ORLANDO, Fla. — Before you gift your next gift card this holiday season, think again. Creditcards.com reports nearly half of Americans have 21 billion dollars in unused gift cards in their wallets, desk or junk drawers, and as inflation continues to go up, their value continues goes down.
Whether it be fast food and fine dining, or clothing stores and gas stations, you can purchase a gift card for just about anything. On average, a person has $175 dollars in unspent gift cards, vouchers and store credit laying around. That’s a $61 jump from this time last year.
The easiest way to put an unused gift card to good use is to regift it. It’s a great way to save on spending during the holidays.
You can also sell them. Giftdeals.com advertises that it will get you the highest price for your gift cards. Once on the site, enter the store to see which exchange site will offer you the most money. A $100 gift card from target will fetch as much as $90.
There are also gift card exchange websites like CardCash, CardHub, Raise and Junkcard where you can trade the cards you don’t like, for ones you do.
You can try returning the gift card to the issuing retailer but they most likely will refund only 90 percent or less.
A better choice is to donate the gift card to charity. The gift card will be tax-deductible for the face amount of the card. So, if you have a combined federal and state marginal income tax rate of 35 percent, you’ll get a direct tax benefit of $35 on the donation of a $100 gift card.
Whatever you decide to do with your unwanted cards, the worst thing to do is nothing at all.
One last tip is to try using the gift card to purchase items that you can sell. Buy one of the most popular items the store sells and resell it on eBay, Amazon or Craigs List.
