Why You Should Redeem Universal Gift Cards for Amazon Gift Cards
I got a gift card the other day – one of those $ 100 Visa cards. I have been using it for an hour. I didn’t buy a new device or a bunch of Overwatch loot boxes ; I used it to buy another gift card.
Listen to me. I swap out universal gift cards for store-specific gift cards because I can often get an even better deal, better deal, or an easier experience converting them. (While I tend to buy Amazon gift cards, you can find gift cards from just about any major retailer. Take your pick.)
Get more money by purchasing a gift card with a gift card
There are many gift card offers on the internet. For example, I usually buy an Amazon gift card when I stumble across one of those ” get $ 30 for $ 60 on Amazon ” deals that American Express sometimes has. Who doesn’t like the free $ 30?
Otherwise, I constantly see gift card offers on my favorite tracking websites for things like Slickdeals , Doctor of Credit, and The Inventory . You are not going to get rich off a regular deal, but you can, say, buy a $ 100 gift card from one of your favorite stores for $ 87.50 or something meager but not terrible.
Considering it only takes you a few minutes to use one gift card to buy another (with the deal attached), you’re fine if you extrapolate your little savings to an hourly rate. At least that’s how I justify it. Free money never hurts.
Avoid Silly and Arbitrary Gift Card Fees
The particular Visa gift card I received did not come with any annoying fees, such as the “we will charge you a small amount and charge the balance every month after the first year” inactivity fee, which is common with some cards . If a gift card lying on your desk or burning a hole in your wallet has a fee – and this should be shown on the card, if not on its issuer website – then there is no reason to keep it with you. Use it to buy things.
If you’re not ready to buy things, buy a free gift card from the store where you usually shop. And if that retailer wants to charge you a fee to buy a gift card, you can instead send yourself an e-gift card and add that amount to your account with the specified retailer. This balance should never expire, but you’ll want to check that out as well, just in case.
Storing leftovers on retailer’s websites makes shopping easier.
As I mentioned, some retailers allow you to enter one of their gift cards and add that amount to the digital balance associated with your account. In other words, you can now shop how you want – all over Amazon, for example – and you don’t have to worry about finding your physical (or digital) card, entering your number, fiddling around to find your real credit card when you understand that you have run out of gift card balance, etc.
Honestly, you won’t save a ton of time by adding the value of a gift card to your account. And I found that it makes me think of this amount as “free money” rather than “someone gave me a gift card to pay me for something,” which increases the likelihood that I I will be doing retail therapy. I would rather have a balance that can be used on a website or in an app than a physical card, so it makes sense to transfer the universal gift card to a specific seller.
Plus, losing your account balance is much more difficult than losing your physical card. And you will feel pretty stupid if you have to pay money to replace the card so that you can spend whatever is left on it.