The Deal
- Buy $200 Visa gift cards with a $2.95 purchase fee and free trackable shipping from Staples Advantage.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Terms
- Business registration required; please be prepared to provide a Federal tax ID number during the registration process.
Tips & Ideas
Although this offer is only valid on Visa gift cards with a maximum denomination of $200 rather than $500, it could still be of interest for some people.
For starters, the purchase fee is only $2.95; while that’s higher percentage-wise than the purchase fee on $500 or $1,000 Visa gift cards from elsewhere, it’s only 1.475% which could be worse, especially seeing as it comes with free trackable shipping and so there’s no additional fee for that.
Another benefit of these cards is that it looks like the recipient’s name is added to the front of the card. That can be beneficial when liquidating at locations that require your name on the card.
A third benefit is that orders are processed by GiftCardMall. While that’s a downside in that it means you won’t earn 5x on a Chase Ink Cash or Ink Plus card, it does mean that this is another option for earning rewards when paying with American Express cards. This could also be of interest if you have other cards that offer bonus earnings on GiftCardMall purchases.
If you have an easy way to liquidate these cards, the fact that you can order up to 100 cards to a single address at a time might also be enticing.
I don’t understand the GiftCardMall significance of “this is another option for earning rewards when paying with American Express cards.” Is it possible to earn extra points with Amex?
It’s because Amex doesn’t award points/miles on purchases when buying gift cards from Simon Mall. Regular Visa gift card purchases from GiftCardMall aren’t particularly useful either because although they’re available in $250 denominations, the activation fees are much higher. Opportunities like this Staples Advantage one can therefore be of interest for some people who want to buy Visa gift cards from home and earn points/miles on Amex cards as there aren’t all that many other opportunities.