Win a $250 gift card of your choice.
Posted by Donna Freedman on Jan 25, 2011 | 6 commentsI’ve written before about how to buy discounted gift cards. A good place to start is always a price comparison site called Gift Card Granny, which gives the top rates whether you’re buying or selling.
Gift Card Granny is introducing an “alert” feature, which will let you know when your favorite card(s) are available cheaply. To promote the new feature, GCG will give away a $250 gift card of the winner’s choice.
It’s easy to enter.
Just set up an alert before midnight Monday, Jan. 31, then sit back and wait to see if you’re the winner.
Gift cards are the new coupon. You can get them for 8 to 30% off (or sometimes more) and use them to pay for things you were going to buy anyway, whether that’s lunch out or the gasoline to get to work.
Planning to send flowers on Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day? Cut your cost by 30% with a discounted gift card.
Fond of Saturday afternoons at the movies? Save an additional 10% by paying with a Regal, AMC or Cinemark gift card.
Hitting the post-holiday sales at your favorite retailers? Make the deals even sweeter with this additional discount.
If you win the card, you could re-sell it for a quick cash infusion. Cruise the GCG site to determine the most popular cards for resale (they’re usually places like Target). Personally, I’d choose a gift card for a grocery store or gas station, because it would free up $250 from my budget.
Good luck – and if one of you wins, you better tell us about it.
Hi Donna,
Thank you for sharing this. I signed up. I hope I don’t get too much email.
Cathy
@Cathy: Good luck! And if you find the e-mail onerous you can always cancel the alert.
I set up one alert, for the Albertsons grocery store.
Thanks Donna! I had never heard of this site before so I signed up too!
I love gift cards. I’m easy to shop for when it comes to birthdays and Christmas because all I ever want are gift cards. Then I can pick out what I want. I never thought about selling my gift cards before, but your advice has made me start checking out those sites. They really are useful if you end up with a gift card to a store that you don’t really plan to go to.
@Neurotic Workaholic: If you win the $250 GC, allow me to suggest Jewel-Osco (if there’s one in your neighborhood). That way you’re covered for the next couple of months’ worth of groceries — an important consideration to a cash-strapped grad student.
And yeah, if Aunt Mary gives you a Bed Bath & Beyond gift card and you’d rather have cash than bath salts, these sites will take the card off your hands. On the other hand, you can stick a note on the departmental bulletin board: “I’ve got a $25 GC. Anybody want to buy it for $22?”
Thanks for reading.
Exciting update: Marcia won! Out of all the entrants nationwide, they picked her. Woo hoo!