I just received an email today from Citi targeting me for 5x on purchasing “back to school” supplies using my Forward card. It would be up to $500 worth of purchases in electronics and computers, office supplies, department stores, and clothing.
I will likely buy $500 worth of gift cards from Staples online through the Discover portal as that pays the highest for Staples at the moment for 5%. This would allow me to buy 2500 Thank You points for $8.01
Can you please explain the math on this one?
Sure – the max I can buy online with Staples are $100 card and the cost is $6.95. I expect to receive 5% through ShopDiscover for $5.35 (106.95*.05). ($6.95 – $5.35) * 5 = $8 cost (The .01 difference from the comment and post is rounding).
New rumors are circulating that starting tomorrow, July 8, $500 One Vanilla Cards wills resurface at Office Depot @ $4.95. If that is the case, then I will go to Office Depot and would be cheaper by $3 for the same 2500 Thank You points.
OK, you weren’t clear on the fact that you were buying Visa gift cards, thanks. Couldn’t you buy a merchant gift card and pay no fees, so you’d be making money with the cashback if you could use/liquidate the merchant cards? Or do those not qualify?
Also, you could also just buy Staples GC’s and then convert them to cash using free after rebate offers, though that’s significant effort of course.
Let me know if the $500 GC’s make it back in the stores tomorrow as I will likely go that route as well. Thanks!
As you mentioned, you could do that, purchase merchant cards and use them for cash back, I prefer not to. Too much work, exactly what you said with the free after rebates, there’s a lot of effort. When I hit a roadblock of tougher manufactured spend I may dive into the free after rebates.
Looks like the $500 GC at Office Depot no longer works:
From Frequent Miler – $500 Vanilla window slams shut at Office Depot — sorry I didn’t have the time to check out the deal
But the point is that how could you earn thanyou points through ShopDiscover? As I understand, a Discover card must be used in order to get cashback through ShopDiscover link. Am I right?
The portal does state you must use a Discover card in order to be eligible for cash back; however frequently, the ShopDiscover portal pays out even if you do not use your Discover card.