Gift credit cards: Preview
Gift credit cards can be useful and highly regarded gifts, but it’s important to understand what they are and how they work, as well as check the conditions of your particular card. Each issuer has a different fine print in relation to their cards, and some of the small print items can be expensive.
What are gift credit cards?
A gift credit card is not really a credit card in the traditional sense of the word. A traditional credit card holder makes credit purchases and pays the bill later when it expires. A gift credit card is a card with a saved value or a debit card. The buyer pays a certain amount of money to the card at the time of its issue, and only that amount can be spent using the card.
If you are thinking of an old paper gift certificate issued by many major retailers, you will have a more accurate idea of the nature of the gift card than if you were thinking of a credit card as a whole.
Who releases them?
Some retailers have moved from using paper gift certificates to issuing gift credit cards. Although these gift cards for a particular store have the disadvantage that they are limited for use in a particular store, this is offset by an advantage that usually requires lower rates than more general gift cards.
Vanilla prepaid mastercard are issued by major credit card providers such as Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express, both directly and through banks. Each issuer has its own special set of conditions.
What problems?
Some issuers restrict the use of gift cards in the United States.Others will not allow them to be used for certain purchases, such as airline tickets or hotels. American Express will not give out gift cards to residents of five US states. Because, according to American Express, “restrictive law” makes it overly expensive.
Other questions
In some cases, gift cards can be used at ATMs to withdraw cash. Obviously, this does not apply to gift cards of a particular store and is not available as an option in all cases, even with Visa and Mastercard gift cards. If you want this option to be available, you should carefully study the issue before choosing a card.
