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Today I’m here to talk to you about free money, and you all know how I feel about free money.
There are lots of ways to make and save money online and buying discounted gift cards is something you might never have considered.
Note: You can also sell gift cards online if you receive some you won’t ever use. Looking at you, JCPenney and The Children’s Place. But I’m here to talk about buying.
What are discounted gift cards?
Just that. They’re gift cards that other people won’t use, so they sell them online at a discounted rate. You get to take advantage of their loss and scoop up the savings by buying gift cards people don’t want.
How do they work?
We use Raise, CardCash, and TopCashBack. All are free and easy to use, and take less than 30 seconds to sign up!
Go through the site of your choice (or all three to find the best deal), and search for the store you’d like a gift card from. One quick search found a $100 Chipotle gift card for $90.84. That’s a 9.2% discount! There are Amazon, Walmart, and Target gift cards for 3-4% off. REI up to 9% off. Southwest Airlines up to 6% off.
What other kinds of gift cards can I find?
Anything you could imagine, from Airbnb to Zaxby’s. You can shop baby stuff, airlines, hotels, arts and crafts, books, restaurants, clothes, shoes, toys… you name it.
What’s the usual discount?
Discounts differ, depending on the stock available and the popularity of the cards, and can be as high as 35% off. Travel and discount stores are typically < 10%, but restaurants, movie theaters, and clothing stores are often over 20%. And… individual sites often offer different promotions and sales to give you an even bigger discount.
But wait… there’s more!
You can shop through your favorite cash back portal to save even more money! At the time of writing, TopCashBack is offering 2.02%, BeFrugal 1.2%, and Rakuten and Mr. Rebates 1% cash back on discounted gift cards purchased through CardCash.
Free money on top of free money!
What’s the catch?
The only catch so far has been a $25 Darden gift card that I tried to use at Red Lobster. Red Lobster is no longer a part of Darden, so the card wouldn’t work at the restaurant. The manager tried calling the number on the card to get it to go through, and while the card was active and fully loaded, there was no way to use it at Red Lobster. Thanking us for our patience and for our patronage, the manager gave us a $25 gift card to use toward our meal, and we got to keep the original card to use somewhere else, like Olive Garden or Longhorn Steakhouse. $25 free! Woohoo!
Gift cards are either physically shipped to your home for free, or are available immediately in the form of e-gift cards, which you can download to your phone or print, if you’re a boomer.
What am I waiting for?
I don’t know! Buying discounted gift cards online is a *great way* to save on everyday purchases, and they make great graduation/baby shower/birthday/Christmas gifts too! Oh, and they’re a *super great way* to meet minimum spends on a new credit card. Meet your minimum spend now, spend your gift cards later.
They really are a no-brainer!
Happy shopping!