Savvy shoppers save money with gift card offers

With each holiday, I see an increasing number of bonus gift card offers. They go something like this: Buy a gift card for a specified dollar amount and get a lesser gift card for free. Savvy shoppers can take advantage of these incentives to save a few pennies.

For Example:

For example, my local Safeway is offering a $10 coupon on my next shopping trip if I buy $100 or more in Visa Gift Cards. Now, Visa gift cards typically have an activation fee. But if the activation fee is less than ten dollars, then I could earn a few bucks just by buying the gift card. But do I need a Visa gift card? Sure. Here is how you pocket a few dollars without buying unnecessarily.

Take Advantage:

• Buy a Visa gift card for your personal shopping–an upcoming vacation or just daily expenses. You’re spending the money anyway. Putting your money on the gift card first simply allows you to get the bonus groceries.
• Buy a Visa gift card to put kids on a budget. Got kids going off to college, in need of spending money, or wanting to do a little back to school shopping?  With a Visa gift card, they can shop anywhere they want, but have to stay within the limit of the funds on the gift card.
• Plan ahead and buy gifts early. Think about upcoming birthdays, weddings, or even holiday shopping. If you’re going to spend the money in the near future, might as well save on groceries while you’re at it.

Expiration Dates?

One word of caution is to check the expiration dates. Thanks to gift card laws changing in August, the gift card you buy will be good for at least five years so you don’t have to worry about shopping too early. But the bonus gift card (in this case coupon), is likely only to be good for a specified period of time. So check restrictions before you buy.

Think Ahead

If you’re buying more than one gift card, you might need to do it in separate transactions so you can get the bonus for each gift card purchased–rather than one bonus for the total number of gift cards you buy. Check with the cashier to see if there is limit so you don’t over strategize.

Gift card packaging used to be non-existent–just a stack of gift cards at the checkout counter. But with sneaky people doing stupid things, gift card manufacturers have had to get increasingly clever in packaging gift cards in ways that deter theft. I watched the above story on gift card fraud and wanted to share a few more words of caution. The news piece accurately says to inspect any gift card before purchase, but doesn’t really say what to look for. Here is my advice:

What to look for:

• On paper packaging such as what is shown in the American Express example above, check for the paper to be ripped, torn, glued, or otherwise disturbed in some way. Are any corners lifted or bent? Does the gift card holder feel thicker than the one next to it?
• On plastic packaging, like the two-part plastic gift card that the cashier has to break in the middle in order to swipe the magnetic stripe, check that the plastic is unbroken and the stripe hasn’t been tampered with in any way.
• Check the PIN scratch-off area. One way to steal the value of your gift card is for the thief to use the gift card online without actually taking the plastic. But it can’t be done without the PIN number. So be sure all scratch-off areas on the back of the gift card are in tact.
• Watch the cashier’s handling of the gift card the entire time and ask to have the card as soon as it is activated–just to be sure there’s no swapping. Sometimes gift card errors occur accidentally. For example, if two gift cards are stuck together, the cashier might activate one and hand you the other.
• Keep the activation receipt. If anything does happen, this record will help you prove your side of the story. Give the receipt to the recipient as well so he or she can offer proof of the card’s value in case there is a question.
• Pick from the middle of the stack. Gift card fraud has to be premeditated. The thief has to get the card data, lie in wait for you to activate the card, then use the card’s value before you do. Cards on the front of the stack are more likely to be the ones criminals are waiting for you to activate.

It’s a shame we even have to have this conversation. Gift card fraud is nothing compared to credit card fraud in which thousands of dollars can be spent before you even notice it, but I can’t afford to lose even 20 dollars, nor do I want to give someone a gift only to discover the balance is zero. 

So my advice is not to be paranoid, but to simply be cautious.