January 18 - National Use Your Gift Card Day

nPosted on January 18, 2020

Key Points

n(Third Saturday of January)

In the olden days, some of our favorite-most gifts as we got older were just-plain-old money. Whether a monetary gift was a bag of silver dollars or golden Sacagawea coins, an envelope thick with dollar bills, or a check made out in our names, we loved getting money for our birthdays or Christmas or [fill in the blank], because it meant plenty of choices.

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nBut nowadays gift cards are more commonly given than other sorts of monetary gifts. Are they the right choice?

nFor sure, gift cards are very useful and usually extremely thoughtful. But they can have problems:

(1) Missteps. Sometimes people give gift cards that aren’t super useful, after all. Like someone in Southern California sending a gift card for Store X or Restaurant Y to a faraway relative – without checking to see if there are any Xs or Ys near that relative! Or a student giving her teacher a gift card for Starbucks Coffee – but that teacher doesn’t drink coffee. (Not that tragic, because there ARE other beverages as well as baked goods at Starbucks, but imagine that teacher getting three or four Starbucks cards every year!)

(2) Lazy gift card receivers. Quite a few people find it difficult to remember to redeem their gift cards. They open a birthday card, feel a flash of gratitude as they spot a gift card, and call the aunt or grandpa or whoever with sincere thanks – but then never get around to using the card.

This doesn’t seem like it should be a problem to those of us who promptly and efficiently use gift cards, but 20 to 30 percent of people surveyed say that either they generally have a problem remembering to use gift cards or have received at least one gift card that they never used.

nIn the case of a physical gift card, did you leave it at home? Lose it? Do you have an entire drawer of unused gift cards?