Gift cards are supposed to make gift-giving easier, but they can also lead to the dreaded post-holiday-season exchange www.fivebackgift.com of unwanted items. Here are a few tips to help you choose the right ones and use them wisely.
Five Back is a new Visa gift card offered by OfficeMax and Office Depot stores that offers 5% back credited directly to the card at participating merchants.
5% Back at Participating Merchants
The Five Back Gift Card is a prepaid Visa card that offers 5% back at participating merchants. Those include Nike, Bed Bath and Beyond, Macy’s and JCPenney, among others. You can see the full list at this link. The 5% back is a great incentive to use the card, but you need to pay attention to fees and minimum spending requirements. The 5% back is only available on signature-based purchases, so PIN-based and online transactions are not eligible. You also need to spend a minimum of $200 in order to earn the bonus.
One way to minimize the fee on the Five Back Gift Card is to buy it in small denominations of up to $200 at OfficeMax / Office Depot. This allows you to get a discount on the card that reduces the fee to 3.5%. You can then purchase a money order with the remaining balance to recoup some of the fee you paid on the card.
Another thing to look out for when using gift cards is whether the merchant or card issuer has restrictions on how and where the card can be used. Some cards are limited to specific merchants or can only be used in-person, while others have expiration dates. You should find out about these restrictions before purchasing a card.
Many shoppers are tempted to overspend when they redeem gift cards. In fact, Consumer Reports found that two-thirds of people spent more than the card’s face value when they use them to make a purchase. This is likely because gift cards feel less like real cash and may make it easier to overspend.
In some cases, you can save even more on gift cards by buying them during sales and promotions. For example, in the past, you could have gotten up to 6% back on Hy-Vee gift cards during their “Holiday Gift Card Stack” promotion, which offered a combination of discounts and rewards. This year, Hy-Vee has a similar offer that runs through November. Keep an eye out for other deals, and try to purchase gift cards in small denominations that can be used for tips or other low-value purchases.
2% Back at Non-Participating Merchants
There are a few things we can count on every holiday season: time off from work and school; overweight, bearded out-of-towners breaking into our homes through the chimney; embarrassing office-party antics; overeating; and gift cards. But not all gift cards are created equal, which might explain why billions of dollars in gift card value have gone unused over the years.
The best gift cards are those that offer a high percentage of value back when used at participating retailers. These are based on several criteria, including customer ratings, purchase and shipping fees, and other terms. We also factored in how much a person would have to spend on a gift card to get a good return on it, which is important because gift cards are generally more expensive than retail products.
We reviewed 50 different cards and chose the ones that offer the best combination of these factors. The top picks are listed below, with their current retailing partner ratings. These are based on ratings from popular review sites.
Getting the most out of your gift cards starts with buying them at a discount. We compared the price of each card to its retailing partner’s standard gift card offering and found that you can save a significant amount by purchasing them through an online discount website.
Another way to get more out of a gift card is by using it to pay for goods and services that aren’t included in the card’s terms and conditions. This can help you avoid extra charges, such as those imposed by the company that administers the card’s network.
One such card is the Five Back prepaid Visa, which offers 5% back (deposited directly to the card) at the retailers currently featured on its site. The card also offers 2% back (deposited to your PayPal account) at those same merchants.
If you have multiple Five Back cards, try this little money- and keystroke-saving trick when checking their balances: After selecting the Check Balance/Transactions tab for a card, press its refresh button — usually a circular arrow icon up near your browser’s address bar on desktop PCs and laptops — or use the F5 function key. Doing so resets the page, and your previous card’s information should appear in the four text-entry fields.
1% Back at Non-Participating Merchants
There are a few things we can count on every holiday season: time off from work and school; bearded out-of-towners breaking into homes through chimneys; tone-deaf neighbors singing at your door; and, of course, gift cards. While gift cards make it easier to buy a thoughtful present without having to think about a recipient’s tastes or what they might already own, they can also lead to overspending. Two-thirds of the money in gift cards is spent above the card’s face value, according to Consumer Reports.
Many credit card companies offer the option to redeem points or miles for gift cards at a variety of major retailers, and some even allow you to purchase them directly. This strategy helps you get more value from your unused gift cards and saves on shipping fees that might otherwise be incurred when purchasing physical gift cards.
One such card is the Five Back Visa Gift Card, which Frequent Miler previously covered, and which recently came to light in some OfficeMax / Office Depot stores. The card is a prepaid Visa that allows you to load up to $200 at a time, with a $6.95 fee and 5% of the load amount added back to your card balance upon checkout.
The merchants that currently participate are Nike, Bed Bath & Beyond, JCPenney, GAP and more. You can check out the full list here. To maximize your savings, you should purchase the card in denominations of $200 or less at a time to minimize the fee as a percentage of total (the higher the total, the lower the fee).
The card’s website says you can use it at all merchants that accept Visa debit cards, so this seems to be a good option for most people. Alternatively, you could just buy a normal Visa gift card and use it for purchases at the same merchants to save the extra fees. Another interesting feature of this card is that it can be used to pay for Google Play purchases.
Free Shipping
Gift cards make gift-giving easier and take the guesswork out of which specific items your recipient might already have. But they’re not all created equal. If not handled properly, they can become the source of a post-holiday-season nightmare: unwanted gifts and unused gift card balances that end up in a drawer or trash can.
To avoid such horrors, here are some tips for buying and using gift cards.
Check the Gift Card Before Leaving the Store
Before you hand over your hard-earned cash to someone else, make sure the card hasn’t been tampered with or its number or PIN scratched off. Otherwise, crooks can easily write down the number and use it later to steal the funds. Also, always keep the purchase and activation receipts until you’re certain the card is redeemed.
Obtain a Gift Card Without a Fee
To ensure that you’re getting the best value out of your gift card, look for one that doesn’t carry any issuance fees, expiration dates or maintenance charges. These types of fees, which can add up quickly, reduce the intrinsic value of your gift card and make it less appealing to recipients.
Fortunately, you can often find a Visa gift card that’s free of such costs at major retailers including Nike, Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples. The Five Back Gift Card website, which features the list of participating merchants, lists these and many more.
A tip for saving time and keystrokes when checking the balance of your Five Back Visa card online: Instead of clicking the refresh button on your browser (usually a circular arrow up near your address bar), simply hit your F5 function key. This will automatically refresh the FiveBackGift. com page, making it much faster to register your card and check its balance.
