Did you give or receive a gift card this Christmas? I did. I both got and gave them. I personally love getting gift cards. It’s guilt-free money to spend on whatever you want, when you want it. So, I was shocked to find out that $750 million in gift cards will go UNUSED this year. That’s just one year. More than $41 BILLION went unused between 2005 and 2011. HOLE.LEE.CRACKERS PEOPLE.
According to GiftCardGranny.com, two-thirds of Americans have purchased a gift card for someone before. They are the MOST requested holiday gift–with places like Walmart, Target, and Amazon coming in at most requested. If most people are buying them, and they are the most requested gift, who are these people who aren’t using their gift cards?! I hoard mine, I’ll admit, until I can settle on something I reaallly, reaallly want, but even then, they never last me a whole year. Maybe people are getting them to locations they just don’t shop at all? Or maybe the amount they were gifted means they will have to spend gobs of money out of pocket too to get anything?
While The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 ensured gift cards can’t legally lose their value for 5 years after the date of purchase, it did give companies the right to start charging a fee for unused gift cards after one year of dormancy. So, rather than let the fees start to diminish the value of a card you can’t put to use, or worse, wait out the five years until it’s worth nothing, why not sell it for the cash? Sites like PlasticJungle.com, Cardpool.com, and GiftCardGranny.com will buy your unused cards–not for full value, but still, at least not all will be lost. Some airlines will even let you trade your unused cards in toward miles {United’s MileagePlus Gift Card Exchange program}.
In addition to your cards going unused, watch out for potential scammers. Apparently, it’s a thing for people to go in and take pictures of un-purchased gift cards, then lay in wait until they are activated and get to spending them online before the recipient even knows what hit them. Seriously, why can’t people use that kind of ingenuity for something more positive, like world peace or free chocolate for everyone?
Have you ever gotten a gift card you didn’t use? What stopped you from using it?
~Mavis
Terri S says
Gift cards are my favorite! I prefer to receive them over anything else. I love to give them too. I try to pick a store I know the recipient would use. (Our nephew runs iron man races. We buy him a gift card to the store he buys his running shoes from).
Carmen says
I’ve probably only received gift cards twice, to Costa coffee, which I love. I’d be very happy to receive more but don’t gift many myself, mainly because my husband & teenagers think they are an absolute cop out gift choice.
I have received vouchers a few times (4?) to salons for beauty, massage or nail treatments that I have never used because I really don’t like that kind of thing. The last time I planned to spend it on products instead (face cream & nail polish, which could always be used as gifts) but the salon had closed down before my year’s expiry was up! Because of this, I would never recommend a beauty treatment as a generic gift, although I am aware most women probably love them.
Kirsten G says
I like gift cards that you can use at multiple stores or restaurants. I do spend some time thinking about what I’m going to buy with a gift card. I don’t just want to buy something that I might not end up using.
Marcia says
Yes, I’ve gotten some that I didn’t use. Well, they were certificates.
Back in 1997, I did an emergency babysit for my friend. Her daughter was around 3, and her babysitter ditched her 2 hours before she and her husband were headed to the Inaugural Ball (she was friends with the Gores).
I filled in, even though it was a worknight and they didn’t get home till after midnight! She gave me a gift certificate to Ann Taylor, which I finally threw out last year. I never really shopped there.
We do get gift certificates to Sears (for jeans for the boys) and Amazon (that we use for…books, toys, movies). These we use when we remember.
I did have a B&N gift card go partly unused because the store closed.
These days I tend to give Amazon, Southwest (for my MIL to visit), or just plain Visa.
Julie says
We have several unused gift cards that are mostly for franchise restaurants. We rarely visit those kinds of places, and the value of the gift cards usually cover only one meal.
One Christmas we received a gift card to a performing arts venue. That card bought one ticket; the other two family members we had to pay for. And the venue is several hours from our home. We ended up spending close to $200 for additional tickets, meals, and hotel just so we wouldn’t let a $50 gift card go to waste.
jfred says
We’ve given away gift cards we’ve received to others before. We got $50 to a restaurant we dislike. It happens to be my MIL’s fave restaurant, so she got spoiled! 😉 I’ve gotten a couple of gc’s to stores we didn’t have in our area. I ended up using one of them when we traveled….the city we were in had the store. My kids get gc’s for different holidays, which is fun. But sometimes I end up “buying” their leftover $1-2, cause there’s nothing inexpensive enough for them to spend that last bit on.
We received a ton of gc’s to walmart when we had our kids….and while it was lovely….there was only so much baby stuff I wanted from wm (yes, I know, free diapers….but we had other baby needs, too). I ended up using several of them for groceries, and using the $ from our grocery budget to buy for the babies at other stores. I think we received target gc’s then….and the closest target then was over an hour and a half away.
Truthfully, I’d prefer cash!!
Barb says
I just saw that Coinstar has some machines that will give you cash for gift cards. I’m sure it’s not an even exchange, but it might be worth looking into as an option for a gift card you might not want and don’t want to deal with selling it to one of the websites you mentioned.
Deborah from FL says
This is true. I take the loose change I collect to my local Cointstar and turn it into Amazon credit. No loss to do this. And my son recently pointed out that you can also put bills into the machine. I learned this little trick at this site, by the way. 🙂
Lisa Millar says
When I was running a retail shop we offered gift vouchers and I was pretty surprised at the value of $$ that didn’t come back to be claimed. We were only a small business, but there was between 500 & 1000 dollars of unclaimed vouchers at the time we sold the shop and moved on. I think for about 12 months we kept in touch with new owner and honoured late claims. Bit of a pain tho 🙂
The gift cards we usually get or give is to a DIY place which has a million different things for sale or an ABC shop for books/dvds etc. Both these shops are pretty easily accessible to both us and whoever we are giving the cards to.
I like GC’s as you have to use it for something specific – cash has the danger of just going on something ordinary like groceries – and while that is useful, its fun to shop for something you want rather than need.
Cass says
I have gift cards I haven’t used. Why? Cuz I put them back in the envelope, put the envelope someplace and forget about them. When cleaning for THIS holiday season I found over $100 in gift cards from last year’s Christmas. I am going to put them in my pocket and USE THEM. It’s free money, after all. Even if I use them to buy yarn to make gifts for next year….at least I will have used them.
Daniel says
My Wife was heading out shopping and kindly asked if She could pick something up for me. I asked Her to buy me 2 gift cards for Family members for Our gift exchange. A well known credit card, gift cards, I requested. So they can spend it anywhere, on anything. She came home and said that the cards I requested, were $5, in addition to what you want the value of the card to be. So, She didn’t get them. I gave cash……….to spend anywhere on anything……….still to this day, cash is king