Kristen emailed the following tip:
I was recently tasked by the parents of my daughter’s class to purchase a gift card for the teacher. I was originally going to spend the $100 I had received from the parents to purchase a $100 gift card. But, then I found a discounted eGiftCard online.
The price was $79 for a $100 gift card. That’s a savings of 21%! Whoo-hoo!
I loved being able to stretch those dollars a little farther so she would have more to spend. I was able to give her a larger gift card — and only spend $100!!
I then realized, I’ve had “gift cards” filed under “gift ideas” in my brain. There is no reason I shouldn’t take advantage of these awesome deals, too! Also, I generally plan a least a day ahead when/where our family is going to eat out, and I know when I am going to go to a particular store to shop. Why not purchase an egift card and save that 5-20% right off the top?
So, I searched for stores/restaurants that I regularly shop at…almost all of them were there, with substantial savings!
Discount Gift Card sites have gift cards for Starbucks, Home Depot, Target and many more! The AMC Cards are 20% off, at the time of this post. That’s an awesome bargain, because last I checked, movie theaters weren’t offering sales!
From now on, I am doing no shopping or eating out until I find out if they have a gift card online.
A Few Discounted Gift Card Sites
GCSPREAD :: GCSpread offers both printable vouchers and actual gift cards, so you just need to be aware which kind you are purchasing. Especially, if you are in a time crunch and waiting for the mail is not acceptable.
CARDPOOL :: This is a really popular site and is user-friendly. You may purchase physical or eGiftCards on this site. The turnaround for an electronic voucher is approx. 1 day.
GIFT CARD BIN :: This is probably the biggest seller of discounted gift cards out there. They have an amazing variety of cards with great deals.
GIFT CARD GRANNY :: Not as huge a selection as Cardpool, but great deals.
RAISE :: This site looks sharp, and the nice thing about this site is they also offer an app, so you can purchase your eGiftCard from your phone. Remember, it can take 24 hours to receive your electronic voucher or egift, so you can’t purchase the voucher moments before making a purchase. I would say the discounts are not as deep as they are on GCSpread or Cardpool.
EBAY :: There are people on Ebay who sell discounted gift cards. I did a quick search and a few deals popped up, such as a $100 gift card for $88. But, there were also sellers listing Target gift cards for the same amount as the gift card was worth + shipping. I have no idea why anyone would purchase this. Just be aware of what you are purchasing and make sure it is from a reputable seller. The downside for me would be wasting my time searching (& bidding) on Ebay when I could go to a dedicated discount gift card site, do a quick search and purchase immediately.
I have been using cardcookie.com & saved 7% on Walmart & they have 15% off Starbucks! First time you have to verify you DL or ID after that you can just purchase & I got the e-cards in just 5 mins or less after the confirmation email! I bought from them 3x now. So far so good 😊
Thanks for that tip! -Meg, MSM Team
Never, ever, buy from cardcash.com. 3 out of the 5 cards that I purchased are fraudulent and they are not willing to reimburse me for one and I am out $74! I was hoping to get my money back through PayPal as that is what I used to pay for them, but they also recognize it as a fraudulent company (did not know this before purchasing) and closed the case due to their “Acceptable Use Policy” and CardCash.com falls under the category of “Prohibited Activities”.
Do not take the risk and buy from them, this company has MANY complaints of fraud that are posted on various websites.
Oh, wow! Thanks for letting us know. -Meg, MSM Team
Great tips! I recently bought Lowe’s gift cards for house projects from Cardpool. I bought them as egift cards (they emailed me the codes), but Lowe’s stopped accepting the egift cards because they had a problem with fraud. I contacted Cardpool customer service and they were able to send me the physical gift cards. I was impressed with their quick customer service!
Thank you so much! This is a great way for me to stretch my dollars at Starbucks when I want to treat myself…and I can even transfer the gift card to my card so I can get rewards!
And we are also putting up a backsplash in the kitchen, I was trying to think of ways to make the material cost cheaper for Lowes and this is it!! Not only are the tiles on sale right now but now I can save another 18% with raise.com!!
I wanted to add a couple of points. First, Giftcardgranny is an aggregator. It lists various sites, including Cardpool. So, it might be the best place to start and see what’s available from various resellers. Another thing to add (and it was mentioned in the comments) is to pay attention to their guarantee policy and make sure the cards are used up within that time frame. There’s are a lot of scams going around. I bought a Wendys gift card and the value of it was erased a month later. Apparently, it was bought with a stolen credit card, then resold, and someone has contacted Wendys and they made sure the card had no value. This happens all the time. I still buy gift cards at a discount, but I make sure not to purchase large amounts. I also plan to spend it all in a near future. Some of these resellers don’t even have a phone number and you have to deal with them via email, a huge nuisance. Overall, I don’t recommend you buy these cards with a purpose of giving them as a gift. Too much can go wrong, and sometimes people won’t tell you about it.
I recently used Raise.com to save at buybuyBaby. I got an email from Raise offering an extra 5% off even. I had no problems redeeming the cards in store and the print outs looked like the other normal gift card print outs I had. This was a great way to save some money on a carseat that NEVER goes on sale and is excluded from coupons.
Cardpool also guarantees their cards for at least 100 days. I have used them many times for both physical and electronic cards without any problems.
I’ve heard that some of these websites are not reliable and the gift card that you get doesn’t work. How do we know which ones are reliable and which are not?
I have also read that on reviews about some of the web sites but I use cardcash.com. They fixed a problem I had with a card. I’m surprised they are not on this list.
Raise guarantees all of their transactions, so that might be one to consider.
I checked reviews on the gift card websites and found several reviews stating that the gift card received had no value and that customer service was terrible. This was not for every site but it makes me very hesitant. Does anyone else have the same concerns ?
I use cardcash.com. I buy Kroger, Wal-Mart, gas, and restaurants there. I just bought a CVS one. I like to buy my eggs and milk there.
Sadly, I can never find discounted Popeye’s Chicken gift cards.
Great idea. We are always needing things from Home Depot and this is a great way to save some money on our home improvement projects!
Great tip in the article, but the details make it sound like someone collected $100 for the purpose of giving a gift and then only gave a $79 gift. Maybe clarify what happened there or leave the numbers out? It sounds like skimming money from others was going on here, but I’m sure that’s not the case that is being advocated or the intention! Maybe just a little re-wording would clear that up.
She said, “I loved being able to stretch those dollars a little farther so she would have more to spend. I was able to give her a larger gift card — and only spend $100!!”
So she spent all $100 that she collected and gave the teacher at gift card for more than $100.
The same thought came to my mind as well. Hopefully the $21 difference was used to purchase something else for the teacher such as classroom supplies or a second gift card.
I fixed that in the post so it wasn’t confusing. Thanks for catching that!
Oops! You can erase my last post. I went back & reread the original article & saw that she bought the teacher a larger giftcard with the savings. (: My bad!