MILES&POINTS: Buy Two $50 MasterCard gift cards & get $10 off is back at OfficeMax this week only!
0Happy Thursday readers!
Back in September, OfficeMax ran a wonderful promotion where if you had bought any two $50 MasterCard gift cards, you would automatically get $10 off. That effectively neutralized the +$4.95 activation fee for each of the cards, and made you a dime richer. This deal only lasted for a week, but it was a gold mine opportunity for those of us with Chase Ink cards where we earn 5x points per dollar we spend at office supply stores.
I am THRILLED to say that that promotion is BACK for this week only!
On page 6 of this week’s OfficeMax advertisement is an ad that says that if you buy any two $50 MasterCard gift cards, you will receive a $10 discount!
Again, that neutralized the $4.95 activation fee on each card, and makes you ten cents richer! The math works out like this:
($50 + $4.95 activation fee) * 2 = $109.90 normally.
If I am doing my math correctly, with the $10 off promotion, you should pay $109.90-$10.00=$99.90 for two $50 MasterCard gift cards, while scoring 499.5 Ultimate Rewards points if you are using a Chase Ink card.
Last September, I had shamelessly cleared out some of my local OfficeMax of all of their $50 MasterCard gift cards via this promotion. The only downside compared to Vanilla Reloads or a Paypal Load card is that you are dealing with smaller increment gift cards, which cannot be consolidated in any direct way. My best advice for you if you are buying in bulk and not planning on just gifting them away, is to get more acquainted with Amazon Payments. It’s Amazon’s version of PayPal, but unlike PayPal, there are no fees associated to personal accounts for up to the first $1k every month that you want to send/receive. You can also send using gift cards. So get creative. 😉
So what are you waiting for? Get to your nearest OfficeMax and get some $50 MasterCards. Remember you must buy them in pairs in order to get the $10 off each time. If your cashier is unsure if you can have multiple ones, just politely ask him/her if she/he could just try. (DO SEPARATE TRANSACTIONS. See update at bottom.) You can mention that your friend has been able to do it at another OfficeMax without a problem.
Good luck! Promotion ends this Saturday.
UPDATE at 10:40 pm pacific on Thursday, January 17, 2013: Quick update. I went to one of my local OfficeMax stores and picked up two $50 MasterCard gift cards via this deal at $99.90 total. The $10 savings was indeed automatic and canceled the activation fees + gave me an extra dime. It should be noted though that there is a slight correction in that this advertisement, unlike the one in September 2012, actually says the promotion is limit one per household. However, at checkout they do not record the transaction or verify your household at all–and the discount is applied immediately. But it is important to note that it seems that if you want the discount, you will need to do separate transactions on each of the 2 $50 MasterCard gift cards you buy. Also, if you are buying more than two during the same visit, it will highly depend on your store clerk. Your miles may vary (YMMV). Cheers and good luck!