VaguelyAsian

How do you maximize your Chase Ink Bold 5X cat. multiplier when all of the Visa debit cards are out of stock online? I liked buying them online because I could load up on 5 per transaction and I'd rather not have to hunt them down at the store since they always have to call a manager over to verify my info.

travelfreaks

One of the best new threads we have seen in awhile...congrats

Don't think this even needs saying, but you have 2 choices....wait until they available online again OR go to the store

suncityguy

Is something changing at Staples? I know the $200 VGCs sometimes go out of stock, but when I tried to order some $100 VGCs just to see if they had pulled those too, I got an alert saying that we are limited to 3 cards per transaction. This is not good news, I'm used to buying 9 per transaction.

JetSetDave

Same result (3 cards) here when I checked a few minutes ago. The $200 VGC don't even show up online, even as out of stock. Appears to me that Staples has changed the game, sad for Ink UR folks.

pkerr

Yep. It's all over. They cleared out their inventory with that big sale and they shall no longer, ever again, not anytime soon, carry gift cards.

Time to head over to the US Mint and start buying coins again.

coffee18

What we know so far on staples.com:

- $200 Visa CCs are labeled as out of stock, and priced as $999,999.99. It also says discontinued if you try to add to cart.
- Went to one Staples for lunch and $200/cc's are still plentiful for now.

Will just have to wait to see how this plays out.

suncityguy

Yup looks like they're gone for good. Just read a past thread from April from someone that was told they were being discontinued, and now they have been taken off the website completely. Looks like the max denomination online and soon in stores will be $100. Time to adjust... I earned 500k points from Staples alone last year.

nitrousfiz

I have a pending order from July 7, 2015 with Staples for 5x$200 VGCs. This morning I got this email -

"We value every order we receive and apologize with the utmost sincerity for this delay. If needed, a customer support representative will contact you for further information.

If you would like us to continue processing your order, no action is required on your part."

May be they are temporarily out of stock. Or maybe they are gone forever. We'll have to wait and see...

sosamo

I was at my local Staples in So Call. Had about 10-15 $200 VGC (new design, blue sparkley cover). Picked up 8x. Maybe they are just discontinued online, but not in the store.

sosamo

Just curious. I just did some calculations....and buying $200 VGC with Ink, doesn't seem that lucrative.

Each VGC has a fee of $6.95. So $6.95 x 5 = $34.75 in fees for $1000.00. So 5000 UR points for $34.75 in fee. I know UR points are worth more than 1cent. But let's just say they are worth 1 cent. You'll be making less than 2%.

Am I calculating it wrong? Or do I have to take in account that UR points are worth at least 1.5cent?

azcoyote

All depends on your intended use. I've got a great cat-1 Hyatt Place near where I visit frequently that is 5000 pts per night. I don't have to blink twice to be able to stay there at the drop of a hat for $35 of VGC fees and no tax. Add in that I can do a one way short hop on AA or US to get there for 4,500 avios and I'm a fan!

GatorBlues

Your paying less than $0.007 per point. Your cashing them in for at least $0.010 per point. That's a much higher return than 2%. It's not nearly as rich as the days when VRs were sold at the office stores, but it's not bad.

wp3026557

Hope it comes back soon..

suncityguy

It was well worth it for me because I didn't have to go into a store since they shipped them to my house, and I work next door to a WM so it only took me a total of 13 minutes to cash out 9 cards each time I received a shipment. For every 9 cards I made about $30 in statement credit, so the idea that I was getting paid over $100 per hour for doing this "job" was more than enough motivation for me.

Of course, mostly I used the points on Southwest where they were usually redeemed for close to 2 cents per point. Got a much higher value out of them when I booked a first class ticket to Europe last month. I got about 17 cents per point on that transaction.

Well, it doesn't look good, but I do have a little bit of hope now after reading the email above. Maybe they are waiting to get the brand new packaging in stock before they start taking orders again. I was totally shocked by this thread since I just bought 9 cards last Sunday and I received the order a couple of days ago.

Preacher7

Absolutely shocked and disappointed too. Although, I did predict that something may be up when I posted during the discounted $200 GC bonanza earlier this month, wondering if this was a way of clearing out stock...