I think i am finally getting the ink idea with staples.

Let's say i simply walk into the store itself and do it without even using the portal (so you could literally same day go convert them back to a money order or bb)

a 200 gift card at 5x rewards plus the 1% from visa basically g is 1000 points (give or take a few depending on if the service fee is included)

I dont have an ink card yet but I saw that you get 20% off of travel through the portal...so that might be a good way maximize.

Now if someone who is familiar with it could run me a few numbers that would be awesome...because im sure i am missing somehthing

just looking in the documentation they provide as i dont have access to the rewards portal, their bonus is 60k miles for the equivalent of $750 in travel. Doing the math that values each mile at 1.25 cents. If you multiple that times the 1000 points for the gift card that comes out to $12.50 and after the 1% visa rewards discount you are paying like 5 bucks for the card...so that would bring you down to roughly $7.50 of actual money to spend on travel per gift card. is this math correct? now if you go through a portal you would end up with like 10-12 bucks because of it being like 7x instead of 5.

Is that all correct? still doenst seem like much unless you are doing in bulk of at least 10 gift cards a month or so...makig you a 100-150/mo

EDIT: Although i did just do the math using the 7x via portal and ink, with 1% back with visa..and it came out to be like 40 bucks profit for 3 cards....i suppose that isnt to bad. but i wonder how many times a month could you repeat that when they take like a week or more to get you the gift cards...

EDIT 2: I just did the numbers for 9 cards which would be $1862..or 13034 miles via the portal 7x. which comes out to be 162 in travel cash...with the 1% visa subtracted you have like 42 in fees...so you walk away with 13,034 miles...or 120 in travel cash.

So if you trusted that staples would send you the 9 cards and you could liquidate them via bb or mo or however before your statement was due it would be an easy 120.

And of course as picards007 points out a few posts below you might get a better rate with travel partners.

Does anyone know of a way to get these points of the american airlines advantage program without losing many miles...I dont think they are part of the chase program. they have most tickets for 12.5k miles in their saver category....if that was possible you could get round trip airline ticket for every 9 cards you bought....