Anonymous wrote:Gift cards absolutely suck.

So does your mum

I know you said not for teachers, but my DH is a teacher and gives away all the gift cards he gets to the school social worker to buy things for kids in need. Teachers don’t need GC either. I know most people view teachers as a lower class and of course they should feel privileged to buy something for themselves, but they’re still a pain.

No, it's so impersonal. But my husband and his family love them. After 20 years, I don't understand why other than the whole extended family is too lazy to shop. For my ILs, I realize that they actually enjoy having the extra money to spend.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, if its a store I like.

This. I think the people who would get me one know what places I like.

No. I’d rather not bother with the gift exchange.

Anonymous wrote:Curious to see how people feel about them (not talking about gifts to teachers). I find I end up with a random assortment of cards for stores I rarely shop at.

Don't like for reason you mention and also because they become an item on my to do list - which does not feel like a gift. I gift the people who work for me cash for that reason.

The only ones I like are the ones where I can transfer the value to a stored account. Like Amazon or Starbucks or airline or Airnbnb. Otherwise, I have to really plan purchases so I can exhaust the value of the card first and hopefully be able to pay the difference with cash (for example, if I go to a restaurant and I have a gift card for $50 and the bill is $75, will they allow me to essentially just pay $25.).

Even Amazon won't drain the gift card/credit balance first. You have to be careful.

I really dislike having cards with 2 or 3 dollars on it because it was a $100 gift card and the purchase came to $97.33 or whatever.

EXCEPTION: I do like to get gift cards from Costco where you pay like $75 for $100 worth of gift cards. I did this for Southwest Airlines once -- paid $450 for $500 gift card and then used the gift card to buy flights. Saved 10% right there.

Anonymous wrote:I give gift cards - especially Visa ones - to people I don’t like.

Why would you waste money on people you don't like. Make it make sense.

Anonymous wrote:I like the VISA ones because I can choose what I want but the ones to specific places, keep those.

Came back to say that I don't mind gifts, my family and friends are thoughtful and I rarely get things I can't use or don't want, but when I get VISA cards I usually use them to buy something I have been eyeing but don't quite want to spend my money on. It is usually something frivolous and fun (and not always a thing, sometimes an activity).

That said, I only give them to my nieces and nephews so they can use them to buy things they want or for school supplies or whatever.

Anonymous wrote:I think adults exchanging gifts is silly. It’s a burden for people like me who dont want to participate. With that said, I would rather receive gift cards than physical gifts because it allows me to shop at specific stores or go to restaurants I would otherwise not do because im always tight on cash.

+1

I like the VISA ones because I can choose what I want but the ones to specific places, keep those.

There have been various studies and estimates about the dead weight loss of gift giving (usually in the billions) because the recipient typically values the gift less than the cost of the gift. This makes sense for many adult recipients, as if they valued it at 100% or higher they would have purchased the item for themselves.

This played out for me one year where I thought someone (young adult) might appreciate a particular gift, but wanted to give them the option based on their valuation of the gift. So I gave cash along with a printout of the gift. When they pocketed the cash without even discussing the gift item, I knew I made the right move.

All this circling back to: if I were to want to give an adult a gift card, I would actually give them cash with some sort of note about how "I thought it could be used for XYZ" but without actually forcing them to use it at that store.