Buying Whole Foods Gift cards at a discount

(update - Cartera has wised up and has stopped paying out miles for e-gift cards at Staples)

It's easy to make fun of Whole Foods Market, which really doesn't do anything to shed its nickname of Whole Paycheck.  What makes it worse is that they often say and do things that make it clear that they themselves think they're overpriced, whether it's launching a new store with lower prices (um, how about just lowering prices in your current stores?) or just admitting to Wall Street that its prices are too high (oops).

So how to justify shopping there?  How about getting a discount on gift cards?

• Easy: You might have a special credit card that rebates you 5% or even 6% on groceries.  Best bet?  Perhaps the Amex Blue Cash Preferred card, which pays you back 6% on the first $6,000 at any grocer.
• Harder: Maybe combine that credit card with the "auto-reload" feature on its gift cards, which promise 10% back on your first reload with diminishing returns on subsequent loads.
• Hardest: The best discount is to acquire frequent flier miles by buying e-gift cards at Staples.  Each mile should be worth 1.5 to 2 cents (providing you can find a seat).

How does that work?  Well, Staples advertises through several shopping portals, including many of the airline shopping portals that are run by Cartera such as Alaska's, United's, American's, and Southwest's.  Physical gift cards don't earn miles, but e-gift cards usually do from Cartera portals despite terms that say they aren't supposed to.  So, combine the following 3 discounts:

1. Credit card: Chase's Ink card gives you 5 Ultimate rewards points per dollar spent at Staples.
2. Airline shopping portal: Earn 2-5 miles back (look for frequent earning bonuses by checking out Cashback Monitor).  Hint: United is offering 4 miles back right now.
3. Airline shopping portal bonus: During certain times of the year, the above portals pay out bonuses for hitting a certain amount of spending through their portal.  That is an additional 2-4 miles per dollar.  Right now, for the back-to-school shopping season, many Cartera portals are offering bonuses including: United, American, Southwest!

The haul?  5 + 4-ish + 4-ish = ~13 miles per dollar you spend at Whole Foods.  That should be worth at least 1.5 cents per mile, or ~20% back in airline travel for every dollar you spend at Whole Foods!

And it doesn't end there...how about other e-gift cards?  Why not EARN 13 MILES PER DOLLAR ON EVERYTHING YOU BUY!  Staples carries e-gift cards from:

• Target
• eBay
• Home Depot
• Lowes
• Gamestop (if you find a store that does it, you can buy Amazon gift cards with these!)
• ...