happy9zz

and what about if they want to see your card?

Delta2010

I don't know what all ppl are really buying from these stores (besides legitimate office supplies) to get their spending up. I assume most ppl are buying $200 Visa GC but there is 6.95 fee. I guess earned 1000 UR points offset the fee but it will be better if something else offsets the fee (e.g. recent OM deal or Krogers gas discounts) and UR shall be gravy.

In any case, I have a question - So far, my most spending on Staples is purchasing amazon.com GC. We shop at amazon.com frequently and these GCs come handy. I noticed Staples.com has 3X UR if purchased through UR mall however the website doesnot have amazon GCs. I guess they are only available in-store. I am wondering if I purchase staples GCs through UR mall and then use those GC in store to purchase amazon GC, will I earn 8X points? (5X for office supply purchase and 3X for going through UR mall)

Thanks!

rrgg

I guess the question is whether Staples.com appears under the office supply category on your statement. I haven't tried it with Chase, but I can say that Amex categorized them differently. Staples.com is "Merchandise & Supplies - Internet Purchase" but Staples stores is "Business Services - Office Supplies."

spendlesslivebetter

@Delta,

I did exactly what you are describing. Bought Staples gift cards to use at Staples B&M to buy other gift cards (Shell, Amazon, iTunes). Shell and Amazon are not available online, and iTunes has a $1.99 delivery charge online. No points have posted to my account yet, so I don't know if it worked. But I'll report back when the points post.

I also bought some Home Depot gift cards at Staples.com through the UR mall for 8x points, then used the UR mall portal to use the gift card at homedepot.com for 4x points. I know the UR mall terms of service specifically say that the offer is not valid with gift card purchases, but I just thought I'd try and see what happens. Will let you know.

peoriaimpaler

Anyone try to use Home Depot cards bought through Staples for large renovation purchases? I'm redoing my kitchen, and will need to charge $7000 at once. That's a lot of miles, but since I can only find $100 or $200 gift cards at Staples online or in-store, it's an awful lot of cards, and I don't think they'd want to deal with it. Advice? Thanks

tys90

That shouldn't be a problem, Home Depot may have to do something creative (split the transactions, manual override, etc) to accommodate the use of 10+ $500 Home Improvement cards but it should work. I know there's been discussion on it in the past but I can't find what I'm thinking of.

KennyBSAT

Then I show them one of the cards. I have been turned down once.

jeanie

I just finished a medium sized home improvement project with Home Depot. If you buy the materials online, it is not a problem. You can enter in as many gift cards as you want into the online portal. I have also used multiple gift cards on a purchase in their self serve line at a store with no problem.

However, homedepot.com is very disorganized. In essence, there was a computer conflict because part of the order shipped and it was entered wrong by someone. Took the better part of a month to reconcile it all. If something goes wrong, homedepot.com is slower than Christmas to solve it.

The good news is that I was given a coupon for 10% off a future homedepot.com order for my problems. So I waited until I had some expensive items to order before redeeming it.

I wouldn't worry about the $200 gift cards. Home Depot will take money however you want to give it to them.

jeanie

Just had an interesting experience at Staples.com. Just got a new Bold, and wanted to take advantage of the 5x points and 3x additional points from UR mall. So I purchased $150 in e-gift cards.

During checkout the estimated sales tax was $0. But when I got the confirmation e-mail, the charge was $162.38. They had tacked on $12.38 in sales tax. I have Chase send me an e-mail alert for all online transactions, and it said $162.38 as well. I created a pdf of the screen shot of staples.com showing an estimated sales tax of $0 for reference.

So I spent 20 minutes on the phone with a rep at Staples.com. The rep put me on hold for a while, and then said that they would credit the sales tax. He said if it doesn't change before the permanent charge has cleared to call them back after it has posted and they would credit it.

Anyone else have this problem with Staples? This is my first time buying a gift card at Staples.com.

Thanks.

mojo2121

I thought that you don't get additional bonus points buying gift cards through the UR portal?

jeanie

Refer to post #19 of this thread.

Delta2010

Any update on this?

DZykan

I purchase Southwest and Marriott gift cards regularly from Staples.com for business travel and have not had a problem receiving both the 3x UR mall points and the 5x office supply points. I've seen a lot of people mentioning that one of the key flags for Chase is when there are many purchases right at $506.95 or a similar amount ($500 gift card plus the fee), so whenever I buy my gift cards I always buy a small random item to go along with my order, for example a pack of paper, pens, etc. I also buy different amounts each time, for example on my last order I purchased $650 in Southwest gift cards so that I'd have a purchase that wasn't right around an even hundred dollar mark, plus a $5 and change allen wrench set that I actually needed

Anyone have insight into whether this is a worthy strategy or if I just haven't been flagged yet? I put about $1k-$2k of gift cards on my Ink Plus card each month, but also about $1k or more of other spend...thoughts?

mia

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

I am not aware of any evidence that Chase, or any other issuer, is concerned about purchases of merchant giftcards, such as Amazon, Marriott or Southwest. The issue arises when we buy American Express, MasterCard or VISA giftcards. Those are the cards which may be treated as cash equivalents.

Mtek

I'm at the tail end of a large remodeling project. I've been purchasing 100 - 600 lowes and Home Depot cards a week. It's a good way to rack up miles, never had an issue, hell 90% of the checkout is done in the self checkout line and you can use as many cards as you want with no questions asked or eyebrows raised