  Further, you can use these cards at international ATMs.  I asked about Paris, specifically, and was given a large list of banks where the card would work for ATM withdrawals.  I’m not organized enough to actually carry around a list like that (plus I didn’t write them down), but when I’m in France I’ll give it a shot at an ATM or two.  As always, you may be charged a fee by the owner of the ATM, and Amex will charge you $2 per withdrawal after the first withdrawal each month.

Tracking Balance and Expenditures

A reader asked if tools like Mint.com would work for tracking expenditures on these cards.  I was sure that the answer would be no, but I gave it a try anyway.  Amazingly, it worked!  Just add a card of type “American Express Gift Card” and then you can use Mint.com to track your expenses and your balance.  Very nice!

Unfortunately, I tried the same thing without luck with two other apps: Neither GoWallet nor Expensify knew how to handle these cards.

Read My Lips: No Taxes

A few people have been charged sales tax when buying prepaid cards and reload cards.  You should not have to pay sales tax.  If you are charged tax, I’d recommend against completing the purchase.  Sales tax will essentially wipe out the 5X gains.

Debit Cards: Not

People keep asking if these cards can be used as debit cards.  The answer is simple: No.  When using these cards you need to identify them as credit cards.  If you want to earn miles with debit purchases, take a look at the SunTrust debit card recently described by the Frugal Travel Guy.

Other Vendors

I received a number of questions about whether the reload cards could be purchased at Staples or OfficeMax.  Currently, the answer is “no”.  Hopefully they’ll appear in more locations soon.  It’s also my understanding that we are likely to see more reloadable prepaid cards on the market soon to compete with the Amex cards.  Please let me know the second you see one!

Other Options

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?”

Let me know

Whether you’ve been successful or unsuccessful in buying reload cards, please let me know.  Also, if you’ve found any creative ways to use these cards, I definitely want to hear that!

Related Posts:

• One card to rule them all
• What’s my X?
• Almost too good to be true
• How to sign up for the Ink Bold
• Why Chase cancels accounts (and how to protect yourself)

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook / Join the Club

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here