How to buy discounted gift cards online?

[sheboz]

How to buy discounted gift cards online? Is it safe? How can you check the balance of the card before purchase? Have you ever bought a card and what site do you buy from? Any advice? TIA

 

[LJSquishy]

You can't check the balance of a gift card before purchasing unless you have the full card number, which in many cases would then allow you to actually use it...so generally you just have to take the risk.

Only buy from reputable websites like Cardcash.com or others that have some sort of refund guarantee if you receive a card with a zero balance.

There is no completely 'safe' way to purchase a gift card from Ebay (I suppose you could file a dispute but not sure how Ebay would respond).

Even places like Cardcash.com have issues with customers receiving a gift card that has been used up, but that is why they have a guarantee in place. They would refund you the purchase price if your gift card doesn't work.

Most people only recommend buying a resold gift card if you intend to use the complete balance immediately. If you buy a gift card and then wait to use it for a month or two, the original owner could have used the balance and you'd be out of luck probably.

 

[sheboz]

Good advice! Thank you!

 

[mslhb]

cardpool.com, I have never bought from there but have used the site several times to sell gift cards with no issues.

 

[Marionnette]

How to buy discounted gift cards online? Is it safe? How can you check the balance of the card before purchase? Have you ever bought a card and what site do you buy from? Any advice? TIA

I've been purchasing Target GCs (and a couple of others) through Raise .com. I never had a problem until last week. I had two orders (totaling 15 GCs of varying dollar amounts) where all of the GCs were in "forced close" status when I went to add them to my Target app. Raise had verified the balances just prior to sending me the codes but I didn't attempt to add them until several hours later.

I emailed Raise about it and in less than 2 days, they had credited my CC for the total amounts of those purchases. They have a 60-day guarantee on the GCs that they post, so if the value drops at any time within that window after you receive the GC (or code for e-gift cards), they will refund you the money you have lost.

The only thing that I don't like about the service is that the physical GCs are sent by the seller through the regular mail. There is no tracking for them and Raise allows 3-14 business days for the seller to get it to you. I had one physical GC that took 23 days to get to me and it arrived in a re-used envelope with the Raise shipping label taped to it.

 

[wendow]

I've been buying them for years. Mostly Target (to buy Disney), Home Depot and Lowe's. We are doing a ton of home reno projects so I have bought thousands of dollars in HD and Lowes. Never a single problem but it is always a risk. No, you cannot check the balance prior to purchase.

I buy from:
Raise.com
cardcash.com (formerly Plastic Jungle)
giftcardrescue.com (ships VERY slow)

Most of these resellers have absolutely terrible reviews online and had I read those first, I may never have been willing to try them out. Fortunately for me, I just bought and then bought again and then bought again. No issues.

 

[tzeitel]

I use giftcardgranny.com to find the best deal. I have purchased from Raise, Cardpool, giftcardbin and ABC giftcards with no problems.

 

[hsmamato2]

Can I buy a giftcard from a reseller, and use it to buy another merchant gift card? say, I buy a Lowes or Staples gc, can I bring it into the store and buy a Disney gc? or a AMC movies gc?

 

[AriesAriel]

Ok, I had a question on this topic so this seems like a good place to put it.

You can get Disney giftcards through Sam's Club for a discount. We have the Southwest Rewards card and if I go through the rapidrewards shopping site to Sam's Club I can earn extra points by buying them online. We are planning on NOT doing Disney Dining, but thought it would be nice to maybe use a gift card instead? And if I can get a discount PLUS rapid rewards points???

 

[Marionnette]

Can I buy a giftcard from a reseller, and use it to buy another merchant gift card? say, I buy a Lowes or Staples gc, can I bring it into the store and buy a Disney gc? or a AMC movies gc?

It depends on the retailer. Target does. Some Walgreen's will. From what I've read on FatWallet, Staples does not permit it. I'm not sure about Lowes.

 

[Marionnette]

Ok, I had a question on this topic so this seems like a good place to put it.

You can get Disney giftcards through Sam's Club for a discount. We have the Southwest Rewards card and if I go through the rapidrewards shopping site to Sam's Club I can earn extra points by buying them online. We are planning on NOT doing Disney Dining, but thought it would be nice to maybe use a gift card instead? And if I can get a discount PLUS rapid rewards points???

Some rewards programs will not reward you for making a GC purchase from a retailer. Check the fine print for Sam's Club on the RR shopping website. You will definitely get the CC rewards for your purchase but that's only 1 RR pt. per $1 spent.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

I've been watching Raise.com for awhile and only recently decided to start using it. Last night I had a few small Target gift cards purchased at 6.7% and then if you use that online at Target to get another 5% off (keeping Red card as default card as noted in many other threads) it's a nice savings. I also used my SWA card to earn points, and hey - every little bit helps!

I had an immediate Fraud alert from my SWA Chase card which I responded to the email to advise no it was not fraud and I appreciate the attention to that as I'm sure it's a high fraud area, or could be if not used before.

I received my e-gift cards almost immediately and they both went smoothly. Thanks to those that also posted when you did have an issue, it was resolved with no issues!

Heather