Every few years I find a drawer of expired gift cards and throw them out. One time I kept a one hundred pound gift card in my wallet for months on end, keeping it alive with balance checks in the store but never using it. My partner noticed this and said “just give it to me”, and promptly lost it forever in one of her handbags.

Personally, I'm terrible about actually spending money on myself. Mostly because right now money is pretty tight as a single income household. A giftcard forces me to spend money in a more careless manner than I otherwise would. A giftcard encourages me to splurge and order a thing on Amazon or buy a super sugary treat or something else that can bring me joy. If I'm given cash I just use that to smooth over the daily grind, so giftcards absolutely hit different

I was given a dunkin giftcard

Dunkin gift cards expire? That's news to me, it's been a while since I've encountered expiring gift cards. Not sure that's even legal but maybe they expire in your particular state?

To answer your main question I buy gift cards with discounts/cash back all the time. It basically makes them cheaper than using cash. For example my credit card has 5% cash back for grocery stores so that gives me 5% cash back on gift cards purchased there.

Also a lot of credit card and stores do gift card sales where they'll do 10%-20% discount, or throw in a free gift card with a purchase.

Where I live it's illegal to have them expire. They can:

• Provide a spending limit for a vice
• frees the user of the need to spend it responsibly
• a safer way to spend money online and an alternative to a credit card.

I don't mind getting a steam gift card or an lcbo (liquor store) card, I know what liquor and games I like more than the people gifting. An Amazon gift card is much more annoying because it's an everything store, it's money that has to be used unethically. A costco giftcard is a nice hack to allow you to shop at the store without a membership, I used them like that until I reached a point where the membership paid for itself. I think they have a place, I also think they are often abused and should be regulated more than they currently are where I live. If they have an expiry they are a scam.

My favorite gift is a Steam Gift Card.

In my opinion, gift cards are good gifts when the giver has some idea of what they want to give, but not enough information to make a proper purchase. For example:

• for an "event" (eg skydiving, a meal at a fancy restaurant, canoeing trip, etc) where the gifter doesn't know dates when the recipient is free.
• for a specific product which the giver knows fairly little, and the receiver has strong opinions on (eg. Money to spend on PC parts without making any product decisions for them)
• for an item of a "set", where the gifter doesn't know for sure which items are already owned (eg. A board game expansion, a collectible Lego set, a book from a series)

However i do think that often gift cards are used as excuses to be lazy.

As an alternative to using a credit card online is a good idea, as good an idea as any for security and anti-tracking if nothing else. But only if you remember to use them.

One other thing is, (and I'm not positive this is true), but people on disability can't have over a certain amount of cash. Giving a gift card makes sense in that instance because it no longer counts as cash at that point.

Big disagree.

1. It is unlawful for a gift card to expire in the US. (Ask Simon Malls how badly they got fucked for this.)

2. There are tons of expensive restaurants my partner and I are simply not going to go to unless we're able to knock $100 of the bill.

3. Retired people are on a budget. Gift cards help them with that.

4. Often times people have niche hobbies wherein buying a present might have good intentions. but it'll be in vain. I'm a beer snob. Do not get me beer as a gift, ever. Gladly take a gift card to a good brewery. I'm a musician -- don't buy me gear. I work and tinker with networking. Don't buy me hardware. Give me gift cards.

They are low effort and high reward. They are excellent gifts, both to give and receive.

For reciprocal holidays like Christmas, giving cash maybe gets a little too close to exposing the pointlessness. I give you cash, then you give me cash, what are we doing here? And what if I gave you less than you gave me?

A gift card does indicate I thought a little bit about what the recipient might like, even if I know it would be impractical for me to make a choice on the recipient's behalf, or that my gift wouldn't be sufficient to cover a typical purchase in whole. (Thinking like gaming systems, expensive handbags etc)

All that said, I generally agree, I'm not crazy about gift cards.

My mom used to save gift cards and use them for "special things", to get something she really wanted but was a splurge for her. When she died, she had probably like $800-900 in gift cards waiting to be spent, and they'd lost like a third of their value. They were part of my mom's estate, so they went to my sister (the executrix). When my sister died, I found those exact same gift cards, still unspent, only this time they'd lost all their value. Plus she has a bunch of gift cards of her own that she'd been saving that had lost a bunch of value as well.

I know I'm fortunate that I don't need to scrape money, and that not everyone can afford to do this. But after losing out on a bunch of money, this is what I do: when someone gives me a gift card, I spend it immediately and enthusiastically tell the giver what I got - or, in some cases, supposedly got: occasionally I'll use the card to buy a gift for someone else, or I'll just buy gas or groceries. But I use it on something I want or need, even if it's just in the vaguest way. That avoids losing the value of the money, which I absolutely hate.

But I take the birthday or holiday or thank-you or thinking-of-you card that the gift card came in, and I'll tuck in the same amount of cash as was on the gift card. I have a little stash of cards in my desk (and my heir knows to check those cards), all with some amount of money in them. And when I'm feeling down, or really need a treat, or just need to remember that I'm loved, I go pull out the cards and read through some of them. And if I'm still feeling bad, I may pull out some money from the card and go buy myself something - an ice cream or a nice dinner or a pair of socks - it doesn't matter. To me, it's that person giving me a giant hug on a day that I really need it, whether that person is even still around - to me, that's an immensely valuable gift, and something that I always treasure.

Also, to keep each gift giving, I usually sneak back a couple weeks later and put the same amount of money back into the envelope: just because I spent that specific money doesn't mean my mom or grandma loved me any less, and sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

To show they know you, at least a bit. Cash can obviously used by everyone about anywhere, but for that reason it can be given to someone you don't know at all and they'll like it.

A gift card shows that the giver at least believes they know the gifted well enough to know where they like to spend money. They just don't know them well enough to know they would like "this specific thing" and know they don't already one one.

I like gift cards. A lot of the stuff I want to buy I know what I want but family would not. So they buy a gift cards to the place I want to buy stuff, I buy the correct stuff, and show off what I got. So they give me like Penzeys gift cards, and I get the cinnamon I need! Or other spices.

I give giftcards to the bookstore to my niece and nephew because if I gave them straight cash they'd blow it on trinkets and junk they'd forget about in minutes.

For a lot of online transactions, this is usually the only way people can get access.

There are a lot of people out there who don't have credit cards or bank accounts, so they can't buy anything online. A gift card to an online store may be the cheapest or only way they can pay.

It's the middle thing between not gifting something specific but also no just giving money. Sometimes you are not sure what exactly a person wants, but giving money directly might feel too unpersonal? Other than that, i completely agree with you that it sucks. Stores must love them though, they already have the money without having to provide a service / product and then many people will forget, the gift cards expire etc. I'm of the opinion that the cards shouldn't expire, or at least have a very high expiration date (like minimum 10 years).

I buy gift cards for the discounts. Usually you can get a gift card from anywhere between 3% and 20% off. Over the last 5 years, this has saved me $1000s on house renovations alone.

I don’t know what to get you and prefer something better targeted than cash. Tell me what you want, what you really really want, and you might get that instead

— if you complain again, I’m writing you a check: tell me how inconvenient that is