Last week I outlined ways to earn hundreds of thousands of points and miles through gift card churning (see “The art of gift card churning @ #chicagoseminars“).  Today, I have a number of specific updates for people who have taken gift card churning to heart…

Kohl’s triple dip not working

In my recent post “How to maximize your Freedom 5X purchases” I suggested that it might be possible to earn 25 points per dollar at Kohl’s by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Kohl’s to buy Kohl’s gift cards with your Freedom card, and then go through the mall again to use the gift cards.  However, a reader reported on Saturday that this trick didn’t work for them.  They received points for using a gift card at Kohl’s, but not for buying a gift card.  One reader experience doesn’t prove that the triple dip won’t work for everyone, but its probably not worth the risk.

PlasticJungle / TopCashBack drops to 2.5%

PlasticJungle is a gift card buyer / reseller.  They’re a great resource if you have unused gift cards you’d like to sell (at less than face value).  And, they’re a great resource if you want to buy gift cards at a discount (which is a great way to save money almost anywhere).  Until recently, a cash back portal (TopCashBack) offered 4% cash back at PlasticJungle if you started from their site.  Cash back is awarded whether you buy gift cards from Plastic Jungle, or sell them.  Recently, TopCashBack reduced the payout to 2.5% cash back.  Accordingly, I’ve updated the post “Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back” which can always be found on my Resources tab:

Walmart gift cards cheaper than usual

Lately, $500 Walmart gift cards have been on sale on EBay for about 5% off of face value (e.g. $475).  That’s pretty good, especially considering that purchases of merchant gift cards on EBay earn EBay bucks, which means you get an additional 1.9% rebate (2% of $475 = $9.5, which equals 1.9% of $500).  The catch is that the sellers don’t ship the cards for a month or more.

One reason that discount Walmart gift cards are interesting is that Walmart sells Visa gift cards online and will let you pay with gift cards.  The best value, currently, is to buy $200 Visa or MasterCard gift cards for $206.88 each.  This amounts to a 3.44% fee.  However, if you pay with a Walmart gift card that you bought at a 6.9% discount, you are still well ahead!

OfficeMax tightens up

In the posts “10% off everything and 7% off everything else” and “How to buy points for free” I described a few great ways to leverage the American Express OPEN Savings program now that those savings apply only to online orders at OfficeMax.  The trick involves buying OfficeMax gift cards online (for 10% cash back) and then upgrading them in-store (e.g. use them to buy better gift cards).  I haven’t had any trouble upgrading at my local OfficeMax, but a number of readers have reported that their OfficeMax stores don’t allow it.  In fact, fellow blogger Delta Points tells me that his OfficeMax used to allow it, but has recently cracked down.  If you’re thinking of trying this technique, consider starting very small to check whether your local OfficeMax store is upgrade-friendly.

Until July 28 (Saturday), OfficeMax is offering a $50 hotel cash card when you make a purchase of $175 or more.

The cash card has some restrictions:

• Your hotel must be booked via www.redeemhotelcash.com (which probably means you won’t get elite stay credit or earn hotel points)
• Your stay must be two nights or more
• The card must be redeemed by January 1, 2014 (but it looks like your stay can be later than that as long as it is booked by that date – I’m not 100% sure).

Leveraging the Deal

Option 1: Buy gift cards through OfficeMax.com

• As I’ve reported before (see “10% off everything and 7% off everything else”), you can use an American Express business card to get 10% back from all OfficeMax orders greater than $250.  It appears that you can use this promo code “TRAVEL” when ordering gift cards.
• Assuming you buy $300 worth of gift cards, you will get $30 back from Amex OPEN Savings, and $50 back in the form of this hotel cash card.  Not bad.
• Use the gift cards for future OfficeMax purchases, or use them in-store to buy other gift cards (this has worked multiple times for me, but others have reported difficulty so try at your own risk).

Option 2: Buy OfficeMax stuff

• Go through TopCashBack to PlasticJungle to buy OfficeMax electronic gift cards for 11% off (and you should get additional cash back from TopCashBack).  Don’t buy physical gift cards because you won’t get them in time before this promotion ends.
• Go through ShopAtHome or TopCashBack to OfficeMax.com for up to 6% cash back.  Alternatively, go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall for 3 points per dollar.
• Add $175 worth of stuff to your cart, and then add promo code “TRAVEL”
• Use your electronic gift cards to make your purchase.  Try to make a small part of the purchase with a credit card – otherwise the cash back portals might not kick in.
• If you didn’t buy gift cards first, pay with an Ink Bold card (5X), or an American Express Simply Cash card (5% back + 5% or 10% back via OPEN Savings), or any Amex business card (5% back for purchases of $250 or less; 10% back for purchases greater than $250).
• Total potential savings: ~15% (TopCashBack + PlasticJungle) + 6% (ShopAtHome) + $50 (Hotel Card).  With a $175 purchase, that comes to about $86 in savings or almost 50%.

Is it worth it?

Certainly, if you plan to make OfficeMax purchases anyway.  I’ve never used one of these hotel cards, but it looks pretty useful.  I browsed to the redemption website and found that hotel prices were competitive and in some cases better than I’ve been able to find elsewhere. 

This is a trick for advanced gift card churners.  The trick can be used to help meet minimum spend requirements, earn points, and even earn some money.  I’ve hinted about this in previous posts, but I’ll bring it all together today. 

The Trick

At a high level, the trick is to use an Amex business credit card to buy OfficeMax gift cards for 10% off, then upgrade those cards to more valuable cards before selling them.  Through this process it’s possible to increase credit card spend (and therefore earn points), and even make some money.

What you need

• Amex Business card: In order to pull off this trick, you need an American Express business card with OPEN Savings.  Most American Express credit cards have both personal and business variants.  If you get the business version, you will automatically be enrolled in their OPEN Savings program in which you get cash back automatically (applied to your statement) when shopping at certain merchants.  You don’t have to have an official business to get a business card: if you ever sell items via yard sales or online, you have a business; if you do consulting, you have a business; if you rent out property, you have a business; etc.  If you’re in that situation, when filling out a credit card application put the business type as “sole proprietor” and use your own Social Security number as the Tax ID.  See “Best credit card offers” to find some Amex business card options with good signup bonuses.  Note that the SPG card will soon increase the signup bonus to 30K so you may want to wait a week or two for that one.
• Nice OfficeMax: People have reported mixed success in using gift cards at OfficeMax to buy other gift cards.  You need to make sure your local OfficeMax is nice about this before you risk too much!

Step By Step

Step 1: Buy OfficeMax gift cards

Browse to OfficeMax.com and buy more than $250 worth of OfficeMax gift cards.  The largest cards they sell are for $100 each so I’d recommend buying at least 3 $100 cards at a time.  Make sure to pay with your Amex business card.  In order to receive 10% back, you must make the purchase online and the purchase must total more than $250.

Caution: OPEN Savings are only from purchases made at OfficeMax.com.  You will not get cash back for similar purchases at Office Depot or Staples.

Step 2: Upgrade to Visa gift cards

Once you receive your OfficeMax gift cards, rub off the gummy stuff on the back to expose the PIN numbers and then take the cards in-person to an OfficeMax store.  There, you should be able to find $200 Visa gift cards.  Buy them with your OfficeMax gift cards.  The Visa cards come with a $6.95 fee, but you’re still way ahead since you got 10% back from the purchase of the OfficeMax gift cards.

Step 3: Use Visa gift cards to buy resell-able gift cards

Even though Visa gift cards are like cash, they’re not easy to turn into cash.  Instead, use the gift cards to buy easily sold gift cards.  Currently, Plastic Jungle will buy all of these gift cards for 92% of their value: Exxon, Phillips 66, Safeway, Sams Club, Target, and Walmart.  You can find current sell prices at GiftCardGranny.com. 

I find it easier to buy gift cards in-person than online when using Visa gift cards to pay.  When using them online, you first need to register your name and address with the Visa gift card company.  This can be a bit of a hassle if you’re doing this often.  Here’s a better bet:

• Find a local grocery store that offers fuel points for buying gift cards
• See if any high value gift cards are sold at that grocery store (for example, obviously Safeway would sell Safeway gift cards).
• Use your Visa gift cards to pay.

If you don’t have a grocery store that meets the above criteria, then simply visit Target, Walmart, etc. and buy the gift cards there.

Step 4: Sell the gift cards

Now that you have gift cards from Target, Walmart, or wherever, log into TopCashBack and click through to PlasticJungle to sell your gift cards.  You should get 92% back from PlasticJungle and another 4% of 92% = 3.68% from TopCashBack.

Add it up

Let’s suppose we start with $1450 worth of OfficeMax gift cards.  Here’s how the math works out:

• Spend $1450
• Receive $145 back from OPEN Savings
• Use $1450 in gift cards to buy 7 $200 gift cards.  7 * $206.95 = $1448.65.  Use the extra $1.35 to buy a pack of gum or something.
• use the 7 $200 gift cards to buy 14 $100 Target gift cards (for example).  This should be an even trade since no tax or service fees are charged when buying merchant gift cards at most stores.
• Go through TopCashBack to PlasticJungle and sell the Target gift cards to Plastic Jungle (you may have to do so in multiple separate smaller batches).  You will receive $1288 from PlasticJungle and $51.52 from TopCashBack.
• Totals: -$1450 (spent at OfficeMax) + $145 (OPEN Savings) + $1,288 (PlasticJungle) + $51.52 (TopCashBack) = $34.52 profit

Overall, you will have increased credit card spend (for points and/or to meet minimum spend requirements), earned a small profit, received a free pack of gum, and potentially saved a lot of money on gas (which you’ll need for driving back and forth to OfficeMax).

Does it really work?

So far I’ve done the entire cycle one complete time and yes every step worked.  There are some real risks though:

• Your local OfficeMax may not allow you to buy gift cards with gift cards
• PlasticJungle may reduce the price they’re willing to pay for whatever gift cards you buy
• Your gift cards could get lost in the mail or otherwise misplaced on the way to PlasticJungle
• Your TopCashBack transaction might not track appropriately

Who’s In?

Obviously this trick takes a serious time commitment and comes with some real risks.  Is it worth it to you?

As I reported yesterday, it is now possible to get 10% cash back when buying OfficeMax gift cards.  The trick is to use an American Express business credit card with OPEN Savings.  The OPEN Savings program automatically gives 10% back for online OfficeMax purchases of more than $250.

I also reported yesterday that it is possible to upgrade OfficeMax gift cards in-store by using them to buy other gift cards.  For example, I had no problem at all using a $25 OfficeMax gift card to buy a $25 Amazon gift card.  Whether this works at your local OfficeMax may depend upon store policies and individual teller assumptions. 

So, to get 10% off almost anything, the trick is to buy more than $250 worth of OfficeMax gift cards online, pay with your business Amex, and then use the OfficeMax gift cards to get what you really want.

What can I get for 10% off?

At my local OfficeMax, here are a few of the gift cards I found:

• Travel: Southwest Airlines
• Booksellers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble
• Hardware: Home Depot, Lowes
• Department stores: Kohl’s, Nordstrom, Macy’s, JC Penney, …
• Food: Starbucks, PF Changs, Red Lobster, …
• Movies: AMC, Regal
• Miscellaneous: iTunes, ToysRUs, PetSmart, Various phone reload cards (unlike merchant gift cards, these will likely incur sales tax), …

To see the full selection, take a look at the photos below.

7% off everything else

My next OfficeMax experiment will be to try to buy a $200 Visa gift card with OfficeMax gift cards.  The $200 Visa gift cards sell at OfficeMax for $206.96.  If the gift card trick works, my final cost will be almost 7% less:

• Purchase price: $206.95
• 10% of $206.95 = $20.70
• Final cost: $206.95 – $20.70 = $186.25
• Discount: 6.875%

The discount when buying Visa gift cards this way is just shy of 7%.  That’s a fantastic savings for a card that can be used almost anywhere!  Let’s hope this experiment works!

Last week I reported that I was launching several Frequent Miler Laboratory experiments (see “Laboratory Preparations”).  Most of the results are in and can be found on the Laboratory page (sort results by date to find the most recent).  For each significant finding, I’ll write up a new post to explain how to leverage it.  In this post, I’ll describe the OfficeMax experiments and the exciting results…

Experiment

This experiment had 3 parts:

• Portal: Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to OfficeMax to buy an OfficeMax gift card.  See if points are earned (despite T&C text saying no).
• Open Savings: Use American Express business credit card with OPEN Savings to make the purchase.  See if OPEN Savings credits my account with 5% back.
• Upgrade: Use the OfficeMax gift card in-store to buy to a different merchant’s gift card.

Portal

I logged into my Ink Bold account to shop the Ultimate Rewards Mall and clicked through to OfficeMax.com.  The Terms & Conditions suggested that this experiment would not work:

Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents.

And, in fact, as suggested by the T&C, I did not receive points.  You might think this happened because I didn’t use a Chase card for the purchase, but I rarely do and I almost always get points (see “Ultimate Question”).  Anyway, I’ve recorded this part of the experiment as a FAIL.

Open Savings

American Express business cards come with a feature not found on their personal cards: OPEN Savings.  These are rebates that are automatically credited to your account when you shop at certain merchants and fulfill the terms.  Merchants include Hyatt, Marriott, Hertz, and more.  You can see the full list of merchants and terms here.  Note that you do not really need a business to get a business credit card.  If you ever do any consulting, EBay selling, or anything that earns money for yourself or may do so in the future, you can apply for a business card as a “sole proprietor”.  A great side benefit is that American Express will let you get sign-up bonuses for both business and personal cards so you can often double your sign-up points!

Until recently, OPEN Savings gave 5% off for all OfficeMax purchases of $100 or more.  A great opportunity at the time was to go to OfficeMax stores to buy more valuable gift cards (Amazon, Visa, etc.) and automatically get 5% back.  Recently, though, they changed the terms.  I wrote about this in May in the post “Coming to an end: 5 percent off Amazon, EBay, and more…”  The new terms are (bolding is mine):

Get discount based on your total purchase as follows: 5% discount if a purchase is $250 or less and 10% discount if a purchase is more than $250. Valid only for purchases made online at officemax.com, officemaxsolutions.com or telephone orders. Discounts not available for purchases made at retail locations. Visit officemax.com/opensavings for OfficeMax terms and conditions.

This was a big blow to my gift card buying scheme since the scheme depended upon buying gift cards in-store (at retail locations).  However, the possibility of earning 10% back is very interesting.

In this experiment, I started small by buying a single physical $25 OfficeMax gift card.  It took a full week, but I did receive the expected 5% back from Open Savings.  Experiment result: SUCCESS.

Upgrade

Getting 10% back from OfficeMax purchases is nice, but even better is if you can get 10% back and upgrade to a more valuable gift card.  I visited an OfficeMax yesterday and bought a $25 Amazon gift card with my $25 OfficeMax gift card.  It worked like a charm, no questions asked.  Result: SUCCESS. 

Note that some readers reported that they had to argue with tellers who thought using gift cards was against the rules, but they were ultimately successful anyway.

Next Steps

Based on this experiment, I believe it is now possible to get 10% off all Amazon purchases!  I just ordered $300 worth of OfficeMax gift cards to prove that it will result in 10% back.  I will also follow up with another post detailing different ways to leverage this opportunity.  Finally, I’d love to find a points or cash back portal that credits gift card purchases!  If you order OfficeMax gift cards, please try various portals and let me know the results.  One reader has reported failure from uPromise and a number of airline portals (aa,ua,usair,delta,sw) so there may not be any good options, but it’s worth trying!

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

Now that Barnes & Noble is back to 10X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall (see “Ultimate Rewards Mall June Edition”), this trick is once again viable.  I first wrote about this on March 23rd in the post “How to buy Ultimate Rewards Points for less than a penny each.”  Today I’ll rehash the same stuff with minor updates.

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.

Benefits

• Earn Ultimate Rewards points at a very low cost!
• Increase spend on your American Express business card.  This can be a great boon if you are working off a minimum spend requirement for a sign-up bonus, or if you’re working towards a big-spend bonus.

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. However, if many readers start doing this, they may indeed lower the offer.  The easiest way to view current rates is to view this spreadsheet from PlasticJungle.  Technically, this is PlasticJungle’s volume seller price list, but they usually offer the same prices to individuals.
• Finally, TopCashBack may, at any time, lower the cash back given for PlasticJungle sales.

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 with your Sapphire Preferred account 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 terms in the Ultimate Rewards Mall say “Special increased earnings now through 6/30/2012” so the deal may expire at the end of this month.

Disclaimer

There are several risks as shown above. As always, proceed at your own risk.

Related Posts and Links

• How to buy Ultimate Rewards Points for less than a penny each
• Can you use a non-Chase card in the Ultimate Rewards Mall?  See: Ultimate Question
• Sign up for TopCashBack (referral link)
• Sign up for PlasticJungle (referral link)

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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!

One of my favorite tricks for saving money while increasing credit card spend is to buy gift cards at OfficeMax using one of my American Express business cards.  Amex business cards come with a perk called OPEN Savings.  With this program, you automatically receive rebates in the form of statement credits when using your card at certain merchants.  With OfficeMax, you currently get back 5% of any purchases of $100 or more (see image).

I regularly stop by my local OfficeMax to buy gift cards totaling $100 or more. If you can find gift cards you can really use, this can be a big win.  Even $200 Visa gift cards with $6.95 fees are a decent deal: After 5% cash back, you end up with 1.7% in savings.

Sadly, though, this deal is coming to an end.  A friend who goes by the handle greek2me sent me this notice that he received in the mail with his SPG card bill:

Starting June 15th, in store purchases won’t count!  Since OfficeMax doesn’t sell gift cards online (other than their own), this will effectively kill the gift card gravy train.

On the other hand, they will start giving 10% back for purchases greater than $250 made online.  This could be quite lucrative if/when OfficeMax carries Free After Rebate products, especially if we stack this discount with points or cash back from a shopping portal.  Also, OfficeMax frequently sells items with 100% back in rewards.  Any time they have enough of these to total $250, I’ll let you know! 

I also wonder what would happen if we bought OfficeMax gift cards online and then used them in store.  Would they allow purchase of other gift cards using their gift card?  It’s unlikely, but you never know.  I guess it’s time to add new experiments to the Frequent Miler Laboratory to-do list!

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