It seems that Office Max has these deals periodically, where they are essentially giving away free money, with discounts on prepaid Visa cards. Last time it was $20 off of $300 in prepaid Mastercards, and this time it’s $15 off $250. Hat tip to Maximizing Money – the deal starts next week.
You can see it on page 1 of their sneak peek weekly ad, good for 3/2 – 3/8.
Assuming that this is similar to how it worked last time, here is what I did. Purchase $500 in Visa gift cards. Last time you were able to combine the “Limit 2 offers per customer” into 1 actual purchase, and if that still holds true, then you’ll likely need 3 cards, because I believe the highest denomination that Office Max sells is $200.
We’ll have to check the fine print on the fees, but if it’s the same fee no matter what kind of card you get, then since you have to get 3 cards, you might as well get 3 $200 cards. The fees on that were (if I remember correctly) $6.95 / card so the math would work out as:
3 – $200 Visa cards
3 – $6.95 fees ($20.85 total)
MINUS $30 (2 $15 offers)
Your total purchase should be $590.85 ($10 more than last time). Like I said, check the fees on the lower amount gift cards – if your fees are less on a $100 card, then it may make sense to buy 2-$200 and 1-$100 card to get to $500 exactly (but I doubt it will be worth it)
Best would be to get a Chase Ink business card, since those give 5x at OfficeMax and all office supply cards. So your $590.85 purchase would net you just shy of 3000 Chase Ultimate Reward points. Do that twice, and you have enough points for a roundtrip ticket to New York on British Airways (among other things).
Planning on taking advantage of this next week? I only wish there were more conveniently placed Office Max stores around here….
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I have never purchased gift cards from office Max …can they be loaded onto Bluebird? I have gotten burned in the past buying gift/debit cards that would not load onto Bluebird.
When I did it last month (with the prepaid Mastercards) I loaded half of them to Bluebird and used half of them to buy a money order (at Kroger). You do need to call the number on the back of the card to set up a PIN, which can be any 4 digit number that you want.
Ah, I missed that. So you are telling me this is basically free/small profit on refilling BB?
Right. You’ll end up with a small profit on this deal, though probably not enough in and of itself to justify the time / gas to do the deal. The real bonus is if you have the Chase Ink which gets 5x at office supply stores – that means each time you’re able to do the deal you get 3000 Chase Ultimate Rewards.
Hmmmmm…I may try this. I just hate getting stuck with giftcards. I usually get mine through giftcardmall.com through ebates which gives me 1% cash back. It’s frustrating to wait a week for them to arrive in the mail but I Know they work.
Yeah – you need to liquidate the cards quickly. Bluebird is a good way and another one is money orders at Walmart or Kroger (for 70 ish cents each)