It’s no secret that for many of us times are tight. The national average price for a gallon of gas is right around $4, and U.S. consumers incurred nearly $48 billion in new credit card debt last year alone, which is 424 percent more than in 2010. Since you are therefore probably looking for ways to save, one interesting option to keep in mind is selling gift cards for cash.
I’m sure that we all have a few old gift cards laying around (whether we know it or not), seeing as they’ve been the most popular type of present for five straight holiday seasons, according to Consumer Reports, and the research firm TowerGroup estimates that over $41 billion in gift cards have gone unredeemed since 2005. Getting up to 95 cents on the dollar for them in cash could therefore certainly help make ends meet, which is where an online gift card exchange enters the equation.
Gift Card Exchanges
You can think of a good gift card exchange as being like an eBay for gift cards. In other words, you can list for sale any gift card, regardless of denomination or store affiliation, for whatever price you want. You’ll either get an offer right away from a respected gift card company or the sale will be opened up to the community at large, which is where the bidding aspect could come into play (people love to haggle).
Before you list your card for sale, however, make sure you cannot re-gift it to someone else. In doing so, be careful to avoid giving a gift for the sake of giving a gift because we all seem to undervalue plastic for one reason or another.
It’s also important to point out that if you can sell gift cards online, it figures you can buy ’em too. Given that savings of 5-30% are attainable, depending on the popularity of the particular card you’re after, buying discounted gift cards can be a good way to save on everyday purchases.
Other Things to Note
• Expiration rules: As of August 2010, a gift card’s funds cannot expire before five years’ time, which means some of the gift cards you might’ve assumed to be worthless by now actually are not.
• New disclosures: When buying a new gift card, you might be worried about seeing your funds get eaten away by fees, but all gift cards are required to have clearly listed fee disclosures as of January 1, 2011, which will tell you precisely what to watch out for, if anything.
When all is said and done gift cards aren’t going to provide a windfall, but when you consider that the average household has around $300 in unused cards just laying around, they can certainly help as prices at the pump rise and/or you work to pay down existing debt. Just make sure to think of them as cash, instead of adopting the play-money mentality that many of us fall victim to.
Author: Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of Card Hub, a leading online marketplace for gift cards, prepaid cards, and the best credit card deals.
