Ready
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Every time I walk into a store I see more and more promotions to buy gift cards. Just go into a local supermarket and they have an entire wall dedicated to gift cards that can be used at just about every retail store and restaurant in the area. Sometimes these displays have more than 100 gift cards available. It always makes me wonder, who actually buys these things?
If you could buy a $100 gift card for the Cheesecake Factory for $100, what is the purpose in doing so? Why wouldn't you rather have $100 in cash that can be used anywhere, rather than $100 that limits you to one restaurant? I suppose for people who need to give a gift and can't think of anything better, a gift card is an alternative to giving cash, but it still seems like a very foolish ritual.
I did receive an email promotion from one of my favorite restaurants that offered to give me an extra $20.00 gift card with every $100 card purchased. So in effect you are getting almost a 20% discount on your purchase. Since I regularly eat at this restaurant anyway, this seems like an intelligent purchase to me.
I also like to look through the gift cards they have at Costco. Generally they sell $100 gift cards for $79.99, and sometimes they are discounted down to $69.99. If it's a store or restaurant I would use anyway, getting 20% off makes great sense to me.
And occasionally I've had credit cards over the years that offered gift cards once certain points are earned. I've since got rid of all of those cards and stick with the Fidelity AMEX card, which gives me a flat 2% back on all purchases with no annual fee. The typical AMEX card gives you 1% or less worth of points toward gift cards, and often has an annual fee, so I've never understood why anyone uses those cards.
How do other people make use of gift cards? Has anyone paid more than the value of the card, due to shipping or processing fees?
If you could buy a $100 gift card for the Cheesecake Factory for $100, what is the purpose in doing so? Why wouldn't you rather have $100 in cash that can be used anywhere, rather than $100 that limits you to one restaurant? I suppose for people who need to give a gift and can't think of anything better, a gift card is an alternative to giving cash, but it still seems like a very foolish ritual.
I did receive an email promotion from one of my favorite restaurants that offered to give me an extra $20.00 gift card with every $100 card purchased. So in effect you are getting almost a 20% discount on your purchase. Since I regularly eat at this restaurant anyway, this seems like an intelligent purchase to me.
I also like to look through the gift cards they have at Costco. Generally they sell $100 gift cards for $79.99, and sometimes they are discounted down to $69.99. If it's a store or restaurant I would use anyway, getting 20% off makes great sense to me.
And occasionally I've had credit cards over the years that offered gift cards once certain points are earned. I've since got rid of all of those cards and stick with the Fidelity AMEX card, which gives me a flat 2% back on all purchases with no annual fee. The typical AMEX card gives you 1% or less worth of points toward gift cards, and often has an annual fee, so I've never understood why anyone uses those cards.
How do other people make use of gift cards? Has anyone paid more than the value of the card, due to shipping or processing fees?