On May 9th, in the post “Experiment in progress: Sony 30X,” I described how I used a combination of techniques to attempt to earn 30 points per dollar from a Sony.com purchase.  I had hoped to report success by now, but I can’t.  Not a single bonus point has shown up in my account in the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  However, the experiment is not completely dead…

Background

As a reminder, the experiment went like this:

• I started with a Visa gift card that was bought at Staples.com.  Currently, the Ultimate Rewards Mall offers 5X bonus points at Staples, and the Ink Bold offers 5X for office supply purchases.  So, by buying Visa gift cards at Stapes through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and paying with an Ink Bold, one can earn 10 points per dollar.  This part of the experiment is pretty safe: it has been proven before.  I didn’t even really test this part – I just used a Visa I had lying around from a previous experiment.
• I logged into the Ultimate Rewards Mall with my Ink Bold account and clicked through to Sony.  For Ink Bold owners, Sony is currently at 10X AND is listed under “gift cards”.  So I bought myself an e-gift card using my Visa gift card to pay.  If things worked, I would have earned 10X for this part of the experiment.
• Once I received the gift card, I went back through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Sony, and bought an iPhone dock using the gift card to pay.  The total purchase amount was $1.49 more than the gift card value so I used my Ink Bold to pay the remainder.  Ideally I would have earned another 10X for this final part of the experiment.

Results

Every day I’ve checked “Ultimate Rewards Mall & Travel Earnings” to see if any points have posted.  So far, not a single point has posted.  Is it time to declare the experiment dead?  Yes, and no…

What went wrong?

Buying the gift card: I was worried when I bought the e-gift card because I was routed to a different URL for the purchase.  It’s very likely that the failure to get points from this purchase was due to the fact that the purchase was made at cashstar.com instead of sony.com. 

Using the gift card: The Terms and Conditions for Sony in the Ultimate Rewards Mall do not say anything about gift cards so it should be OK.  However, it’s possible that the written terms & conditions are not complete.  So, it may be the case that I didn’t get points because purchases made with gift cards are not eligible for points.  That doesn’t make sense, though, because I did pay $1.49 with the Ink Bold.  Worst case is that I should have received points for 10X of $1.49, but I didn’t even get that.

Terms & Conditions:  I think this is the real reason I didn’t get points for the purchase.  The Terms & Conditions state:

Not eligible on Sony outlet, refurbished, clearance items, and Sony Ericsson locked phones, or Employee Purchase Programs.

Remember that iPod dock I bought?  It was on clearance.  The T&C clearly state that my purchase was not eligible.  In other words, I messed up big time!

Only mostly dead

The Sony experiment was a failure, but it didn’t prove anything other than my ability to make mistakes.  It’s still possible and even likely that the experiment would work under the following circumstances:

1. Buy physical gift cards which are sold by sony.com.  Don’t buy e-gift cards which are sold by cashstar.com.
2. Using physical gift cards, buy items that meet the T&C.  Don’t buy Sony outlet items.  Don’t buy refurbished items.  Don’t buy clearance items.  Don’t buy Sony Ericsson locked phones (that’s a weird one).  And, don’t use employee purchase programs.

I will redo this experiment, but unfortunately it will be too late to make a big impact.  The 10X promotion is scheduled to end at the end of this month so it’s unlikely I’ll have results in time for anyone to capitalize on them.

If anyone else has been experimenting with a Sony double dip, please let me know how you faired fared!

Related posts

• Experiment in progress: Sony 30X
• Ultimate Rewards Mall Awesomeness!
• Frequent Miler Laboratory
• Ultimate Question
• Ultimate Rewards, Ultimate Confusion: Shopping
• What’s my X?

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Earlier in the year, Staples advertised a new Free After Rebate (FAR) deal almost every single week.  Since Staples Easy Rebates are true to their name (i.e. they really are “easy”), it was possible to use these deals to easily increase credit card spend by about $1000 per month (to meet minimum spend requirements for sign-up bonuses) and to earn many thousands of free frequent flyer miles by shopping through an online portal such as the Ultimate Rewards Mall. 

Every Friday, Staples publishes a preview of their weekly ad that takes effect that coming Sunday.  So, every Friday morning I anxiously open their preview with the hope of finding a new FAR deal worth reporting.  Unfortunately, Staples hasn’t offered a big FAR deal since the last one ended on April 14th.  We’ve suffered over a month now without our FAR fix. Come on Staples, we need more!

Will tomorrow’s preview finally bring FAR deals back?  Or, will it be yet another FAR-less Friday?

Note: some FAR deals aren’t reported in the weekly ads so we learn about them when they go live on Sunday.

As I reported recently, the Ultimate Rewards Mall is currently offering Ink Bold customers 10 points per dollar at Sony.com until the end of May.  That’s pretty good by itself, but I always like to see how far we can go.  Can we get 20X by buying gift cards for 10X, and then using them for another 10X? 

Examining the Ultimate Rewards Mall leads me to believe that the gift card double dip just might work.  First, notice that Sony is explicitly listed under gift card offers:

Second, notice that there are no explicit restrictions against gift card use:

The Experiment

Of course, I’m not content to settle for only 20X.  So, I started this experiment with a Visa gift card purchased at Staples.com.  Currently, for Ink Bold owners, the Ultimate Rewards Mall gives 5X for Staples.com purchases, and the Ink Bold itself gives another 5X for the office supply category.  So, you get 10 points per dollar when buying Visa gift cards this way at Staples!  There are fees, so the actual bonus is more like 6X overall (see “What’s my X?”), but round numbers like 10X are more fun to write about .

Using the Visa gift card, I logged into the Ultimate Rewards Mall and clicked through to Sony.com.  There I purchased a $25 e-gift card and sent it to myself via a secondary email address.

Once I received the e-gift card (about 20 minutes after purchase), I went back the the Ultimate Rewards Mall, clicked through to Sony again, and bought a $20 iPod dock.  My goal was to keep the entire purchase under $25 so that I could pay entirely with the gift card, but shipping and taxes pushed the total slightly over.  I paid $25 with the gift card and a little over a dollar with my Ink Bold.  In retrospect, I see that I was an idiot because if I had added $5 to my order the $5 shipping would have been free.  Oh well.  They probably don’t sell anything for $5 anyway…

Wait and see

When buying the e-gift card I was routed to a different URL so I’m a little worried about that one.  I’m not sure at all I’ll get points.  I thought about switching to a physical card, but the 10X deal only lasts through May so time is of the essence!

I’m also disappointed that I didn’t pay entirely with a gift card.  If I get points for the iPod dock purchase, I won’t know for certain that points will always be awarded.  Sometimes when paying with a gift card through a shopping portal, you get points only if at least a part of your order is paid by credit card.

It usually takes 4 or 5 days for the Ultimate Rewards Mall to show credit for purchases (via the “Ultimate Rewards Mall & Travel Earnings” menu selection).  I should be able to report back with results next week.

How good would it be?

If all parts of this experiment succeed, let’s look at the bounty:

• Purchase $100 Visa cards through Staples:
• Points earned 10X.  Subtract cost of cards and real benefit = 6X.
• Purchase Sony gift card through Ultimate Rewards Mall:
• Points earned 10X
• Purchase Sony merchandise through Ultimate Rewards Mall:
• Points earned 10X
• Total estimated “rebate”:
• Points earned: 26X
• Value of extra points using Fair Trading Prices = 26X * 1.31 = 34% rebate!

Enough with the Ink Bold already!

People have asked me to find deals and bonuses for other cards.  Not everyone has a Chase Ink card and not everyone can get one.  But the Ink seems to have endless opportunities!  I can’t help myself! 

I will do my best to dig up deals for other cards.  One great one this week requires American Express business cards: see “Up to 14.5% off Amazon and Barnes & Noble.”

Related posts

• Ultimate Rewards Mall Awesomeness!
• Ultimate Question
• Ultimate Rewards, Ultimate Confusion: Shopping
• What’s my X?

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Wow, great stuff is happening for Chase Ink fans!  Yesterday I showed how to earn 5X on all purchases without the hassle of gift cards.  I also reported that Staples has increased their Ultimate Rewards Mall bonus for Staples to 5X when you log in with your Ink card.  What does it all mean?

First, if you plan to buy any gift cards, check staples.com to see if they have what you need.  By going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and using your Ink card you will earn 5X from the mall and 5X from your card’s office supply category bonus to earn a true total of 10X!  Yes, this means you can get 10X for Starbucks, Marriott, and Southwest to name just a few!

If, instead, your goal is to get Visa or Amex gift cards (or prepaid cards), there are some fantastic options if you use your Ink card:

• Option 1: Go through UR Mall to Staples.com and buy $100 Visa for $105.95
• Option 2: Go through TopCashBack to Staples.com and buy $100 Visa for $105.95 (you will get 5.5% back)
• Option 3: Go in person to an office supply store (OfficeMax, for example) to buy a $200 Visa gift card for $206.95. 
• Option 4: Go in person to Office Depot to buy a $500 Visa prepaid debit card (non refillable) for $504.95.
• Option 5: Go in person to Office Depot to buy $500 reload packs for reloading Amex Prepaid cards.  The cost for each is $503.95.

The first option sort of gives you 10X points, but with a hefty 6% fee.  The second option comes very close to true 5X thanks to the cash back.  The third option starts at 5X, but with 3.5% in fees.  The fourth and fifth options have much lower fees as a percentage of the face value.

But, what are the exact numbers?  Which option is best?  The answer depends a bit on how much you value Ultimate Rewards points.  The table below computes the true “X” for each option depending on whether you value points at 1 cent each, 1.31 cents (the Fair Trading Price amount), or 2 cents each.  The idea is that some of the points earned are used to reimburse you for the card fee.  The points remaining make up the true “X”:

As you can see in the table above, buying through the Ultimate Rewards Mall is almost always the best “X” unless you assign low value to points, in which case TopCashBack is the winner.  Of course, with both of these options the largest denominations available are $100, which can be a hassle to spend.

To get larger denomination cards, the best option is to go in-store and you’ll get over 4X when loading $500 at a time, regardless of the approach you take.  For convenience, I much prefer the reloadable American Express card option (for more on that card, see “One card to rule them all”).  However, sometimes you do need a Visa or Mastercard so luckily that option works well too!  For more about that option, see “Almost too good to be true.”

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NOTE: Please do not miss reading my previous post, “One card to rule them all.”

Wow, thanks to HikerT for updating his website (lakebagger.com/ur/) that shows the Ultimate Rewards Mall payouts for different Chase cards, I’ve got some exciting news…

Ink Bold

If you log in with your Ink Bold account, you’ll find the following:

• Staples.com now at 5X!  Oh yeah, I’ll be writing a lot more about that soon!  Sorry Sapphire and Freedom, you’re still at 2X.
• Sony at 10X!  Time to run some Frequent Miler Laboratory experiments!
• Overstock.com at 10X
• Lenovo: 5X
• LuggagePoint.com: 5X (I’ve never heard of it either)

Freedom

If you log in with your Freedom card, you’ll find the following:

• Sephora at 20X!  Holy cow, that’s a big number.  Someone with a Freedom card, please do a double dip experiment right away!!!
• QVC at 10X!

Sapphire Preferred

If you log in with your Sapphire or Sapphire Preferred, you’ll find the following:

• J. Crew at 10X!  I seem to remember a tip from a family oriented blogger saying that double dipping works here!
• Ann Taylor at 5X

Happy online shopping everyone!  Enjoy the new bonus points while they last!

First, let me tell you what this post is not about.  It is not about the successful experiment lab assistant Jeff conducted recently.  He bought a $100 Visa gift card at Staples.com (for $105.95) after going through uPromise for 5% cash back.  The exciting news is that the experiment appears to have worked.  5% of his cost, $5.30, has posted as pending to his account!  This means that if you buy Visa gift cards this way, you will get most of the $5.95 transaction fee back ($5.30 via uPromise) and still get 5X points if you make your purchase with a Chase Ink card.

This post is also not about how to increase the uPromise cash back to 5.5% by setting up and linking a savings account.  According to the uPromise web site, you can get a 10% annual bonus on all of your earned cash back, so 5% back becomes 5.5%.  This is really extraordinary because 5.5% cash back from a Visa gift card purchase of $105.95 comes to $5.83.  In other words, you would get back all but 12 cents of the card’s $5.95 fee and still get 5X points by making your purchase with a Chase Ink card!

What this post is really about

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, TopCashBack has just raised their Staples cash back rate to 5.5% and now explicitly includes gift cards!

While this is the same rate that is possible with uPromise, this is much easier.  I purchased a Visa card earlier today, so I should learn soon whether the TopCashBack approach has worked.

Either way, 5X

Whether you prefer to earn 5.5% cash back from TopCashBack or from uPromise, this is an extraordinary development.  It literally means that all purchases made with these $100 Visa cards earn the equivalent of 5X Ultimate Rewards points (less a small rounding error of 12 cents)!  Imagine if you were to buy and spend 16 of these cards each month…  You would end up with 96,000 over 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points! (Here’s the math: $106 X 5 points per dollar = 530 points.  530 X 16 cards X 12 months = 101,760)

Note that the TopCashBack rate can be pulled at any time.  If you notice the rate drop below 5% or so, you might want to consider the uPromise route instead.

Spending and cashing out

While 5X everywhere is exciting, carrying a wallet full of gift cards is not.  In future posts, I’ll discuss ways to simplify using gift cards, and legal ways to cash them out.

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Staples has taken a break from giving us free points:  no Free After Rebate items this week.  Bummer!  However there are a few bits of Staples news and conjecture worth sharing:

• uPromise:
• The Frequent Miler Laboratory team (which is basically me and a reader who goes by the title “lab assistant”) has taken on the task of testing whether one can buy Visa gift cards at Staples.com after going through the Upromise portal for 5% cash back.  If this works, then the combination of uPromise and a Chase Ink card will be an awesome way to buy gift cards!  Look for an update soon.
• Did you know that you can get cash back from Upromise instead of saving the money for college?  Thanks to reader Mow for pointing that out!
• Also, Mow reports having 5% cash back pending from Staples purchases made through uPromise.  This could be a great alternative to the Ultimate Rewards Mall 2x for buying future Free After Rebate items!
• Southwest Rapid Rewards
• A reader tipped me off that the Southwest Airlines RapidRewards shopping portal has Staples at 4X until 4/22.  If you’re working towards a Southwest Companion Pass, this could be a great way to rack up some points:  Go through the portal to buy gift cards and use your Ink card to make the actual purchase.  That way you get 5X Ultimate Rewards and 4X Southwest miles!  NOTE: unfortunately there isn’t time to test whether gift cards will work here so buy at your own risk.

And, the most exciting news of all: thanks to all of the Staples purchases I’ve been making, I just became even more elite!  I am now a Premier member.  Feel free to ooh and aww:

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Just two days ago I was approved for the Ink Bold credit card.  I already have an old Ink Bold (which I refer to as an Ink Old), but I’ll get another signup bonus from the new one because the new one is a different product.  The new Ink Bold offers 5 points per dollar for office supplies, phone services, and cable bills and 2 points per dollar for gas and hotels.  The Ink Old, on the other hand, offered only 1 point per dollar base (with some options to increase the payout a little bit).

The current offer for the Ink Bold, if you signup via a referral link (see Preparing for Miles), is 50K points after $5K of spend in 3 months.  Unfortunately, it looks like this deal will go away soon (my guess is end of month) to be replaced with a $10K spend requirement.  See Gary’s View from the Wing post for more information.

The +27K bonus plan

I love that the Ink Bold offers 50K Ultimate Rewards points as a signup bonus.  To me, Ultimate Rewards points are among the most valuable points available, so 50K is awesome.  However, I’m greedy and will happily do what it takes to earn even more!  The trick is to spend the required $5K in ways that will earn as many points as possible.  Here’s my plan:

Office Depot via Ultimate Rewards Mall: $100 = 1,500 points

Currently, Office Depot is offering 10 points per dollar for purchases made via the Ultimate Rewards Mall if you sign in with your Ink card.  By going through the mall and making purchases that I need anyway, I’ll earn 10X from the mall and 5X from the Ink Bold’s office supply category bonus.

Staples Free After Rebate Downloads: $3000 = 21,000 points

Almost every week, a new deal is available in which you can buy “free after rebate” software from Staples.  By going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall you can earn 2X bonus points, plus you’ll get 5X from the Ink’s office supply category bonus.  Staples has been averaging about $1000 per month in available FAR deals so I hope to do $3000 worth in 3 months. 

Note that some people see Staples at 3X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall so they will earn even more points!

Office Depot $500 Visa cards: $2000 = 10,000 points

As I posted a couple of days ago, it is possible, in person, to buy $500 Visa gift cards at Office Depot with only a $4.95 service fee.  Purchases made at Office Depot count as office supply purchases, so these Visa cards will net 5X points!  I’ll buy at least two of these and use them for non category purchases such as groceries and department stores.

Add it up

The plan shown above will return over 32,000 points with only about $5,000 spend.  If all $5000 went instead to 1X purchases, you would gain only 5,000 points above the sign-up bonus, so this plan gives you an extra 27,000 points!  In reality, of course, you would probably have a mix of 1X, 2X, and 5X purchases without this plan, so 27K extra is a bit of an exaggeration, but it sounds better than saying “between 0 and 27K extra”…

Note that the amounts shown are approximations of what will be spent.  The Staples deals, in particular, will depend on what is available at the time.

Caution

As I wrote about a few days ago, Chase may cancel your accounts if they suspect you of abusing your card’s benefits.  That being said, unless you have a very low credit limit, I do not think that spending $5K in 3 months on office supplies will raise any eyebrows.  If you spend $10K per month all on office supplies, however, you may be at risk.  No one but Chase (I suppose) knows the magic amount that is safe, so use your own judgment here.

If you do not have a Chase Ink card, you can read more about those and other cards on the Preparing for Miles page which can be found as a menu item at the top of every page on the Frequent Miler blog.

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This deal is good until April 14.

This tip is thanks to a FlyerTalk reader who contacted me.  File this under “unbelievable, but true”.  The same exact product that has been available for “Free after Rebate” the past few weeks is available yet again with a new rebate number!  Since it has a new rebate number, you can order up to 10 more copies even if you did this last week and the week before.  If you’re unsure about whether this would really work, feel free to contact Staples and ask.  This is not one of those deals that will go away if Staples discovers it.

I’ve been using these deals to help work off my $10K of required spend for a 100K Amex bonus offer I was targeted for.  I don’t get as many points as I would with the new Ink Bold, but I still have the Ink Old which doesn’t have office supplies as a bonus category.  That’s OK, any way to increase credit card spend for free is great.  Thanks Staples! 

Since this is in all ways the same as last week’s deal except for the rebate number and the valid purchase dates, I’ve simply copied and pasted last week’s post here:

Did you buy 10 copies of the Free after Rebate Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus last week? A reader tipped me off that the same deal is back this week, but with a new rebate number. This means that you can buy another 10 copies of the same software for free! I know, it sounds improbable, but I called Staples to check. The rep who answered confirmed immediately that as long as it was a new rebate number I could go ahead and order 10 more copies. I asked him if he was really, really sure and so he put me on hold while he talked with the rebate center. When he returned, he said that the rebate center had confirmed the same thing. He even gave me the rebate center rep name and number in case anything goes wrong.

The idea here is to go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples.com. Once there, buy 10 copies of this “Free After Rebate” downloadable software product for $35 each. You will get 2 points per dollar from the Ultimate Rewards Mall and another 5 points per dollar if you pay with your Chase Ink card, or another 1 point per dollar if you pay with a standard point earning credit card. This means that you will earn 2,450 Free Ultimate Rewards points with your Ink card or 1,050 points with another card. See Preparing for Miles for more info about the Ink and other cards.

Staples has an amazingly easy “Easy Rebate” system. Once you purchase the software, they send you a rebate link via email. You click the link, fill out a little bit of info and you’re done. Note that you will have to wait a while, though. It may take as much as 6 to 8 weeks to receive your check.

Here are the steps to follow:

Step 1: Go to Staples via the Ultimate Rewards Mall:

Step 2: Add up to ten copies of “Trend Micro Titanium Antivirus + 2012 (1-User)” to your cart:

TIP: Search for item 368658

Step 3: Check out

TIP 1: If you have a Chase Ink card that gives 5X for office supplies, use it!

TIP 2: Your state may charge sales tax. If you know someone in a state that doesn’t charge sales tax for downloadable internet orders (CA, NH, etc.), then set their address as the delivery address and no tax will be charged. This is a download only purchase anyway, so nothing will really be delivered. I picked “deliver to store” and picked a store in New Hampshire. Of course, there won’t really be anything to pick up.

Step 4: Submit Easy Rebates

You will receive an email from Staples with a link in it for submitting the rebate form. It’s easy!

TIP 1: Even though you bought 10 copies, you only have to fill out one rebate form. Note that it can take 6 to 8 weeks (or longer) to get your rebate.

TIP 2: The software rebate can be changed from a Visa gift card to a check! See screen shots (taken from a prior order):

Q&A:

Per Household Limit

• Q: How do you know that we can buy 10? I don’t see that restriction anywhere
  

• A: See “Can I really buy 10” for a walkthrough of how to find that information.
  

Per Household Limit, Question 2

• Q: Can I buy 10 copies for every friend I know?
  

• A: I don’t recommend it. I know at least one person who tried to buy two sets of 10 that way, but Staples did not approve the second set of rebates. I don’t know how they figured it out.
  

Status = Researching

• Q: The status of my order says “researching”. What’s up with that?
  

• A: Staples needs to verify your order. Sometimes this happens if you have the wrong email address or phone number on file. Simply give them a call or do an online chat with them to verify the information they need. Once that is done, they’ll confirm the order.
  

Promotional Items

• Q: The Staples’ Terms and Conditions in the Ultimate Rewards Mall says that promotional items are excluded. Aren’t these free after rebate items “promotional”?
  

• A: I’ve done this many times now, and my Ultimate Rewards points posted quickly each time. So, either these items are not considered promotional, or Staples doesn’t enforce that restriction.
  

Do I have to use a Chase credit card?

• Q: If I go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples, do I have to pay with a Chase credit card in order to get bonus points from the mall?

• A: No, you can use any credit card. For details and information about risks involved please see Ultimate Question.

Number of Rebate Forms

• Q: I bought 10 copies of the software. Does that mean I have to fill out the rebate form 10 times.
  

• A: Nope. If you buy multiple copies of a single item in one transaction, you only need to fill out the rebate form once. Really. I promise.
  

Rebate Time

• Q: How long will it take for my rebate to arrive?
  

• A: The Staples web site says to expect 4 to 6 weeks. My first rebates arrived after about 5 weeks so it looks like Staples’ estimate is fairly accurate.
  

Number of Checks

• Q: I bought 10 copies of the software. Will I receive 10 small checks or one big check?
  

• A: One big check.
  

Download

• Q: Do I have to download this software so that I can qualify for the rebate?
  

• A: No! I didn’t download any of the software I bought, but the first rebates processed successfully.

Do Good

• Q: I don’t need this software. Is there someone I can send the license keys to that could make good use of this stuff?
  

• A: Check with your local schools or libraries. If someone can make good use of this software, then great!

I’ve reported in the past that those with Chase Ink cards (the ones that give 5 points per dollar for office supplies) can profit from buying Visa gift cards at office supply stores. Recently I analyzed the difference between buying these gift cards online vs. in-store and I declared that online was better.  By shopping online through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Staples, it is possible to earn even more points than the 5X given automatically.  You can read the original post here: “The best way to Ink money”.  Recently, though, the Ultimate Rewards Mall dropped the Staples bonus rate from 4X to 2X (or 3X for some lucky people) so it’s time to re-evaluate.

With each of the options for buying Visa gift cards, the value of paying the gift card fee in order to get extra points depends upon how highly you value those points.  Some people like to conservatively value Ultimate Rewards points at only 1 cent each since you can withdraw points from Chase as cash at exactly that rate.  Others (like me) use the Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents each.  This is an estimate of how much it costs to buy Ultimate Rewards Points via credit card spend.  Still others prefer to look at the redemption value of Ultimate Rewards points.  Depending upon how the points are used, it is common to get at least 2 cents per point value from redemptions (using either an Ink Bold or Sapphire Preferred account – both of which have better redemption options than other Ultimate Rewards cards).

Analysis Table

The table shown here estimates the “X” for each option and each point value.  For example, If you have the Staples 3X option in the Ultimate Rewards Mall and you value points at 1.31 cents each, this table shows that buying $100 Visa gift cards online will give you the equivalent of 3.93X (points per dollar) for spend that you make with that Visa gift card.  In other words, while you start with 8 points per dollar in that scenario, just over 4 points per dollar are used to “pay you back” for the card’s $5.95 fee so you are left with 3.93X overall.

So, which approach is better?

In the table shown above, you can see that buying online is still the best bet in almost all cases.  The main exception is if you value points at only 1 cent and you only have the option of Staples’ 2X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  In that case, buying in store is better.

Still a great deal

The lowest multiple on the entire chart is 1.47X which is pretty good for ordinary purchases that would usually get you only 1X!  However, I think the 1.31 cent value is pretty conservative itself and with that value you get at least 2.5X regardless of which approach you use!

If you do not have a Chase Ink card, you can read more about those and other cards on the Preparing for Miles page which can be found as a menu item at the top of every page on the Frequent Miler blog.  Also, there is currently a public offer for 60,000 bonus points upon signup for the Ink Bold!  You can find details in this FlyerTalk thread. (60K deal has already been revoked).

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Staples has been giving us so much lately (see “Is Staples the perfect PPM?”) that it’s hard to believe they’ll give more.  However, it appears that they want to do just that.  Unless this is an elaborate April Fools joke, it looks like Staples is testing a new rewards program where they will give 5% back (in Staples Rewards) on all purchases.  Today, they only give rewards for certain purchases (ink and toner, for example) so most of the big Free After Rebate opportunities don’t qualify.  You can see their promo page for the new policy here.  Even though this page is publicly available, the extra rewards seem to be only given to people who were targeted.

Wouldn’t it be nice…

If Staples were to roll out this program nationally, think about what this would mean:  Staples has been averaging close to $1000 worth of FAR (Free After Rebate) software products each month.  5% Staples rewards would mean about $50 of free Staples’ stuff every month!  Or, you could use the Staples rewards from prior months to pay for part of each new month’s FAR deals.  When the check’s roll in, you would be making money on these deals!  Over the course of a year you could theoretically earn about $600!  It would be like Staples paying for a new iPad or laptop every year…

Please, Staples, please!

Please roll this out nationally!

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