Preacher7

IF, and I repeat, IF, this is true nationwide, another really frustrating thing about it is that now the bonanza with my AMEX Biz Simply Cash card is over too.

the_jaguar

variable visas have been gone from some of the bay area OD's for a while now. I just went back to check today and yep, still no stock. They do have prepaid Amex cards though...

bubb1

Variable VISAs all gone at Oak Park area in Irvine, CA.

webazoid

I went to OD in HB area...all gone. Not even a single $200 visa/mc/amex.

bocastephen

The memo is specific about "variable" load cards (20-500) and from what I understand from my local manager, permits the fixed price (20, 50, 200) cards to remain - but some managers are not reading the memo properly and are pulling everything from the store, so this will take some time to sort out.

I believe the 200 cards are available from S+OM, so if anyone wants to go that route in the interim, that option should still be available.

Preacher7

It's just not cost effective to go the $200 route. With VRs at OD, it was about .17 cpp. With the OD/CVS way, it's about .35. $200 GCs? That makes the OD/CVS route about .79 cpp. Not worth it.

kannon99

Dead here in MKE, only $200 and under.

bocastephen

Here is my personal math assuming 5k Ink per month to hit 50K in spend at an Office store in a year (yes I know some of you can do this in 2 months), the end result is 300k points in year 1.

50,000 points - $0 (sign up bonus on card 1)
50,000 points (two months of BB using old OD cost system) = 20 GC's at 4.95 and 20 VR's at 4.95 = $198 for 50,000 pts or .00396
200,000 points (10 months of BB using new OD cost system) = 200 GC's at 4.95 and 100 VR's at 4.95 = $1485 for 200,000 pts or .007425

300k points (plus extra spend here and there for the year) should total around 320,000 points or 3 round trip tickets in Business Class on UA, a *A partner or Korean Airlines for a total of 1683 in fees and other normal ancillary spend.

I think that's a pretty decent (not great or stupendous) deal and that's before doing work on any of the other card and spend projects that are around, but less convenient.

ukguy78

VR cost is $3.95 ea. rather than $4.95, thereby lowering your cost basis ever so slightly.

shoreline

data point: made a dallas run today around for a while.

the interesting news is the conversations with staff and managers.
3 of 4 stated pulling was due to people using credit cards to purchase in the thousands per visit and the stores were losing money. 1 staff member said they were pulling vanilla reloads due to people buying them and getting 'money back somehow'.

1 of 4 reported the store was losing lots of money due to these cards.

Each store was the manager I ended up speaking with.

All stated the were ordered to remove the cards a few days ago and 1 said they were told to 'destroy them immediately'.

Notice nothing mentioned about cc fraud at all.

Lots of stories of why and how it happened, but I do believe it has everything to do with the 5x.

sam_goh

Fixed denominations are available in $25, 50, 100, 200. These were never pulled. Variables could go $10-$500, these were the ones that were pulled. Max now is $200 fixed.

sam_goh

Seemed like everyone had their own story. Of the 6-7 stores I hit today, I heard a) fraud b) chargebacks c) expensive holding cost d) being replaced e) no idea just told to get rid of f) fixed values are better and easier g) noone was really buying these anyways /chuckle.

shoreline

This is a great one! HA! In fact, the best I've seen all day. Great Laughs or should I say "gaffs".

Deioces

Data point from my Bay Area source: variable cards with a $5.95 still sold and not to be discontinued according to them. $3.95 variable cards pulled because not a good deal for them. This agrees with a blog post I cited earlier.

Don't know if my OD is missing something, I just bought a couple and will check in again in a few days.

bubb1

I haven't read these threads in their entirety (who has ), but I'll speculate that these claims of fraud are bogus, since these variable load cards are carried all over the place, and OD seems to have the same prevention methods as most other stores. I suppose a fraudster could juice their returns with the 5x cashed out quickly, but I doubt it. Perhaps the issue is that the Chase 5x bonus is partially subsidized by the store by higher merchant fees etc?