I’ve sat back silently and watched all the hubub about Facebook gift cards over the last couple of weeks, waiting until I had enough information to form a good opinion. If you haven’t heard, the big news is that Target will be selling Facebook gift cards. I think the reason that this is so widely […]
Archive for the ‘Tips’ Category
Penny auction sites love to tout the incredible deals that customers walk away with, but the reality is far less pleasant. For every person that gets a great deal on an item, there are tens or hundreds, possibly thousands that spend money to bid that they can’t get back. Well, their credibility has taken a […]
Even though vendors have until January to comply with the new packaging requirements for open-loop gift cards, they are required to follow some of the new rules, like no expiration before 5 years and no fees until after 12 month starting August 22nd. And like clockwork, the announcements for new and friendlier open-loop gift cards […]
My wife and I rarely pay attention to our credit card reward points and were surprised recently to find that we had over 200,000 points saved up. Because of some recent reports of banks like Chase reworking their rewards programs and heavily discounting points so they are worth only a fraction if what they were, […]
Bulk purchasing of gift cards is a common activity for businesses, to use for rewarding outstanding employees and for en-mass holiday employee gifts. Despite my frequent rant that gift cards, if misused, can be quite the thoughtless gift, I do think there are good reasons companies can use them to reward employees. But it might […]
Here is an interesting ruling that finds that state gift card laws do not apply to airline gift certificates. Specifically, the court found that California’s law against gift cards with expiration did not apply to an airline gift certificate that had a one year expiration date. Div. Four agreed with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge […]
We’ve again updated our gift card resources page, which lists every gift card secondary marketplace we’ve ever seen, and a few more sites have hit the dead pool. Mercardi: They’ve closed their doors and a message on their site recommends people go to Plastic Jungle. Update: They may have endorsed Plastic Jungle as their successor, […]
Open-loop (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover) gift cards can be very difficult to use successfully. In my last post, I discussed how some of their limitations and how to best use them for online purchases. In this post, I’ll discuss how to best use them for in-person purchases at retail establishment. If you have a […]
Just a reminder, the new gift card rules authorized by the Credit Card Reform Act of 2009 and finalized by the Federal Reserve earlier this year take effect today, August 22nd. An important exception though is that open-loop (Visa, MasterCard) gift cards requirement to have more informative packaging has been delayed until 2011, to give […]
An often overlooked positive feature of an open-loop gift card is that it has limited funds, and when used for online, or even offline, purchases, limits your exposure to fraud or other undesirable consequences. One very common such undesirable consequence are free trial subscriptions that convert into a recurring paid billing after the free trial […]
I’ve often criticized gift cards as being impersonal and not always an appropriate gift and was ever so reminded of this when I came across a gift card promotional ad recently: Visa Gift Cards make great anniversary gifts because they can be used in millions of places around the world. Give an anniversary gift card […]
The following is a guest post written by Judd Lillestrand, founder of ScripSmart, a website dedicated to simplifying gift cards. In it, he offers tips for merchants selling gift cards. The views expressed are his own. We do a lot of research on gift cards at ScripSmart. When adding a new gift card to the […]
I did a post the other day on bogus gift card websites and how to spot them. Today I was presented with another humorous example of one of these type of bogus websites which may be as benign as trying to capture eyeballs for ads or direct traffic to other affiliated sites, or could possibly […]
Best Buy sure doesn’t get open-loop gift cards. It is one thing to make a single horrendous mistake and have someone arrested when they are simply trying to use valid American Express gift cards. But hearing another story like the following one makes me think that Best Buy simply isn’t the place to use any […]
I just discovered that GiftCardRescue buys open-loop gift cards. They have been doing so since 2008, but I just noticed recently. As far as I know (and they agree) they are the only secondary gift card marketplace to offer to buy any open-loop cards. Discover cards are not included, but those are rare. They will […]
Take a look at the deal shown in the picture. That’s right, for 2x$6.49, you get the razors and a $5 gift card. This makes me wonder if the retailer knows something that most consumers don’t. I don’t think we have to look to far or think too hard to figure this one out. The […]
I’ve often promoted that cash is a better alternative gift than gift cards, and here is a way to make a statement with your cash, the Consumerist anti-gift card. Click here for the full-sized image to print out and include with your gift of cash.
MasterCard and Discover have new requirements that merchants who accept those cars support some new capabilities that could have a very beneficial effect on open-loop gift card usability. Specifically: Balance response transactions — For prepaid and gift cards, once the card has been used, the remaining account balance will be transmitted along with the authorization […]
Costco sells what are essentially gift cards, but they call them Costco Cash Cards. You can buy them with a value anywhere from $25 to $1,000. What makes them really valuable however, is that if you have a Costco cash card with any value on it whatsoever, you can shop at Costco without a membership. […]
Imagine walking through an open-air bazaar in a third world country. People are yelling at you from all sides, groping at you, making outrageous claims about how they have the best deals. Someone might attempt to pick-pocket you. Would you use your credit card at one of these merchants? Not if you were smart, as […]
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