There are very few of us that end the holiday season without a stack of gift cards and inevitably we end up with a few that we can’t use or don’t want.
Maybe your boss gave you a gift card to Starbucks and you aren’t a coffee drinker. Or maybe your Aunt Rita gave you a gift card to Dilllards and the closest one is 50 miles from your house. There is no reason for it go to waste though, because there are a number of ways to turn your unwanted gift card into cash.
Ebay has always been a popular way to sell gift cards, but it’s quite possible the worst way to do it….
First of all, an Ebay buyer isn’t very likely to buy your gift card for more than 80-90% of it’s value. So if you are selling a $100 gift card, you can already count on a loss of $10-$20. On top of that, you are responsible for Ebay insertion fees, an 8.5% final value fee, and a 2.9% fee to receive the money via Paypal. Yuck! Suddenly your $100 gift card is only worth $70!
An alternative is to take advantage of one of the dozens of online gift card retailers that will purchase your gift card for 90% or more if its value and it’s pretty simple to do.
All you need to do is input what gift cards you want to sell on their website and then it will compute an automatic offer that your can either accept or deny. You then mail the gift card to them and within a week or so you will receive your check or Paypal payment. Plastic Jungle has always been one of my favorite places to sell my unwanted gift cards, but I thought it would be fun to do a little experiment this year to see if they were truly the best.
To conduct my experiment I picked 6 of the leading online gift card buyers and asked for quotes on 3 different gift cards. I chose to see what they would offer me for a $25 gift card to Starbucks, a $50 gift card to Banana Republic, and a $100 gift card to Target. Here are the results:
The experiment surprised me a bit, because the winner is clearly GiftCards.com, who beat all of the competitors in the Banana Republic & Target categories. GiftCards.com only nearly lost the Starbucks category to Plastic Jungle, while the others companies were all far behind. CardBin.com and GiftCardo.com came in last in all three categories. Although, we should note that Gift Cardo seems to have the fastest payout time; most sites require that you wait 10-30 days for payment, but Gift Cardo will pay you almost instantly.
If you do decide to sell a gift card this holiday season, remember to shop around and find the best offer. Check with two or three companies before trading in your gift card. Also, look closely at their terms because many of the companies will also pay for your shipping costs.
Good luck Penny Hoarders!
Would you be a dear and Stumble this article?
Really appreciate you sharing this post.Really thank you! Awesome.
I only wanted to say thanks for your write up.
I’m new to your blog and just spent about 1 hour and Half an hour reading.
Awesome! Thanks Barbara. I’m glad you are enjoying it.
I was going to buy from Plasticjungle.com, however after reading many, many posts on their FB wall about people buying a gc then finding it not good…I opted to not go that route. It would be different if plasticjungle were refunding buyers but from all posts I read they were SOL.
I’ve used CardWoo to sell cards. You can request a package online and they send you a prepaid and trackable envelope to send them your cards.
None of these has Belks except 1, and they only pay 75% of the card value.
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Dont bother with the online junk. Check and see if there is a gift card monkey near you. they are a fairly new company but if there is one near you they will pay you cash. and they give away free gift cards during sweepstakes on facebook.com/giftcardmonkey
Maybe I should get more involved with this sort of stuff.
Giftcardo.com is another great site. Not the hassle of most of the other guys and they actually have customer support!
I sold 2 $25 cards on the giftcards.com site. They gave me $39. I elected to wait for the check. You get more money that way over the other faster options.
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I have had to do this a few times and it has been a lifesaver especially around christmas when people don’t know what to give you so they get you giftcards. I usually would rather have the cash so I just trade them in …nice source – i will try this one next time!
I realize that this article is a year old, but it’s a little misleading. I have $500 REI Gift Card that I won in a raffle and giftcard.com (and other sites) are only offering 73% of face value. Aren’t there any sights that facilitate actual trades? They all say they do, but it’s clear that they are buying and resellling (after skimming off a usurious percentage, of course).
I sold a some cards on coupontrade.com.. The customer service department actually called to verify everything over the phone- really personable people. I got 100 dollars for a 110 dollar card! So, everytime I get a gift card I dont want I sell it to them.
You may also want to try executivegiftcard.com
I sold a $50 and I got a PayPal payment of $47. Not bad. actually the best offer i got from shopping arround. best of all, I did not even have to sign up for an account or provide my financial information
Thank you for the info!
Thanks much for tips as I have a few cards to try to sell, too.