Update: Alive again through 5/24/25 and now valid with a limit of 9 cards per customer per day!
Update: DEAD!
Staples is waiving the $6.95-$7.95 purchase fee on $200 Mastercard gift cards through 5/24. This is valid in-store only.
The weekly ad states that there is a limit of 9 per customer per day, though the fee waiver should apply on up to 10 cards per transaction if your store isn’t a stickler for limits.
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142 Comments On "Alive Again: Get Fee-Waived $200 Mastercard Gift Cards From Staples"
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Can a purchase of these Mastercard gift cards be used towards the bonus spend requirement for the new Chase United Quest Mileage Plus Visa credit card?
Yes
Able to use Amex gold when buying to reach SUB amount needed?
NO, probably not. AMEX has Level 3 data from Staples, which means they will know you bought a Visa/MC gift card, and the RAT team have been known to deny bonuses if the MSR was met using gift card purchases.
AMEX seems to have Level 3 data from more retailers than I had hoped.
If you use Samsung pay OR Apple pay,They won’t know.
Does Google pay work with this as well? Is this 100% verified?
I have a
Multiple times
I’m trying to meet a spend threshold and I have no use for gift cards if I used mastercard online at costco would they give me back a check if I return in-store
u can pay gas elec bill
My utility company doesn’t accept cc
https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/payments/?link_name=pay_your_bills
PayPal Bill Pay is a shadow of its former self. They purged lots of useful payees a while ago.
Comment was made in January 🙂
Costco only accepts Visa
Costco.com takes Mastercard
I order Costco shopcards from Costco.com with the prepaid mastercards. They take about a week to ship.
Can’t you just use these directly at Costco as a debit card with the PIN? I recall doing so in the past.
Can we buy money orders with these
Yes.
Where can you buy money orders with these?
You can use these cards to donate to the tzdaka of your choice before the end of the year and get the tax deduction as well as the 5x points.
What about capital one to meet sub
Can these gift cards be used to meet the threshold for spending on Chase Sapphire?
+1
Would gift cards work at staples or office depot for sub?
Dan, works with AmEx offer $25 off $200?
Are there still places that will allow the purchase of money orders with these, even in the NY/NJ area?
Does anybody have an idea of which convenience stores/gas stations will allow you to buy money orders with gift cards?
Acme
Acme doesn’t even do money orders. What’s your thought process?
To deposit the money order into your checkings account in order to repay the credit card
is there an activation fee for this cards?
Did you read the post? The fee is what is being waived.
Alive again.
Ends 5/28/22.
Limit 5 per customer per day.
getting harder and harder to liquidate them. cant find anyplace that still allows MO purchases.
A friend told me that you can transfer the balance to venmo and then to paypal, and then back to your bank account. Can anyone here confirm?
can these cards themselves pay the credit card bill that I buy it with and just gain from the cashback???
Question, I see on Chase that the freedom card is giving back 10% from Staples. What a purchase of these gift cards apply for the 10%?
Sure!
Great, but I think it’s a $10 maximum. Which means you could only Purchase a $100 card.
It’s for online only, I believe.
I believe this in effect today: (10/30 – 11/5)
Fee is waived.
This time limit of 8
Dan can you update this! It Is valid right now!!!
On the Ink card, is there anything stopping me from purchasing $50,000 worth of these cards over the course of the year to pay off tuition or is there a limit on the 5% back
$25K limit per year on each Ink Cash card
So if i have 1 in my name and open 1 in my wifes business name, we can get to the 50k max?
Sure, or you can have several in your own name.
You can have several of the same type of business card in the same name? And then get 90k bonus for each one of those if you hit the threshold?
“”You can use them to buy money orders at various grocery stores and gas stations.””
Where in Brooklyn?
These are not issued by metabank. Is the pin still automatically going to be the last 4 digits of the card number?
I tried it using the last 4 digits and it worked so either it’s set to that or you can do whatever you want the 1st time
Is this still active today?
?
How can these be cashed out by money order?
My store used to hide the cards in the draw at the register and you had to ask for it and they got to decide if they “had any left”
Today, either holiday season or they grew up… There were a few hundred cards on the rack
Do they sell walmart gift cards?
No. Amazon they do, but only in store not online.
hi i bought 20 k gift cards last week would like to know how cash it out or pay credit card bil since Walmart stopped doing cash orders
dose anyone know if could be used in PayPal or Venmo back to my account
Waiting for answer on same question
I’ve tried on Venmo and they don’t let. I wouldn’t recommend Paypal as it’s not worth the risk of them shutting you down, which is mostly likely gonna happen with $20k worth of gift cards.
Tried Venmo too. No worky no turkey.
Works with PayPal for paying someone else (not loading balance). There is a fee involved, but the basic 5% cash back would offset it.
I’ve only done around 1k in payments so far, so I’m not sure at what point they might crack down.
The store wouldn’t let me use my credit card to buy only cash
Alive Again 1/29-2/4
I walked into staples today it was not on sale. There was a fee.
Location? Master or Visa?
Brick, NJ location has Mastercard GC’s in stock. Check your local Staples’ weekly ad to see if these cards are on sale at your local store. https://www.staplesconnect.com/weeklyad
does anyone know how to transfer from a giftcard via venmo to someone else or which banks will accept money orders? thanks!!!
Venmo not working. Anyone have any ideas how to cash them out?
PayPal via sending to friend. But you might want to be careful with how many times you do it consecutively – both with regards to fraud suspecting, if there are multiple payments of same amount, and with regards to PayPal realizing what’s going on, and wanting to shut it down.
If you order from Costco online, you’ll be able to use MasterCard GC, and if you return item to the store they will refund you in cash. Not Glatt.
limit 2 with chase or debit cards only accepted. also unlike before, it is almost impossible to use them on money orders and even many stores like jewel safeways grocery chains auto reject these visa gift cards when you swipe them. so they are not useful now
Where?
These cards work in Walmart Target… you can also put the whole balance on your local kosher grocery store account
If I pay my cc bill while transaction is pending, will i still get the points?
Seems that whenever I try to purchase the limit 8 for $1600, Chase flags my account and rejects the charge and I have to call them to remove the block. Anyone else have this issue?
Yes, took me 40 minutes on phone with them to let me buy. Store was not happy with me.
Did I miss the link to purchase it or is it not working?
In store only. If you’re lucky enough to find a store that has them.
Oh. I missed that.
Thanks a lot!
Where is most likely to accept them as money orders? Walmart, gas stations, post office?
Alive again this week
Any reason I can’t meet the spending threshold of my brand new sapphire preferred by buying these visa gift cards?
Staples in howell on route 9 has loads of them. Computer does not allow to buy more than 9 cards.
Dan,
Thank you for always posting when these cards have their fees waived in Staples.
My local Staples never posts this on the gift card rack, you kind of have to know on your own. Luckily I have Dans Deals to let me know
“If you use your points at an average value of 2 cents each,” Dan, If I transferthe Ink points to my resserve card, & use it for travel I can get 1.5 tops, How do you get to 2 cents each chase point??
Thanks so much!
The value of points can vary depending on how you use it, if you find a business class seat that goes for 5k cash and 50k in points, that’s a 10 cent value per point.
Thank you Dan.
I bought a few GC, these have expiration dates for 2030, when tried to make a purchase with it over the phone, there was an error since the latest expiration they could enter was 2028, any advice?
Thank
For those that got an offer for the INK BUSINES UNLIMITED, to get 10 percent off. It is more worthwhile to use it, rather than the BUSINESS CASH.
alive again
How do you find out about these deals visa staples directly? I’ve missed them at times early sunday before they’re posted here. And then I’m away the rest of the week.
Staples: No Activation Fee on $200 Mastercard Gift Cards (8/13-8/19, Max 5)
As Emi points out, this week it’s max 5, not max 8.
Officially max 5; 2 stores I visited said max 8 (even though the sign said 5).
I bought $200 gift cards, one only had $186 on it. What do I do?
Prepare for months of back and forths. That’s why I stopped doing this for these kind of gift cards. I just get Amazon gift cards which I can immediately upload to my account.
I have successfully used these gift cards to pay my bills such as security system monitoring for years. This month, my payment was rejected. When I contacted the gift card company they told me I’m not allowed to use these for bill payment, I can only use it to buy merchandise. This is totally false. I have filed a complaint with this gift card company and they asked me for a picture of the card and my ID.
I have since then, run into this with some merchandise I’m trying to buy. What’s up with this? What is the gift card issuer trying to do???? Has anyone else encountered this?
What is the expiration date on your cards? I am having problems using the 11/31 cards – the 03/31 cards had no issue whatsoever.
12/30.
I purchased 9 cards yesterday in my local NJ store
Alive again
Thanks again for posting
Can these be cashed out at an ATM or anything like that?
No
When will it come out next?
when will it come out next ?
Alive again!
alive again.
Does 25k yearly limit on ink for 5X points, restart tomorrow?
Account anniversary year. Not calendar year.
ty
Alive again 12/31-1/6
does anybody know if I can reload my PayPal balance using these giftcards?
It didn’t let me recently… Said “you can’t use this payment method for this transaction”.
Good luck though:)
The best option I found was to either send a link to yourself on a different email address and click the link to checkout as a guest. Thing is, you’ll be paying a 30 cent fee plus 3%/transaction. Meaning, each card will cost you $6.30 to cash out. Assuming you’re using the Chase Ink Cash, you’ll still earn 1000 points per card, and if those points are used right (i.e. transfer with a bonus), still might be worth it.
Anyone has experience with meeting AMEX spending on new card bouns?
The consensus seems to be AMEX is tricky with this. If they catch you, they claw back, and they are pretty good at catching you. Chase does not seem to care.
Does this apply to the $20-$200 cards as well or is the a separate card of fixed $200 to which it applies?
Only the $200 fixed
Ad says limit 5.
Store had no $200. had all others.
Beware the cards have been switched from hard plastic to a softer paper material and are very easy to tear while opening them.
Can I buy these using staples gift cards?
Can the purchase of these GC be used towards the bonus spend for the Chase Shaphire? Correct me if I am wrong, some credit cards have increased points per dollar when purchasing GC?
A Staples employee just informed me that they will no longer be carrying Amazon gift cards in any Staples stores.
I need ideas how to cash these out.
Utility bill
Food stores
Gas station
Amazon
More Amazon
Costco
BJ’s
Staples
Office Depot
Church and Synagogue
Can I add the visa gift card to my cashapp balance, then transfer back to my bank account?
it actually seems to have changed to a limit of 9 cards per day, read the ad
I find since Mr Toeles Harabim has been selling ink cards these cards sell out on Sunday the week they go on sale
Dan, could you perhaps write a new article on this topic explaining what the benefit of buying gift cards is and what people can do with them? I know people have been doing this for years and this thread goes back to 2021, but I’m both confused and hesitant. I have school tuition I can pay with a cc but they charge 2.85%. I tried looking through PayPal Pay Your Bills link but nothing is relevant for me. I’ve read about people buying $ thousands in gift cards and getting stuck with them. I understand why people purchase money orders: a $1000 MO costs $3.40 from USPS and if someone had a 3% cash back credit card, they would get $30 back on their credit card. With 10 Staples gift cards allowed per purchase, they would net $53.20, plus would gain the 2000 points on their cc. That’s a lot of running around for $53.20 (Staples to buy 10 gift cards, then USPS to buy 2 x $1000 MOs, then to their bank to deposit the 2 MOs, then home to pay off the cc online.) Is there something I’m missing?
+1 on this. I saw this deal today and have been scouring the internet to figure out how to liquidate the cards and it seems that people are having varying degrees of success with PayPal, Money Orders, and Venmo. I would do it but don’t want to be stuck with a big CC bill and these sketchy gift cards…
100% agree
for long lone, no one would sell you a monsey order with gift cards. if anyone has recent news, please share, but to my knowledge, NO ONE would do it. and using it for grocery or bills is forever work, and charties everyone prefer a regular credit fard so can track and keep for tax time . so no , no one gift them, as bar mitzva gifts. you are stuck! (like me ande everyone else_)
100% agree. Don’t want to be stuck with them.
You pay your tuition with them $200 at a time. (If you’re using ParentLocker, $194.46 at a time, plus a $5.54 processing fee.) I’ve been doing it for years. It’s a PITA, but it can be nice earnings if you can use the Chase UR well. Keep in mind, this is only worth doing with the Chase Ink Cash cards, which earn 5% back on office supply stores. The math:
$20,000 tuition bill.
$20,000 / $194.46 = 102.85 cards * $5.54 processing fee per card = $569.79 in processing fees.
$20,569.79 * 5% = 102,849 Chase UR points. ($1,028.49 at 1¢ each.)
$1,028.49 – $569.79 = $458.70 profit on bills you would have to pay anyways.
If you can get more than 1¢ of value (e.g. booking a flight for 1/5 the cash price), you can start to see how this can really be worthwhile.
The math works better for things like grocery bills (since they eat the cc processing fee), especially if you can put a couple on your account rather than having to swipe every time you go and have to track the remaining card balances.
One potential additional plus – If you are TEMPORARILY in a tight financial spot, and if your tuition is on a monthly payment plan, you can try to time the purchase of the cards for right after your statement closing date, which gives you ~7 weeks to pay. DO NOT CARRY BALANCES ON YOUR CREDIT CARDS OR USE CREDIT CARDS FOR LONG-TERM FINANCING, it is very much not worth the cash-back.
Of course, you have to be willing to spend the time to make it worthwhile. You are on Dan’s Deals – it may be free, but it doesn’t mean free of effort!
Thank you – this is extremely helpful. I don’t know that I’m game to do this, as I’d be nervous a gift card wouldn’t work and I’d be out $200. I don’t use ParentLocker and my child’s university charges a 2.85% fee for credit card purchases ($5.70 per $200 Staples card), so I can see how it would be worth it if I would get 5% back with a Chase Ink Cash card, especially if I needed to make the SUB.
Does anyone have any issues with using the MC gcs for online payments? trying to pay my insurance bill and it doesn’t work, it does work for electrical bill, though. What makes it work in some places and not others?
Register the gift card for better results
omg how can i speak to a live person at mastercard! i got a card with zero on it!! and i cant speak to anyone about it. Please help!!
Staples Weekly Ad is basically discontinued. 🙁