It’s not your salary that makes you rich, it’s your spending habits. – Charles A. Jaffe
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There are websites that sell gift cards at a discount. These discounts range from 1% up to 50% on your favorite retailers and restaurants. Instead of buying an item or service with your credit card, you just use the discounted gift card instead. They have hundreds of different brands covering both online retailers and physical locations.
The online/digital gift cards are usually delivered to your email in a few minutes, but can take up to twenty-four hours. The physical gift cards usually take a week to arrive in the mail.
This was one we discovered relatively late in 2024, but still managed to save $180.03 last year and so far in 2025 we’ve saved $353.09 and got $58.96 in cash back (using a technique we’ll talk about next month).
Side note: By the end of November, when sales are in full swing, the inventory on discounted gift cards starts running low. On top of that, some of the companies we’ll mention below run additional discount promos. We’d recommend stocking up on gift cards at the beginning of November. By January, we found the inventory started returning to normal. That is why we decided to swap this post with next months post.
Why are People Selling Discounted Gift Cards?
We can think of three reasons:
- Promotions – Trying to drive traffic to a brand/retailer for some reason/sale. Retailers also know people spend more when paying with a gift card (because they want to use the entire gift card balance).
- Unwanted gift cards – We’ve all gotten them over the years and don’t plan to use them. This happened to Anna and myself. We found ourselves with a couple of gift cards that had been sitting in our kitchen drawer for years. So, we sold them at a discount.
- Digital gift cards – Super easy, type in the gift card number, they verify the amount, they make an offer, we accept the offer, and they either pay us usually via PayPal or we can buy other gift cards with some kind of additional bonus (like 1 to 5% additional bonus).
- Physical gift cards – Type in the gift card number, they verify the amount, they make an offer, we accept the offer, we mail it in (means we make less), and they either pay us or we can buy other gift cards with some kind of additional bonus once they receive it.
- Manufactured spending – This is more of a complex topic that I could write a blog post about. But, if you are in the credit card points/miles game, you can buy gift cards at office supply stores or grocery stores and get 5x or 4x points in return. For example, buying a $100 gift card at an office supply store with a points credit card that gets 5x at office supply stores would result in 500 points. The person then sells the gift card, taking a bit of a loss because the gift card was sold at a discount, but getting to keep all the credit card points. It allows them to accumulate a massive amount of points for relatively cheap that they can use on plane tickets or hotel stays.
With the brands we buy (Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, Shell, Ace, The Home Depot, Sprouts, Wayfair, Chewy, etc.), we usually get between 2 to 10% off. The biggest discount we’ve gotten is 13%.
Price Tracking Extensions
In the last post, I talked about price tracking extensions. These extensions allow us to verify if an item is actually on sale or see the price over a duration of time. It helps us ensure we are getting the best possible price. Once we’ve committed to buying the item, we then head over to one of our three favorite places to get discounted gift cards.
Where to Buy
CardCash.com
Of the three we’ll talk about, CardCash.com is by far our most favorite. They have both online/digital gift cards and physical gift cards. The online gift cards are delivered to our email within a few minutes of purchase and their physical gift cards are shipped for free. The physical ones are usually shipped out the next day, unless ordered first thing in the morning, and take about a week to arrive.
We can boost our savings by another 2% by using a method we’ll talk about in the next post.
The above link is a referral link. You’ll receive $5 off on your first purchase (minimum of $25).
GCX.raise.com
Our next favorite site is GCX. They sell digital gift cards and we primarily use them for Chewy, Wayfair, Michaels, and Netflix. Their gift cards are usually delivered in seconds to our account.
One of the features I really like is the ability to set up alerts. You can set the minimum gift card amount you want to purchase, the maximum amount you want to purchase, and your desired percentage of savings, e.g. 5%. When a card that meets those criteria is listed, you can be notified immediately, daily, biweekly, or monthly. This is a feature I wish Cardcash.com had.
Alternatively, you can buy gift cards at full face value, i.e. no discount, and earn GCX Cash. $1 of GCX Cash = $1 off a future purchase. For example, let’s say you want to buy a gift card to a big box hardware store. Unfortunately, they don’t have any in stock OR you are planning to send a $50 gift to someone. You could buy that $50 gift card and earn between 0.5% and 15% GCX Cash. At the time I’m writing this, it is 3% GCX Cash at that specific big box hardware store. So, you’d earn $1.5 in GCX Cash.
The above link is a referral link. You’ll receive $5 off on your purchase within 30 days.
Giftcards.com
Giftcards.com (Not a referral link) is usually the last site we visit. They have a huge selection of online/digital and physical gift cards. Getting a discount from them is a little tricky.
Promotions – Routinely, they’ll run promotions and deals on gift cards. Those promotions can be up to 10% off online/digital gift cards or free shipping on their physical gift cards. Normally, their physical gift cards have a $1.99 shipping fee per card or $8.75 for up to twenty cards with tracking. The reason we don’t like it, we have to constantly check to see what is on discount vs buying it when we want/need it.
Discounted Giftcard.com Gift cards – It is a mind-bender. They have their own Giftcards.com gift cards. Periodically, they’ll list Giftcards.com gift cards at 10% off a $100 gift card. We’d buy the Giftcards.com gift card for ourselves. Then go back to the Giftcards.com site and purchase another $100 gift card like Shell for 10% off. In total, it would cost us $90 for that Shell gift card, but we also have to pay the $1.99 processing fee.
Giftcards.com Rewards – Just like GCX, they have their own rewards system. 100 points = $1 off a future purchase. So, buying that $100 Shell gift card with the discounted Giftcards.com gift card would result in 100 Giftcards.com Rewards. That means we’d save one dollar on a future purchase. It does not work when buying Giftcards.com gift cards though.
Now there is a fourth way we can get between 5 to 6% savings, but again, we’ll talk about that in the next post.
Can I buy it already?!?!?!
Well, there are two more techniques I’d like to share with you. One saved us $75 on a single transaction in 2024 and so far in 2025, we’ve saved $225.47. The other is a bit more hit-and-miss, but still fun when it happens.
Talk to you next month.
