$10 off $50 Purchase at Office Depot/Office Max - American Express and Twitter

Update: As William on DoC points out, the best way to use this is to use 4 AmEx cards to buy one $200 Visa Gift Card.  You will only pay the activation fee once between the 4 cards.  This earns  you $8 per card and free points

Don't have Office Depot/Max near you?  You could buy $50 physical GCs and sell just the pin for 86% to SaveYa.  That would earn you $3 per card.  Either way, this is a great offer to take part in.




And the Amex hits just keep on coming!

Use #AmexOfficeDepot or check the "Offers for You" section.  Full Terms here

- Not valid on eGift Cards
- Expires 9/7/2015
- Valid in store or online

This is a great way to offset the fee associated with a $200 Visa Gift Card.

I will probably use this to get cheap Amazon gift cards.


Start your purchase from Discover Deals or Upromise for up to 5% cashback.  Discover deals will turn into 10% after 13 months if you are enrolled in the Discover Double promotion.  I don't know if you will get cashback for buying gift cards.  T&C exclude these purchases from cashback.

$15 off American Express Gift cards of $150 at Office Max

Buy $150 of gift cards this week (starts on Sunday - tomorrow) at Office Max and you will get $15 off.

You can find the deal on page 12/15 in the circular

- Limit of 2 offers per customer

- $200 gift cards are excluded so you need to get a $100 and a $50 gift card or 2 $100 gift cards

Buy with one of the Chase Ink Business Credit Cards and you will get 5 points per purchase.  You won't make much money on the actual deal, but if you use one of the Chase Ink cards you will make a little money and then the gift cards can you be used elsewhere, effectively giving you 5 points per purchase when you use them.

Office Max - $20 off $200 Visa Gift Cards

Buy a $200 Visa or Mastercard gift card get $20 off on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving day weekend

$20 off a $200 gift card

Use Chase Ink Business Credit Cards for 5x points at office supply stores, like Office Max

$200 of Visa/Mastercard Gift Cards at Office Max - $10 Free - Free Points

Update 6/19 - Leaving with a bang.  I went to an Office Max I've never been to before in Buffalo (1701 Niagara Falls Boulevard, Space 700) and asked if they have any $200 visa gift cards.  They pulled out a stack of them.  The lady did't know that it changed to one per customer and I was able to buy $2000 worth on multiple cards for net gain of $30 and 2,000 points!


Update - 6/18 - extended for another week

Update: 6/11 - My local office max started only allowing one per person which makes this far less lucrative.  Your local office max may or may not enforce this.


This week, June 9th-15th22nd, Office Max is offering $10 off the purchase of $200 or more in Visa or Mastercard gift cards.  Visa and Mastercard gift cards normally have a high activation fee that make this cost prohibitive.  However, with $10 off, it will more than cover the fee for the $200 cards.

There is a limit of one $10 bonus per transaction, not per household.  The limit is 35 per store, which comes out to $7,000 of gift cards so you might be able to make a nice amount of money pretty easily.

It is very unlikely that you will find any denominations larger than $200 and you might find $200 cards, but even if you only find $100, the discount will still cover the fee.


This is a chance to get some free spending on your credit card and maybe even to make some money on the actual purchase along the way.

Your Haul

Assuming you buy the $200 card with a $6.95 fee, you will have spent $196.95 on your credit card and you get a return of $3.05.

If pay with the American Express Fidelity card, you will get another $3.93 in cashback (2% cashback on everything) or just about $7 for every $200 card you buy.

Pay with a Chase Ink Bold, Ink Plus, Ink Classic or Ink Cash and you will receive 5 Ultimate Rewards points for every dollar you spend at Office Supply stores.  This will be close to 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points for every $200 you spend.  Remember that 80,000 Ultimate Rewards points get you a free trip to Israel on United, one of the transfer partners for premium Ultimate Rewards points!

What to do with your Cards

You can load the funds from your Visa or Mastercard gift cards that have pins onto a Bluebird prepaid card at Walmart and you will not have to actually spend the money on any of those gift cards.  It can be a pain depending on how many you buy, but clearly worth it in my book.

A Word of Caution

There is a limit of 1 per transaction but not one per household.  The limit is 35 per store which is $7,000.  You could theoretically keep buying them.

Don't be an idiot!

Don't put all of your purchases on one card.  It will look very shady to have $7000 of office max purchases on 35 transactions in one day or even one week and you will probably get a couple calls from the fraud department.  Bring all the cards you have and spread out your purchases if you can.  

Buffalo, I Will Miss You and Your Easy Free Money Way!

I just got back from my daily "errands".  I cashed out $1,000 of Chase gift cards on my Bluebird with no fees for 1,000 Ultimate Rewards points at Walmart which is 5 minutes away.  80,000 Ultimate Rewards points is equivalent to a free rountrip ticket to Israel on United.

Vanilla Reloads are abundant at the local CVS and $200 Visa gift cards at Office Max, while not quite as abundant as VRs, were certainly more than I needed.  I bought 4 because they have to be on separate transactions and I felt like I would be too much of a pain to them if I bought any more.

If you are curious, there are still 9 $200 visa gift cards at Office Max on Maple Road in Amherst as of this morning.  I will be going back tomorrow to get more (on a different credit card), I hope they restock, but I have a feeling that they won't.


I bought the 4 cards on my Citibank AAdvantage card since I get double miles on up to $750 each month which is why I bought four.  After the second one, I got a text message from Citi's fraud department asking if I had spent the money.  Oops!  No harm done, I replied that I did and the rest went through.  My haul = 1,878 American Airlines miles (1,500 miles for the first $750 and 378 for the next $37.80).  90,000 American Airlines miles will get you a free rountrip ticket to Israel on American Airlines.

20%+ off at Office Max

Disclaimer: I receive a referral commission for the following link(s):  Office Max and Top Cashback

This picture is from Office Max's circular

I went to Office Max today to buy something, and recycle some ink cartridges while I was there, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that almost the entire store is 20% off this week if you have a Max Perks account.

Valid June 2nd - June 8th.

Sign up for Max Perks here for free


You can also save the same 20% online with promo code SAVE20 and free shipping on anything over $20.

Saving Even More

Start your purchase from Top Cashback and get up to 6% back as well, depending upon what you buy!  You will still get your regular rewards from your credit card.

Don't have Top Cashback?  Sign up here for free.   They usually have the best cashback percentages although it take a little longer to get your money.

You also get 5% back towards Office Max gift certificates with your Max Perks account

Which Credit Card to Use?

Pay with Chase Ink Bold, Ink Plus, Ink Classic or Ink Cash and you will receive 5 Ultimate Reward points for every dollar you spend at Office Supply stores.  You can also pay with an American Express business card that has OPEN savings and get 5% back at officemax.com on purchases up to $250 or 10% back on purchases over $250.

American Express Starwoods Business card is an example of a card that has OPEN savings so random thought: if you have the choice between canceling the regular Starwoods and the business Starwoods, keep the business for the OPEN savings.

Grand Total savings = 41% off if you spend $250 or more and use an American Express card with OPEN savings, 36% if it is less than $250 or if you use a Chase business card.




When I bought my item, the register automatically printed out this little gem for me:

$10 off my next purchase of $40 or more.  It is only valid starting June 16th so I will have to go back.  

Any suggestions on something everyone needs that I can buy if I don't have particular needs at that point?  Gift cards and stamps don't qualify.

$10 Itunes Gift Card When you Purchase $50 Itunes from Office Max

If you buy a $50 iTunes gift card at Office Max, you will get a $10 iTunes gift card free.  Valid through May 25th.

In store only

You can find this on page 1 of their circular


Use a Chase Ink Bold, Ink Cash or Ink Plus to get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar at office supply stores.

Recycling Ink Cartridges for Money

Update 5/8/13 - I just recycled my first 10 cartridges today to officemax.  I bought 2 $25 amazon gift cards because they are on sale for $45 (10% off) until 5/11 - page 1 of the circular.  I will update when I find out if the amazon purchases count towards my rewards.  I assume they will not.

Update 5/2/13 - The credit, for Staples at least, tends to post to your account the 15th or 16th of the following month.  Thanks again SW.

One of my readers, Shmuel Winiarz, came up with a way of getting free stuff at office supply stores and has already put it into practice.  Similar to just about everything else on this blog, there is rarely an actual free lunch.  You have to be willing to put in some effort to make it work.

I haven't tried this myself yet, but I am excited to give it a go!

Here's how it goes:

As an incentive to recycle ink cartridges, Office Depot, Office Max and Staples will give you $2 per cartridge you bring in for recycling, up to 10 cartridges ($20) a month.  These are rewards towards anything in the store that isn't a cash equivalent (no gift cards or prepaid cards).

What if you can buy cartridges for less than the office supply stores give you to recycle them?  Well, you can and for significantly less too.  Let's learn more!


Right now, you can buy 300 empty ink cartridges on ebay for $60, or $0.20 a cartridge.  If this one is sold out, just search "empty ink cartridges" from ebay.com and a different good deal will come up.  These cartridges are worth $2 so you are netting $1.80 per cartridge!


Keep in mind that you don't get your gift certificate on the spot.  At the end of the month, the store starts processing your rewards and you will get your rewards a different time.

The Catch

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not all fun and games and someone may get hurt.  There are a few things you need to be aware of with each store.

• Office Max - You need to spend as much in office max as you earn.  For example, if you bring in 10 cartridges last month, but only spend $8 at office max you will get $8 in rewards, not the full $20.  The $12 of rewards will be pending until you spend $12 more in office max or until January 1st when the rewards disappear.    
• You can't buy gift cards, computers or stamps towards your minimum spending to unlock your rewards
• If you go to office max occasionally anyway, this is the way to go.  If you don't, staples is probably the best move.
• Office Depot - same catch as Office Max.
• Staples - You need to have spent at least $30 on ink and toner within the last 180 days (around 6 months) to be eligible.  
• If we assume you will make $1.80 per cartridge and recycle 10 cartridges per month you will have netted $18 a month.  After 6 months, you will have $108 towards Staples products, but you have paid $30 towards ink so a net of $78 or $13 a month.
• If you are planning on buying ink from staples anyway, this is a great deal.

Leveraging the Payout

It's hard to know the best way to spend the money.  Most likely gift cards are out, but maybe stamps won't be?  Probably the easiest way to get the full money back is to buy "free after rebate" items.  You will have spent the gift certificates, but you get cash back later.

Have you done this too?  Found a way to leverage this deal even better?  Comment and everyone gains.

Office Max - $10 off Two $50 Mastercard Gift Card

This is from the Office Max weekly ad on pages 6-7


Buy any 2 $50 mastercard gift card and you will get $10 off.   This is the equivalent of them giving you free money.  The fees are about $5 each so you will make about $5 off each $50 and you will stil get your regular cashback from your credit card.

64GB Verbatim USB 2.0 Flashdrive $24 from Office Max

Disclaimer - The Discover offers are no longer valid.

64GB Verbatime USB 2.0 flashdrive for $24 with free site to store shipping.

Use coupon code FRIEND20 to take 20% off and knock the price down from $30 to $24.

Note - USB 2.0 is significantly slower, but also significantly cheaper than USB 3.0 technology. Here is just one example of the equivalent USB 3.0 flashdrive at $48


This is a great deal.  If you aren't in a rush to buy, you should never spend more than $0.50 per GB of storage when it is 16GB or below.  However, the more GBs the more difficult it will be to find something under that price.  If I didn't just buy a 32 GB flashdrive, I would buy this one for sure.

Start your purchase at from Ebates and get 3% cashback as well.  You will still get your normal cashback from your credit card as well. 

Don't have ebates?  Sign up here for free.  You also get a $10 gift card to Target, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot or Magazines.com after your first $25 purchase 

Use your Discover it™ and you will get 5% back for all your online purchases until the end of the year (max of $75 back), including this one.  A total of 12% back if you use both ebates and Discover More!

20% off at Office Max until Saturday Night

Take 20% off at Office Max until Saturday Night with Coupon code SUMMERSAVE20





Start your purchase at from Ebates and get 3.0% cashback as well.  You will still get your normal cashback from your credit card as well. 

Don't have ebates?  Sign up here for free.  You also get a $10 gift card to Target, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot or Magazines.com after your first $25 purchase 

Office Max - Comfy Chair $9.99 after Max Rewards

Office Max - Glee II Mid-Back Manager - $9.99 after Max Rewards

Not a member?  Sign up here for free


Start your purchase from Ebates and get 3% cashback as well.  You will still get your normal cashback from your credit card as well. 

Don't have ebates?  Sign up here for free.  You also get a $10 gift card to Target, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot or Magazines.com after your first $25 purchase