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!

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

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

I was just working on yet another post about more ways to leverage the Chase Ink cards when I realized that I haven’t been giving attention to other cards.  So, before I go back to writing about the awesomeness of the Ink Bold (and the Ink Cash and Ink Classic), let’s look at a few other cards that can be leveraged for their bonus categories.

Note that this is not about cards with great sign-up bonuses, that information can be found here.  And, it’s not about cards that have great built-in perks (but that would be a good future post…).  Instead, this is a quick look at cards that are, like the Ink cards, amenable to creative spend strategies for earning extra points, cash, or perks.

You can learn more about the following cards on my Preparing for Miles page (which can be found at the top of every page on my site when viewed through a non-mobile browser).

Chase Freedom

The Freedom card has terrific rotating categories that give 5X for spend. The only down side is that you’re limited to $1500 of 5X spend each quarter.  Here are this year’s categories:

• Grocery stores: In addition to earning 5X through regular grocery store spend, earn 5X on other purchases by buying gift cards at the grocery store
• Other categories: Double dip by enrolling in other rewards programs (iDine, airline programs, etc.).  At department stores such as Best Buy and Kohl’s you should be able to buy gift cards as well.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

The Sapphire Preferred gives an annual 7% bonus on top of all Ultimate Rewards points earned that year. This is particularly lucrative when there are very large Ultimate Rewards Mall bonus opportunities. For example, it was briefly possible to double dip at Magazines.com (buy a gift card and then use the gift card) to earn 60 points per dollar. By logging into the mall each time with my Sapphire Preferred account, I earned more than 4X extra thanks to the annual dividend!

American Express Business cards

Most American Express cards come in two versions: a personal version and a small business version.  When you opt for the small business version, you usually get the exact same card benefits, but with the addition of OPEN Savings:

My favorite use of OPEN Savings is to visit my local OfficeMax and purchase at least $100 worth of gift cards with an Amex business card.  This way, I get 5% back posted to my account.  I’ve also made good use of the Barnes & Noble 5% back in the past when I was able to stack that with 10X bonus points from the Ultimate Rewards Mall (it has since dropped to 2X).

Amex Hilton HHonors and Hilton HHonors Surpass cards

Both give 6X for grocery, drug store, and other categories.  Grocery stores and drug stores tend to have great gift card selections.  6X everywhere!

Amex Blue Cash Preferred

6% cash back at grocery stores!  You know what to do!

Discover

In addition to rotating 5X categories, Discover has one of the best available cash back portals.

PerkStreet

The PerkStreet Financial Debit MasterCard gives 1% back on all purchases, 2% back at Walmart and Amazon, and 5% back in rotating categories.  The interesting thing here is that it is a debit card which sometimes has lower fees (for paying taxes, for example).

What else?

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface here.  Do you have other favorite cards for creative spending?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

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

If you’re looking to meet minimum spend on a new credit card, or increase spend on a card with bonuses for high spenders, here’s a neat little trick.  For this to work, you need either a Chase Ink card which gives 5X points for office supplies, or an Amex business card with OPEN savings which gives 5% back on purchases at OfficeMax of $100 or more.  See Preparing for Miles for more info about these cards.

Here it is in a nutshell:

• Go to OfficeMax and buy EBay gift cards.  Spend at least $100 each time to ensure you get 5% back with Amex cards.  If you’re using an Ink card, you can optionally go to Staples or Office Depot to see if they carry EBay cards.
• Watch EBay for $500 Walmart gift cards.  These usually sell for $485, which is a 3% discount.  When available, use your EBay gift cards to buy the Walmart cards.  You will get an additional 2% back in EBay bucks.
• When your Walmart cards arrive, go through Walmart.com to buy smaller denomination physical cards using your $500 card.  See Washing Walmart for more info.
• Go through MyDealsAndCoupons to PlasticJungle. Sell your Walmart gift cards to PlasticJungle for 92 cents on the dollar.  In other words, in exchange for your $500 worth of gift cards, Plastic Jungle will give you a check for $460.  Through MyDealsAndCoupons you will earn 3% of the sale price (3% of $460 = $13.80).  This comes to 2.76% of $500.

When you add up your costs and savings, you see that you lose 8% value when selling to PlasticJungle, but you gain 5% from Amex OPEN (or 5X from Ink) and 2.76% from MyDealsAndCoupons.  In other words, cash-wise, you end up very close to even.  Once you add in the 2% back in EBay bucks, though, you actually come out ahead!

Why only $10K?

EBay has a posted limit to how many gift cards can be used per 180 day period.  Supposedly you are limited to $500 in gift cards per purchase, and no more than $5000 in purchases in any 180 day period.  I say “supposedly” because a person on MilePoint reported buying a mutli-thousand dollar ring with gift cards.  It appears likely that EBay doesn’t enforce these limits, but I don’t yet have personal experience to prove it one way or another.

EBay gift card terms & conditions:

No more than a total of $500 in Gift Cards may be used per eBay purchase. Further, unverified PayPal accounts are limited to a total of $500 in Gift Card purchases in any 30-day period and verified PayPal accounts are limited to $5,000 in Gift Card purchases in any 180-day period.

Notes

• When purchasing more than $100 worth of gift cards at a time at OfficeMax, the cashier will need a manager’s override.
• EBay gift cards at OfficeMax usually are available in $25 and $50 denominations.  Yes, it is a bit painful to type in 10 gift card numbers when buying a Walmart card through EBay.  Often the cards start with the same sequence, so copy that sequence to the clipboard and paste in each time to save a little trouble.

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

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

Here are ways to ease the pain at the pump. 

Last month I published ways to maximize points per dollar at Amazon.com.  Now, with gas prices rising through the roof, it’s time to look at what we can do to ease the pain at the pump.  There are quite a few really good options, but each depends on which credit cards you carry.  If you carry a card that automatically gives extra points for gas station purchases (such as, for example, the PenFed Platinum Rewards Card at 5X), then you may already be maximizing your savings.  Otherwise, read on:

Blue Cash Preferred:

This card already gives 3% cash back for gas purchases, but you can do better!  Since the card gives 6% cash back for grocery purchases, you can go to your local grocery store to buy gas gift cards and receive 6% cash back!  Even better, if you shop for gas cards at either Giant Eagle or Kroger grocery stores, you can earn additional gas discounts through their rewards programs!

Chase Freedom:

In the first quarter of 2012, gas stations and Amazon.com are the 5X bonus categories for the Chase Freedom card.  As long as you register for the promotion, until the end of March gas station purchases will be rewarded with 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, up to $1500 for the quarter.  After the first quarter, not all is lost.  Take a look at the Freedom’s bonus category chart:

• Q1 (January – March): Gas stations and Amazon.com
• Q2 (April – June): Groceries and movie theaters
• Q3 (July – September): Gas stations and restaurants
• Q4 (October – December): Hotels, airlines, Best Buy and Kohl’s

Q1 is already covered.  In Q2, note that groceries are on the list.  Many grocery stores carry gas station gift cards.  So, from April to June, rather than using your Freedom card at the gas station, go to your grocery store to buy gas gift cards.  In Q3, gas stations return to the bonus category list so you can go back to using the Freedom card directly at gas stations.  In Q4 you may be out of luck unless you can find gas gift cards at Best Buy or Kohl’s.

Chase Ink:

The Chase Ink Bold, Ink Classic, and Ink Cash cards offer 5 points per dollar for purchases at office supply stores.  So, using your Ink card, visit an office supply superstore such as Office Depot and load up on gas gift cards.  Note that I’ve seen gas gift cards at Office Depot, but not at OfficeMax.  I haven’t looked yet at Staples. 

American Express Business cards

Most American Express business cards give you American Express OPEN Savings.  This means that, for purchases at certain merchants, you get money credited back to your account.  One example is OfficeMax in which you receive 5% back for purchases of $100 or more.  If you can find gas gift cards at your local OfficeMax then you can save 5% on all gas purchases!  Note, though, that my local OfficeMax does not appear to carry gas gift cards so this may not be possible unless the OfficeMax near you carries them.

Other Cards

If you hold a credit card that offers bonus points in certain categories such as groceries, drug stores, office supplies, etc., then check to see if your local stores carry gas gift cards.  Find a store that qualifies and use your card to load up!

Icing on the Cake

Many gas stations charge more for credit card purchases than for cash.  With gas gift cards, though, you will be charged the cash price! 

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

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

A reader contacted me yesterday asking about the best way to meet minimum spend on her American Express business card.  She has $1000 left to spend and wants to buy Walmart gift cards.  Of course she could simply go to Walmart to buy them, but she’d like to save money and/or earn points too.  So, what is the best option?  Here’s the best approach I can think of:

Step 1: Look for discounted Walmart cards

Go to GiftCardGranny.com and search for Walmart.  You may want to uncheck the box on the left that shows Ebay Auctions since these are not final prices.  As of the time of this writing, there are many cards available for anywhere from 2% to 5% off their face value.

Step 2: See if any of the discount cards qualify for additional cash back

Before buying the cards found in step 1, check to see if you can earn cash back by going through a cash back shopping portal:

• Through ShopAtHome, the following offers are available:
  • CardPool.com offers .8% cash back
  • GiftCertificates.com offers 3% cash back
  • GiftCards.com offers 3.5% cash back
• Through FatWallet, you can get 1% cash back for purchases made at PlasticJungle
• Through eBay, you always get 2% back in the form of eBay bucks.

Step 3 (optional): Buy bank gift cards in order to buy the Walmart cards

Through the American Express OPEN Savings program, purchases of more than $100 at OfficeMax result in a 5% rebate!  So, you can go to OfficeMax and buy $200 Visa gift cards.  Once you account for the $6.95 fee per card, you end up with a savings of 1.7%.  You can now use these Visa gift cards to buy the discounted Walmart cards you found in steps 1 and 2.

NOTE: Only do this step if the gift cards you intend to buy are each $200 or less!  If they cost more, it probably won’t be possible to use the Visa cards to purchase the Walmart cards.  Another option is to go through Big Crumbs in order to buy an American Express gift card in a larger denomination.  Through Big Crumbs you will get 1.4% back, but you will have to pay Amex a service fee and shipping.  Truthfully, unless you buy a very large denomination card from Amex (in order to minimize the % loss due to shipping and fees), this option is probably not worth the effort.

Add it up

Through the 3 steps above, it may be possible to save as much as 5% in step 1, 3.5% in step 2, and 1.7% in step 3 for a total savings of 10.2%! This would amount to about $100 in savings!

Other options

In this post I detailed how to go about getting Walmart gift cards with as big of a discount as possible.  There are, however, many other ways to meet the minimum spend on your credit cards.  For some examples, please see “Top ten ways to spend a lot of money and get most of it back.”

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!

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!

A common method people have used to meet minimum credit card spend to qualify for signup bonuses is to buy American Express gift cards via Big Crumbs in order to put big charges on their cards and get 1.6% cash back in the process.  Unfortunately, the cash back rate has now dropped to 1.4%.

Fortunately, there are a few other good options if you are working on meeting minimum spend for the Chase Ink Bold or any American Express business card with OPEN Savings:

Ink Bold

Option 1: Buy Visa gift cards at Staples via Ultimate Rewards Mall

As I reported yesterday in the post “Inking Money” you can buy $100 Visa gift cards (with a $5.95 service fee) at Staples via the Ultimate Rewards Mall in order to get a total of 9 points per dollar.  The extra points earned when doing this (above the 1 point normally earned for credit card spend) are worth $11.18 according to the Fair Trading Price of Ultimate Rewards points.  After subtracting out the $5.95 service fee, you gain $5.23 (in the form of points).  In other words, this is like a 5.23% rebate!

Option 2: Buy Visa gift cards in person

Another option with the Ink Bold is to buy $200 Visa gift cards with a $6.95 service fee at any office superstore such as Staples, OfficeMax, or Office Depot.  Since the Ink Bold gives 5 points per dollar for office supplies, this approach returns 1035 points, or 935 more than would be earned for non-bonus purchases.  The Fair Trading Price of those 935 points is $12.24.  After subtracting out the $6.95 service fee, you gain $5.29 (in points).  This amounts to a 2.6% rebate.

American Express with OPEN Savings

As I reported in the post “Turn your Amex into Visa and Save $,” American Express OPEN savings give 5% back for purchases of $100 or more at OfficeMax.  So, it is possible to buy $200 Visa cards at OfficeMax with a $6.95 fee and you will get $10.35 back.  In other words, this is like a 1.7% rebate.

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!