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My wife and I give gift certificates to people who give them to us. One year, we gave and received the same gift certificate to the same store for the same amount. It's a bit silly, but it's one of those obligations.
I much prefer to receive a gift card than a poorly thought out gift. If I see another candle I am sure I will lose my mind.
I buy them, but I think about the end user & where they are likely to shop. My nephew loves Old Navy so he gets an Old Navy gift card. My friends who are in perpetual renovation get Home Depot or Lowes gift cards.
This time last year we were nearly destitute. Thoughtful people gave us gift cards for groceries.
They key to gift card giving is to be sure it is to a place that the person you are giving it to is going to use it. If you are unsure you can always get a Visa gift card.
If you are unsure you can always get a Visa gift card.
I used to work at a bank where Visa gift cards were sold ... and yes, I mean "sold". There was a fee to buy the cards ($2 per card for people with accounts at our bank, $5 for everyone else). Plus we had to ask for a lot of personal information about the recipient (name & home address). Lastly, if the recipient decided they'd rather just have the cash & they took that Visa gift card to an ATM, the recipient would face ATM fees (I think $2 from Visa plus any additional potential fees from the owner of the ATM). All of this was automatically deducted from the card, of course.
The policy on the Visa gift cards may have changed, but that was definitely the policy at the bank where I worked 2 years ago. You're better off giving cash or writing a check then giving those things IMO.
The only packages, gifts, I send are for the grandchildren--2 grandchildren! They get so excited about receiving packages in the mail that that in itself is worth it. For the rest of the family we send checks. It may sound cold to some but we live 3,000 miles from my family and getting the packages ready to ship ontime and getting something they will use is hard enough. Half the time they don't even have the same stores there so returns are next to impossible. With money they can go out and get what they want or need. Until I moved so far away we did the gift buying and that was fun but for us now it's just not practical.
I just had lots of trouble using my Visa gift cards at a restaurant. Apparently, according to the Visa gift card customer service, many restaurants add 20% on to the bill in case the card doesn't go through and then the give the 20% back after a few days. So the first restaurant did add 20% (which I didn't know about and was not on the receipt) and I figure out how much was left on the card and it was declined as I had not subtracted the additional unknown 20%. So I ended up paying with my own cash and now find out why the card didn't work! I would never buy anyone a Visa gift card! Ever and restaurants should inform customers they are adding more onto the bill!
Most tyime I founhd that it was the merchant when a visa card was rejected. I always give gift cards to stores i know the person likes. ts way better than some gift they didn't want really.
On principal it seems like cash or a check simply makes more sense. But a friend has a birthday coming up and I am really tempted to get her a gift certificate to a nice local car wash. She drives a real filthy car, dirty carpets, empty bottles/cans, crumbs, misc. papers and other kinds of junk everywhere.
I used to work at a bank where Visa gift cards were sold ... and yes, I mean "sold". There was a fee to buy the cards ($2 per card for people with accounts at our bank, $5 for everyone else). Plus we had to ask for a lot of personal information about the recipient (name & home address)..
I have seen fees as high as $4.95 per card (usually AMEX and some of the larger banks) and some as little as FREE.
If you get to the bank and they want to charge you THAT much, you can always walk down to the next bank.
I only buy gift cards when there is a discount involved. For example, a local restaurant sells $125 for $100.
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