What If It Was Free To Buy Visa/MC Gift Cards At Staples?
A couple of quick updates on my post about the possible restriction of Visa and MasterCard branded gift card sales at Staples:
Some Different Math on Gift Cards:
I’m not a fan of buying Visa and MasterCard gift cards from office supply stores. I used to be before the fees went up.
But, Shawn from Miles to Memories decided to lay out the math for a way to buy gift cards “for free”.
How does he do it? This only works with a card that earns flexible currency like Chase Ultimate Rewards. He suggests using some of the Ultimate Rewards points as a statement credit to offset the fee charged to buy the gift cards.
It’s a novel idea, and for folks who don’t have a lot of options to generate points it’s worth considering if you have free time. I’m currently in a situation where I would buy a 25th hour in every day if someone would let me, but the idea has merit.
General Update On Visa/MC Gift Card Purchases At Staples:
Pretty much everyone who commented on my earlier post stated they had no issues buying Visa/MC gift cards at Staples recently.
I was able to buy both Visa and M/C gift cards yesterday at my local Staples. I did ask one of the managers and they noted while there has been discussions about further limiting the amount of cards someone can purchase in one visit ($2,000 and above usually triggers additional paperwork), there has been no official communication from corporate.
This is oddly reminiscent of how Vanilla Reloads died at CVS.
Yeah I saw Miles to Memories’ post and that intrigued me too (though I doubt I’ll ever do it). One other thought I had is that you could probably get a bit better return buying $500 cards for $5.95 at grocery stores with something like the American Express Every Day Preferred card which gives 3x (possibly up to 4.5x) at grocery stores
PWC, I’d still value 5X Ultimate Rewards points higher at an office supply store.