Amex Gift Cards

[luvpooh]

Has anyone ordered Amex gift cards from Amex's website recently? I ordered 6 of them for Christmas gifts, and received them yesterday. They came in 6 separate little envelopes and on each envelope it says:

"This Gift Card Package contains:
one Amex gift card
purchaser record
one gold gift envelope
one 'especially for you' card for a personal message
recipient information card"

So I opened the envelope for one of them, and there was a gift card on a piece of cardboard that says 'recipient receipt' and a little agreement pamphlet. No gold envelope, no personal message card.

I called this morning to see if they could send me the missing gift envelopes and note cards. I was told they are no longer available. I said, well the envelope says (what I wrote above). Oh, well I apologize, but they are no longer available...at least I think that's what she said, since she didn't speak the most clear of English. Well then, why the heck does it say on the packaging that it's enclosed???

So by buying the amex gift cards online, using my amex card, I got the $3.95 per card fee waived. However, if I had bought them in the store, they would have come with a gift envelope (at least they used to in the past). So now, I have to go out and buy envelopes or boxes to put these amex cards in, which kind of defeats the purpose of ordering online, paying the shipping and getting the per card fee waived.

Has anyone else ordered them online recently and did you get the 'gold envelope'?

 

[Hoodie]

Honestly, I tell people NOT to get them or the VISA gift cards. They are actually quite a headache to use. I have an AMEX card and two VISA cards sitting in my wallet at the moment because I haven't been able to use them anywhere. The last one got tossed with a few dollars still on it because the hassle involved outweighed the dollar amount on the card that was left.

I just realized I'm typing this and the banner above is an ad for the AMEX gift card!

It does sort of defeat the point in getting gift cards if the personalized aspect of it is missing.

 

[LSchrow]

Honestly, I tell people NOT to get them or the VISA gift cards. They are actually quite a headache to use.

suggestion: i buy store gift cards (normally disney GCs or disney dollars ) with any amex or visa ones i receive. else the recipient needs to find a store that can "split" a transaction using seperate payment methods (many can, i found only a very few couldn't) for purchases larger than the GC.
no expiry, no fees, no problem using with most store GCs (fyi, i had a $100 simon mall visa GC, that wound up being worth $40 b/c i hadn't used it in time ~ lesson learned ).

OP: i haven't ordered them this year, but norm present any GC in a picture frame, book, etc, anyway, sorry for the lack of other suggestions.

 

[luvpooh]

Honestly, I tell people NOT to get them or the VISA gift cards. They are actually quite a headache to use. I have an AMEX card and two VISA cards sitting in my wallet at the moment because I haven't been able to use them anywhere. The last one got tossed with a few dollars still on it because the hassle involved outweighed the dollar amount on the card that was left.

I just realized I'm typing this and the banner above is an ad for the AMEX gift card!

It does sort of defeat the point in getting gift cards if the personalized aspect of it is missing.

well, they are for my DH's employees, so quite frankly I don't give a hoot if it's personal or not! I would actually be quite happy if my boss gave me one!

I don't understand though, why can't you just use the few dollars towards a purchase and pay another way with another form of payment?


LSChrow, thanks for the suggestions

 

[Mom2Angels]

In the past when I used them you had to know the exact amount left on the card so the cashier could punch it in and then you could pay the rest however. That may be why your having an issue using the balance on the card.

Debbie

 

[mamamary]

In the past when I used them you had to know the exact amount left on the card so the cashier could punch it in and then you could pay the rest however. That may be why your having an issue using the balance on the card.

Debbie

When my two kids got the amex gift cards last Xmas I also found it a pain to have to know exactly what's left on the card. Luckily my kids used the gift card only in a Webkinz store so I had the cards and all the receipts in one section of my pocketbook. I guess it's easy to use them if you are going to use the whole amount at once.

 

[Keggy]

well, they are for my DH's employees, so quite frankly I don't give a hoot if it's personal or not! I would actually be quite happy if my boss gave me one!

I don't understand though, why can't you just use the few dollars towards a purchase and pay another way with another form of payment?


LSChrow, thanks for the suggestions

We just received some gift cards from my in laws and that is what we do. All you have to do is call for the available balance and then tell the cashier to put X amount of money on this card. Then we pay for the difference in another way. We have never had a problem with it. Yes, it is a hassle to know the exact amount, but a gift is a gift.

 

[susan514]

I work retail and here's why they are a pain. Also, this is true for Discover GC and Westfield GC:

You have a purchase for $80.00 and pay with a $100 GC, no problem.

Now, you have a sale for $21.00, and you give that same GC that is now worth $20 to pay for it. It will be declined because you don't have enough to pay the whole thing. If you know you only have the $20, you can tell the cashier and they can manually put it in, getting another dollar to finish the sale. However, not all store cashiers know how to deal with this.

The real pain is, dealing with having to call to find out exactly what's left on the card and you almost always end up throwing the card out with a few dollars on it. I think this is a huge ripoff the the credit card companies get to keep all those extra dollars. It must really add up.

 

[Hoodie]

I work retail and here's why they are a pain. Also, this is true for Discover GC and Westfield GC:

You have a purchase for $80.00 and pay with a $100 GC, no problem.

Now, you have a sale for $21.00, and you give that same GC that is now worth $20 to pay for it. It will be declined because you don't have enough to pay the whole thing. If you know you only have the $20, you can tell the cashier and they can manually put it in, getting another dollar to finish the sale. However, not all store cashiers know how to deal with this.

The real pain is, dealing with having to call to find out exactly what's left on the card and you almost always end up throwing the card out with a few dollars on it. I think this is a huge ripoff the the credit card companies get to keep all those extra dollars. It must really add up.

I will also add that some cashiers don't know how to handle them in the first place. Sometimes just swiping the card doesn't work - they have to process them differently than any other card (I've had this happen in several places) Also, some registers won't take them at all because of the way they have to be processed. My mother's in a small boutique store. They'll take the actual CC, but not the gift cards because the computers they have don't have an option for them. Swiping them triggers a debit card transaction - which requires a pin number that the gift cards don't have. The technology in the store doesn't allow for any other way for it to be processed, so to save the aggrevation they just don't accept them.

They really are more trouble than they are worth. And I agree that most of them are probably tossed with the last few dollars on it and are a huge money maker for the companies.