Gift cards make great stocking stuffers — just as long as you don’t stuff them in a drawer and forget about them after the holidays.

Americans are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Restaurant gift cards are the most popular, making up one-third of those sales.

Most of those gift cards will be redeemed. Paytronix, which tracks restaurant gift card sales, says around 70% of gift cards are used within six months.

But many cards — tens of billions of dollars’ worth — wind up forgotten or otherwise unused. That’s when the life of a gift card gets more complicated, with expiration dates or inactivity fees that can vary by state.

  • LufyCZ@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Gift cards would cease to exist overnight if that was a requirement.

    They hope you forget, it’s free money.

    But if every dollar had to be worth a dollar, there would be no space to squeez in operating costs - issuance, accounting, all that jazz.

    Sure, they’ll bring in a couple more customers maybe, sure, you can make some money on the interest in the meantime, but it just wouldn’t be worth it IMO.

    • quams69@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      “Gift cards would cease to exist overnight if that was a requirement.”

      Okay 👍

      • LufyCZ@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Obviously it’s a hyperbole.

        Please share your argument or don’t waste the bandwidth of your lemmy server.