Office Max Credit Card Review | Is the Extra 3 Points Worth It?

Office Max Credit Card Review

Summary - If you get most of your office supplies from Office Max, then the Office Max Visa can help you earn more reward points (which can be used to get more Office Max stuff!). Let's find out how you can make use of this card.

Reward Formula - If you use your Office Max Card at Office Max, you can earn 8 reward points for every dollar that you spend on the card. But this requires a little explanation. You will earn 5 reward points if you are a MaxPerk member (which is their reward program), and 3 points for using the credit card. You can be a MaxPerk member without having the credit card. Hence if you just have the MaxPerk membership, you earn 5 points. Having the credit card helps you earn more points (3 extra points).

Sign Up Bonuses - After your first purchase, you will receive 1,000 MaxPerk Reward points. You can also earn triple points on gas, groceries and restaurant expenses for the first 90 days.

Fees and Rates - As is typical with most cards these days, there is no annual fee.

The closest comparison I can think is the Office Depot credit card. The Office Depot credit card allows you to earn 5% rebates. So on that front, you can say Office Max is slightly better compared to the 3% equivalent (with the help of being a MaxPerk member) in rewards. 3% rewards is also right smack in the middle of the range as far as store card rewards goes (which tend to range between 2% to 5%)
 

If you are not the sort that wants to tie yourself to a credit card that can just earn rewards at one particular store, then you will be please to not that there are other cards that allow you to earn rebates at Office Max. For example, the Discover More Card has an online shopping portal and you can get 5% rebates from shopping with officemax.com and also officedepot.com!



The Chase Freedom reward program, called the Ultimate Rewards program, also allows you to earn 5% rebates for both officemax.com and officedepot.com purchases.


 

Verdict -One of the strong points about this card is that if you are a member of the MaxPerk rewards program, you can earn an extra 3 points (total of 8 points) with this card when you shop at Office Max. You do have to spend a lot at Office Max to make getting this card worthwhile. Some Maxperk members may just be happy earning 5 points without this card (and that is fine as well). If you find that you are purchasing your supplies online, then perhaps the Discover More Card or the Chase Freedom might be a better fit because they both let you get 5% rebates (and they both allow you to earn 5% rebates at officedepot.com as well!)

Small business owners can also consider the SimplyCash Business Card, which allows you to earn 5% rebates from office supply purchases at any office supply stores. Their best little secret is that ou can actually get approved for this card just based on your Federal TIN number.