You don’t have to be an avid reader of restaurant industry trade publications—though I can attest that they are oddly fascinating—to realize that everything’s getting more expensive.
The good news is that there’s an easy way to counteract those rising menu prices. By purchasing discounted gift cards, you can defray the cost of fast-food, fast-casual, and sit-down chains, and maybe even some other retailers that have nothing to do with stuffing your face.
All you need is a place to find authentic, cheap gift cards and a little foresight on when to buy them.
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Gift cards for less? Yes, please!
To buy gift cards for less than their actual cash value, head to CardCash.com. It presently only handles orders from within the United States.
➜ CardCash connects people who want to sell their unused gift cards with those who want to buy them.
⌚ It takes just a few seconds to see what gift cards are available, though you’ll need an account to make a purchase.
✅ Most of CardCash’s gift cards are digital and arrive via email, so you can start using them instantly.
When you search for a retailer on CardCash, you’ll see a list of available gift cards, with the biggest percentage discounts appearing at the top. You can also sort the list by value and cost.
If you’re not looking for anything specific, you can also check out CardCash’s Epic 20% Discounts and Deals pages. There you’ll find cards with greater-than-usual percentage discounts.
When looking at discount percentages, keep in mind any cash-back offers you’d normally get at the store by paying with your credit card. If your card offers 3% back at restaurants, for instance, a gift card with a 3.5% discount probably isn’t worth the trouble.
After buying a gift card, you’ll get a couple of emails from CardCash: One is your order receipt, while the other contains your digital gift card as a PDF attachment. The PDF will show the gift card number, PIN (if necessary), and barcode to scan in-store.
Wait—is CardCash actually legit?
I’ve used CardCash on four occasions over the past few weeks, and on three out of those four occasions, everything went smoothly.
A problem arose, though, after purchasing a Five Guys gift card immediately before eating there. The card, which cost $57.65, had an advertised value of $65.29—but when I tried to pay, it only showed a value of $11.57. Using that amount drew the balance down to $0.
After getting home, I contacted CardCash’s customer service and did not identify myself as a journalist so as to avoid getting special treatment. I received a response and a refund for the difference in balance the next day.
As CardCash notes on its website, this is an inherent risk with buying gift cards on its platform, which merely serves as a marketplace between buyers and sellers. There’s nothing to inherently stop a seller from using a gift card after selling it, or from selling a stolen gift card that later gets deactivated.
For these kinds of situations, CardCash says it guarantees the value of gift cards for 45 days, so you can contact them and get a refund. But it also suggests confirming gift card balances yourself immediately after the purchase, which I’ll absolutely be doing in the future.
Either way, my experience underscores an important caveat with CardCash: Don’t spend more on gift cards than you expect to spend in a 45-day period. For one thing, you might end up accruing so many cards that it’ll be hard to keep track of them all—but more importantly, you’ll be out of luck if something happens to the card’s value.
While I’ll keep using CardCash personally, I’ll be sure not to stockpile more gift card credit than I need.
- CardCash is completely web-based. It’ll work in any browser, on any device—no downloads or installations required.
- It’s free to use as a buyer, with the only cost being whatever price you pay for a card. The person doing the selling pays the site’s fees.
- You do have to create an account in order to make a purchase. You can either sign in with your Google account or with any valid email address. The site’s privacy policy is clear that no personal info is ever sold or shared in any shady-seeming way.
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