Did you get a lot of gift cards for Christmas? Would you rather have cash? Would you rather have a card for another store? Richard O. Johnson at the fascinating Beyond Barter has created a page highlighting smart gift card strategies: how to best acquire or dispose of them.
This page offers a wealth of sound, practical tips about gift cards, including information on:
- Why you should beware of bank gift cards
- Gift card traps
- Best and worst deals
- How to buy a gift card at below face value
- How to dispose of a gift card you don’t want
The author lists four web sites where you can buy and sell gift cards: Craigslist, Cardavenue, Gift Card Buy Back, and Swapagift.com. This is a handy little page, one that I’ve had bookmarked for the past year.
[The Skill Pool: Gift card strategies: how to best acquire and dispose of them]
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Right on… I’d much rather have cash to put towards debt than this Express gift card
Thanks, JD. Hope you had a great holiday!
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I’ve generally stopped giving gift cards (except to my secretary and she has a favorite store at which she shops at regularly) and have switched to giving personal checks to my nephew and niece and god-daughter. Older kids like the money to spend as they please or to put towards a larger goal like a bike, car or college. I also gave my niece and nephew personal finance books (written for kids/teens) to hopefully get them thinking about compound interest, IRAs and saving for college. I have been giving checks instead of cash in the hopes that when they are at the bank they might deposit some of the money into a savings account.
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I don’t like gift cards to start with. The worse gift cards in my opinion are the gift cards that devalue because a fee is taken from the card every month.
So I rather receive cash or a thoughtful gift.
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I like receiving gift cards, that way I get a surprise and hunt for something to buy at places I might seldom visit. I am very frugal with my own money, so spending money on luxury items may be scarce, so a gift card comes in handy.
There are some people I give gift cards away, namely because they are fussy and dont appreciate gifts that you give. For those who appreciate gifts, I go great lengths to get something and usually that is fun and rewarding….they truly appreciate that.
How would you know if your gift is appreciated? Watch their reaction on general gifts they receive from others…if they always complain or recycle…then gift cards are the best for these type of people.
For those who take the trouble to call and thank you personally or write a card, then these are the ones who appreciate any gift…
So this is my general concept of gift cards and how I love getting them…or how I give them away!
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Many charities will accept Gift Cards as donations. Instead of letting it sit there, donate it to a worthy cause.
You’ll be helping someone, and a great tax deduction as well.
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If you cannot barter, go sell them on Ebay. You usually can get over 90% of the value for them.
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I usually dump unwanted giftcards on eBay. I list them for $5-$10 less than face value and free shipping (it can fit in a regular 41 cent envelope). They usually get picked up pretty quick. People aren’t dumb – if they shop at that store frequently they’ll scarf up even a $5 discount.
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I sometimes regift unwanted gift cards (I get a lot for Starbucks or Jamba Juiced, both of which I never go to); however, a lot I actually do use. I’m also a big -giver- of gift cards…
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Ryan
http://uncommon-cents.net/
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Ummmm, so is there any way to get full cash value for gift cards you don’t want? We got a card for a store which we could probably use, but my wife and I’d much rather have cash to apply toward something else. But it makes me mad to think that I need to lose some percentage of that just to get it into cash. That’s bull. Is there no method to buying merchandise with the cards and then returning the merchandise and having it applied to a credit card or cash rather than back to a store credit??
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[...] wrote a very timely post on how to buy and sell those pesky gift cards you may have received over the [...]
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Willie and KC,
Thanks for the advice – I recently got married and received tons of gift cards. We received everything on our registry but are saddled with debt from paying for the wedding, so we’ve been racking our brains trying to convert these gift cards into cash. At first we tried buying items with the gift cards, then returning those, but you can only get store credit if you’ve bought an item with a gift card – so that strategy doesn’t work.
I think what we’ll do is simply list the gift cards on eBay, but first we’ll have to buy one item with all our gift cards for a store (we have 6 for some stores), and then return it so we have ONE gift card and won’t lose that much on transaction costs. If we only lose $10 on each gift card, that’s not too bad – and we can make a dent in the leftover debt!
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Found a great new site that buys back gift cards at a higher price than most and I received my money quickly; they deposited it directly into my paypal account. Extremely easy to use.
Enjoy!
http://www.dogpawgiftcards.com
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Can I buy a gift card with store credit?
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Store like Home Depot will not allow buying a gift card with store credit. It is maybe due to preventing stolen items being return for store credit and then crooks buy gift cards and resell on CL or ebay. They rather have you buy actual merchandises than low margin gift cards perhaps?
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