Jetsfan

Plenty of cards still available today at my OD in MD. Mgmt. there still has no (or is not sharing) info about removing the up to $500 V/MC/Amexs.

ayya

All variable load cards pulled from the 3 OD in north Dallas as of this morning.

mia

Nearly two dozen posts have been removed due to personal attacks, replies thereto, and some incoherent diatribes.

To be certain there is no lingering misunderstanding:

These protections apply to everyone. There are no exceptions for mileage bloggers. You may write about blog content, but not about the bloggers, their character or motives.

gm9928

OD in DC (Van Ness) is out -- no more variable-amount cards. (Checked today.)

Preacher7

Just bought 4K of $500 Vanilla Visas this afternoon. No worries. This will probably blow over, or at worst is a regional, not a national thing. Our manager had no problem at all ringing up my purchase, business as usual. Of course, on the way home I stopped off at CVS to liquidate 2K of them on Reloads...

ddallas

Do you drive a VW beetle?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0x...id=P-XT8EQHl04

metoo

All the $500 was not on the rack but tons of AMEX Prepaid cards available.

RDUflyer2

Yesterday three of the four ODs in the Raleigh/Cary/RTP area had no variable GCs left. The fourth had maybe 10 left but clearly was running down their stock. One manager I spoke with indicated they had been directed by Corporate to remove them. Another manager at another store indicated he expected these to be be back on the shelf in April and had been told there was a problem with these cards.

Deioces

+1 ^ on both posts.

Re. those who argue that variable amount gc's must have made SOME profit, so it must be Chase that pushed OD: SOME profit is not what businesses look for. Retail space is valuable and they are looking for a certain level of return -- so even if variable amount cards were somewhat profitable, they were not profitable enough.

It is easy for the businesses to realize the opportunity cost of offering this product when they see that variable amount gc's are selling like crazy loaded with the max amount to the extent that inventory disappears, bringing in slim margins, while those higher margin $50 to $200 gc's linger on the racks. It's very easy for a business to estimate that pulling out the low margin product will push consumers to the higher margin one (smaller denomination gc's).

Of course, the business might be wrong, because they may be imagining consumers who actually want the gift cards in order to give gifts (!), and will need to keep buying anyway, despite the change. They are probably not thinking of FTers who may stop purchasing altogether if the game becomes too expensive (although, will they/ we?)

To this, add fraud, stolen cards etc...

Raising the price of variable amount gc's to say $5.95 or $6.95 might have made equal sense for OD and behold (a data point from a blogger god forbid): http://pizzainmotion.com/2013/02/03/...-office-depot/

Preacher7

Love the Beetle vid! But yeah, no signs of the gold, er, bean rush stopping at my OD any time soon.

Ducati

If that's the case, I'm curious as to know how long the frugaltravelguy.com blog took to announce the new lower spend requirement on the Ink Bold when it was lowered from $10K to $5K back in November? Were the news of the lower spend immediately posted WITH a link to the application on Chase's website (because it's "NOT all about the money"), or was there some sort of "delay" until the blog's affiliate links were updated for the better offer? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Following the rules: Not attacking the person; just challenging the credibility of the post.]

goober153

Just went to OD to try and purchase in south florida, All variable visa's gone, they still had amex prepaid so I went to try and buy it. Manager wouldn't allow me and showed me the notice. It had a list of cards to be pulled Tittled "Gift cards" including all variable visa's and AMEX GPR cards. I tried to argue that it was a prepaid card and not a gift card, no go. AMEX GPR are the blue prepaids?

I also got a quick glance at the products that they were replacing it with, from what I saw they seemed not good, like GC to game stop or something.

sam_goh

Hrmm, odd, they had some left today but I was maxed. Did about 90 minutes of driving around today in the Cincinnati area.

None at dry ridge, blue ash, springdale, hamilton, dayton miamisburg, dayton salem, dayton york, and milford.

Yes at Fairborn (No MC but yes Visa and Amex, few Visas only), and I wiped out West Chester (down to Amexes). Only unchecked OD left is Florence KY.

Interestingly enough, I found a new (or old) type of VISA at WC that I've never seen before. It's an "Anne" design and cost 5.95 instead of the regular 5.95 on the silver and gold versions. Will take a picture if people are interested for something else to look for.

Doing same day payment, waiting for payments to clear, and will do the Amexes if they're left. Anyone have any thoughts about whether the Amexes work better/worse for AP or for VR@CVS?

Preacher7

Yeah, the Anne Geddes $500 beans have been at my OD for a long time, but haven't touched them b/c they have a $1 extra activation fee.

mia

Should the thread title be edited to show that Office Depot is also pulling AX/MC/VS giftcards higher than $XXX, or is it only the variable denomination cards?