After posting the offer the other day that American Express has for (some) customers – the free money at Amazon – I have been checking my Amex Offers daily with hopes that it will pop up for me. 🙂
Well, it hasn’t popped up yet, but this one did today on several of my cards and I thought it was a pretty good one to pass along.
$15 Off $100 or More At Staples (Online)
This offer can be saved to any eligible card and can only be used online and must be used before July 31st. It is not valid on e-gift cards that are delivered to your e-mail but everything else is on the table!
To check this, log in to your American Express account and go to the bottom of the page for Amex Offers For You. If the offer is there, save it to your card and use that card for the purchase online at Staples.com. To check other cards, click on each card at the top of the screen and repeat the process.
Some of the interesting purchases to consider are:
Visa gift cards
The Visa gift cards come with a $6.95 fee, but since you are getting $15 back, that is not a problem! So, you could buy $400 in gift cards for a total of $13.90 in fees and get some credit card spend for free! If this is on your SPG Amex card, this is a good move to make.
$15 more off Visa Gift cards!
Tablets
Staples often has coupons on tablets and since this is an offer on the Amex side, it doesn’t matter if you use coupons or discounts or not. So, you can use some of the coupons that pop up that offer things like $25 or $50 off tablets and go through the Ultimate Rewards mall to earn 4X points on the purchase as well!
In the above tablet example, it would cost you the $279 (plus tax), but you would receive a $15 statement credit from American Express plus 1,100 Ultimate Reward points. If you were waiting for a decent deal on an iPad, this could help you out with that.
Anything else
Just remember to go through the Ultimate Rewards mall before you hit the Staples site for your order! You will earn the extra 4X Ultimate Rewards points in addition to your $15 back from American Express – nice combo by Chase and Amex, we thank you!
UR T&Cs says no earnings on gift cards or other cash equivalents. In your experience is this true?
Please note these terms & conditions:
Special increased earnings now through 9/30/2014!
Not eligible on purchases made with coupon or discount codes that are not found on this site. Shopping cart must be empty prior to accessing Staples through this site to be eligible. Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents including third party gift cards sold by Staples.com. Not eligible on Promotional Products. Discount reward certificates and Copy and Print shop orders are not eligible. Staples Business Advantage orders are not eligible. Contact with Staples for price matching, sales assistance, etc. will likely cancel eligibility. Any return, exchange or other adjustment made at a physical store location for an on-line purchase may result in your purchase being deemed ineligible. Phone orders are not eligible.
Upromise offers 5% and does not appear to have a gift card exclusion.
Cart must be empty prior to shopping through Upromise. All items in cart prior to linking through the mall are ineligible for contribution. Non-Qualified orders include purchases of multiple quantities of the same product purchased by resellers for the sole purchase of re-sale. Staples will not research any transaction after 90 days from the date of purchase.
I know it did not used to be true (back in April), but many people (including myself) did not receive the points for gift card purchases after that time. That is why I left it out of the gift card portion of the post. Still, if you are going to use this deal to buy gift cards, it doesn’t hurt to try. From what I understand, Staples has stopped payouts to all portals with gift card purchases. Still, you never know!
I thought you could only earn UR using a chase card (that earns URs)? I know i mistakenly used a citi aa card at the Ultimate Rewards Mall and received no credit. Called about it and they said you had to use their card. Am I mistaken or maybe I read your post wrong?
You stated “Just remember to go through the Ultimate Rewards mall before you hit the Staples site for your order! . You will earn the extra 4X Ultimate Rewards points in addition to your $15 back from American Express – nice combo by Chase and Amex”
Do you mean to just to use AMEX card for the transaction? I believe, in order to get UR points, you have to use Chase card.
Can you elaborate and clarify this?
It is never a guaranteed thing, but people do earn Ultimate Reward points when using other cards through the portal all the time. If it does not post, you really will have a hard time arguing it, but it does work automatically for most people.
UR to Staples is only 2X currently…
UR Staples shows 4X for me. I believe the value may change if you have a Premium card that normally carries an annual fee.