If you have a Chase Ink card, this is going to be a productive weekend for you. Staples has been running a $0 fee sale on Visa gift cards all week long. The sale ends Saturday, May 11. Staples sells Visa gift cards in $100 and $200 increments in-store.
Online, they sell them in $300 increments, though these do not qualify for the current promotion. The $200 Visa gift cards carry a $6.95 fee normally, so the waived fee is a huge deal. The only fees you’ll be paying to earn miles are money order fees that will cost less than $1 per $1,000.
What if I don’t have an Ink Card?
Chase Ink cardholders will get the most out of this promotion since the card earns 5x points at Staples. What’s better than 5x Ultimate Rewards points? 5x Ultimate Rewards at zero cost.
However, you don’t have to be a Chase Ink cardholder to take advantage of this promotion. Since the fees are completely waived, you can use any rewards credit cards.
Which cards other than the Chase Ink card should I use during this promotion?
Since you’re essentially earning free miles, you should use whichever credit card earns you the miles you need. If you’re currently in Year 1 with the Discover It Miles card, then I would go to town on this promotion. Basically, every $1,000 purchase generates $30 in profit.
If that doesn’t sound very exciting to you, then focus on earning flexible rewards points. You can’t go wrong with Chase Ultimate Rewards (knock on wood), Amex Membership Rewards, and Citi ThankYou points.
Alaska miles are also very valuable and easily redeemable for travel (both international and domestic). Be sure to read up on my pick for the best credit cards for manufactured spending and best credit cards for non-bonus category purchases.
Earn Extra Cash Back With Dosh
The Dosh app allows users to earn cash back when they shop online or in-store at participating merchants. Dosh offers 3% cash back at Staples, though the fine print specifically excludes gift card purchases. According to Doctor of Credit, the gift card exclusion from Dosh is not enforced.
My $5 cash back from today’s purchase currently shows as pending in my Dosh account. I have no idea if it’s going to post or not, but you might as well try it. If you’re new to Dosh, you can earn $5 by using my referral link and linking a card.
Is this Promotion Worth It?
Free manufactured spending is becoming less common now, with merchants like Simon Mall cutting back on their $0 fee gift card sales. So when something like this comes along, it’s always good to stock up as much as you reasonably can.
There are two Staples stores within 15 miles of where I live and one of them only takes cash or debit for Visa gift card purchases. The other limits purchases to $1,000 per customer.
My workaround will be to hop around different stores to stock up. The timing is perfect because now I won’t have another embarrassingly low number in my weekly manufactured spending report. 😉
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Best ways to liquidate besides money orders?
GoBank card loads. The post is coming, I promise!
Pls be careful with GoBank. I have been shut down in the past and they will not let me open a new account.
Yes, please post on this. WM ban on GCs > MOs appears to be regional, but it happened in my region (Northern Virginia and Maryland around DC)!! I need other options.
NEVER let them see the VGC’s. Tell them you’re using a debit card. NEVER say gift card. I always change the pin so I don’t have to look at the card. Just swipe it, put in the pin and go on to the next one.
Of course, any clerk can see that you are swiping and not inserting a chip, which means you’re likely using a gift card. Nearly all bank debit cards have chips now.
Done!
Not sure I would recommend doing this with Amex. Sounds like they’re tightening up on GC purchases.
Are there data points for this? If yes, can you please point me to those links? I use AMEX (5% blue cash, old version) for my MS on a very regular basis and will have to pull back if this is the case.
Shut-downs are always a risk. I’ve heard of Amex shutting down for excessive MS, using MS to meeting spending requirements, etc.
I did well the last time Staples had this promotion, got about 45k UR (via CIP) and at just the the one Staples in my area. So when I heard about this promotion (Visa specifically), I got my strategy on and was shooting for 100k UR (no one else around here does MS so I can take my time thru the week). Went in Sunday and got $2k worth of cards in the morning, went great. Back later that day, same thing. Back again the next day, another $2k no problem, lovin’ it. Back on Tuesday and the same clerk that helped me day 1 tells me he can’t do it. Limit of $500 a day now. He says corporate saw the $2k transaction go through and called to talk to him specifically. Guess some crooks had gone up and down the west coast of OR buying gift cards with laser printed counterfeit money, and even took my Staples for some of it.
Anyway, bummer. So I’ll have to settle for about 50k UR this time and figure something out for next time. Sucks when other people mess things up for the good ones.
Thanks for the great blog – it’s becoming one of my regular/daily reads :).
Thanks, Ariana!
Jimm, how do you plan to liquidate the Visa cards? How did you do it last time?
I did this a while back but wasn’t able to liquidate in money orders.
Thanks.
Hi Andrew, the same way I know that others are doing it – MO at WM, little by little until they’re all done. I keep my MO transactions under $1k so I don’t have to give up my DL number to the MoneyGram database. Not sure if that’s really necessary. I am interested in hearing more from Ariana about GoBank. Could reduce the number of WM visits?
Thanks, Jimm. Let’s see how it goes.
I’m jealous! My local store was sold out yesterday so hopefully they’ve restocked today (not holding my breath).
I’m eager to read about gobank but did read a ton of reviews stated their accts we’re closed for various reasons with no way of gaining access to their accts.
I’ve heard that but I’ve also heard from people who got shut down but got a chance to withdraw their funds. This risk exists with all forms of MS. That’s why I don’t recommend it if you can’t go without your funds for an extended period of time.
I plan to hit a few Staples today and see how many cards I can get. I tried about a month ago and went to 3 Staples, only able to get ONE card at each store. Hard to maximize.
My store allowed five but they sold out yesterday. I’m gonna make a few stops at other stores on my way home from work today.
Has anyone else been banned by Moneygram when buying MOs at WMT? DC Walmart is no longer an option for me.
I stopped using Moneygram at WMT for 2 reasons. They won’t deposit with my bank’s mobile app so I have to go make a physical deposit at a branch and most grocery chains where I live are cheaper than WMT – 79¢! The Western Union MO’s they sell deposit easily with my bank’s mobile app and there doesn’t seem to be a limit on how many swipes they allow, unlike WMT.
For you specifically? Or a store-wide policy? How many were you buying?
In Los Angeles, I was able to buy 10 X $200 Visa Gift cards at one Staples and 5 more at another Staples with my Chase Ink Business Card . The manager at the second Staples showed me the ad language that states only one waived gift card fee per customer, but he would wave that for me and let me buy 5 X $200 Visa Gift cards. I may be back to the first Stapes tomorrow and get 10 more $200.
That’s awesome!
Went to my local Staples (the only one within 70 miles of where I live) this morning and picked up 5. My wife went back later to see how many she could get and there were no $200 ones on the racks despite them being full just a couple of hours later. Cashier said management pulled all the $200 ones for some reason and would not tell the cashiers why they were pulled. Weird…..
Meant to say a couple of hours earlier not later…..
My weekly total came to $5,800. Not quite as much as I had wanted, thanks to one particular manager! Still, at 5X UR points with my Chase Ink Cash I’ll take it.
That’s pretty impressive! I wish I’d gotten half that close.