Over the years, I’ve given away several gift cards to relatives, friends, associates, and others for various reasons. And I’ve also accepted countless gift cards from people that lay useless in my office drawer because I had no apparent use for them. That’s until someone showed me ways to sell unwanted gift cards.

That brings us to the question, why would I sell gift cards?

Obviously- for some extra cash! And to do justice to all those folk that spent their money on sending or giving me one. With the cash, I can buy something really useful or do something that I wish.

But let’s look at the reasons why you can sell unwanted gift cards.

Ways to Sell Your Unwanted Gift Cards

Photo by Bruce Mars – Pexels

Reasons to Sell Unwanted Gift Cards

As I said, there’re several reasons why people sell gift cards.

• Urgent need for cash when there’s no other source.
• You aren’t shopping, dining or using that store anymore for any reason.
• You’ll have to travel far to buy something with the gift card.
• The gift card is nearing expiry date and you’re unable to use it for whatever reasons.
• To collect money on a single card rather than have different cards for shopping.

However, selling unwanted gift cards isn’t as simple as you may believe. Companies and stores aren’t exactly waiting to pay out cash.

Types of Cards You Can Sell

There are different types of cards you can sell and some you can’t. Hence, let’s first look at what sells and how much money you can get.

Usually, it’s very easy to sell cards from grocery stores, Amazon and fuel companies. These 10 gift cards will fetch you over 89 percent of their face value.

• Target
• Walmart
• Safeway
• Speedway
• Best Buy
• ARCO
• BP
• Shell
• SUNOCO
• Chevron

Most popular cards such as iTunes won’t really get you that much: they sell for only about 65 percent of the value if you’re lucky. Meaning, an iTunes card worth $10 will sell for only $6.5, if not lesser.

The other way to sell your cards is to your relatives or friends, who frequent a specific place that accepts the card.

Target: Your Best Bet

If there’s a Target store in your vicinity, you’re in for some good luck. Kiosks at Target generally accept gift cards from popular restaurants and stores. You won’t get cash for these. Instead, Target will give you a shopping card worth the value of your sale.

Obviously, you won’t get the full face value of your cards. Yet, you can get up to 90 percent of their cost. Target accepts cards from nearly 150 different stores and restaurants.

Furthermore, Cardpool has kiosks at several Target stores across America. You can get cash or a Target shopping card for your gift cards.

Safe Way: Another Way

Cardpool also operates kiosks at selected Safe Way stores in the country. You can take all your gift cards and sell them right away to get instant cash. Or sell your gift cards in exchange for a Safe Way shopping card.

Taking a Safe Way card can prove useful since Cardpool will give a better, higher value for your gift cards. Taking instant cash means you might get a slightly lower amount of money. Use this method if you’re going to shop at Safe Way.

Sell Your Gift Cards Online

If you wish to remain discreet or don’t have time to visit stores and sell unwanted gift cards for cash, you can do so online too.

Here are some major online gift card resellers you could contact.

• Cardpool (website and app): This is the single largest website for selling unwanted gift cards.
• Giftcards (website and app): Offers excellent value for money when you sell your gift cards online.
• Card Kangaroo: This website also has a card exchange program. Meaning, you can get cards for a store or restaurant you want.
• Gift Card Bin: Buys unwanted gift cards for cash from most major stores, restaurants and other merchants. They pay well too.

Gift Cards That Don’t Sell

Before you go about selling gift cards for cash, it’s better to know about those that don’t sell too. It can help save your time, money, effort and avoid unnecessary disappointment.

• Visa and Mastercard Gift Cards: You’ll find no takers for them since they have a wide acceptance. And even if you find a buyer, the money you get would be very less to justify the sale.
• Local Gift Cards: Unless you can sell these locally, there’ll be no takers for local gift cards or those valid at a specific outlet at a certain location only.
• Restricted Gift Cards: These are gift cards where the issuing outlet or merchant has placed certain restrictions such as periods when they can’t be used, limitation of what people can buy or validity for a specific store only.
• Gift Cards Linked to Bank Accounts: These cards aren’t accepted anywhere.
• Cards with Short Expiry: It might be possible to sell very limited cards with short expiry. Else you’ll have to use them yourself or gift away.
• Cards with Low Balance: Generally, gift cards of less than $5 value are hard to sell online and offline. Most card resellers will buy a gift card that’s at least worth $15.
• Partially Used Cards; There’re some gift cards that allow you to shop worth a small amount while the balance is carried forward. You can’t sell these too.
• Cards that are of different dimensions and don’t fit into machines, cards with tear-away section and those that don’t meet buyer specifications won’t sell either.

You can also read some tips on selling gift cards for cash before you embark on the venture. As I mentioned earlier, it can save you money, time and effort as well as disappointment.

Other Uses of Gift Cards

In case you’re unable to sell your gift card, I’ll suggest you give them away to some charity.

Instead of the money going waste, a charity might be able to put it to good use. You’ll definitely find a charity nearer home that would happily accept your cards as a donation.

Additionally, if you’re a regular donor to some worthy cause, find if they’ll accept gift cards instead of cash. That way, you save cash, donate and don’t have the hassle of selling your gift card online or offline.

Conclusion

It’s fairly easy to sell gift cards. However, beware of frauds.

The Federal government warns of various frauds and scams that lure unsuspecting Americans to sell their gift cards. Instead of getting money, they end up paying.

And in worse cases, criminals steal their identity and other important details such as bank account, credit and debit card as well as social security number.

Hence, make sure you’re selling your gift card only to legit companies.